Can smoking be accepted as weakness?
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This problem of humanity, like smoking, so often discussed in the press and on television, that is no longer actual. It is necessary to understand why do people smoke in order to answer the question about weakness. There were did a lot of researches connecting why does people start smoking and continue to do so, studies and reports on them have been made by tobacco companies. 1stly it should be noted that for some people, smoking is a symbolic act of civil disobedience. Everyone, even smokers know that smoking negatively affects their health. When young people want to get the freedom and independence from their parents, smoking a way to say that they are independent adolescents. They want to feel like adults, show others how much they are cool. According to British American Tobacco company people see advertisement where cool guys doing good things. For example the Marlboro Man or Joe Camel. As a result they try to be like them. 2dly. A person can be seemed as successful, happy, yet for some reason he does not perceive himself as happy and successful man. According to Ernest Dichter such person is not happy - hence the desire for self-destruction. This desire is sitting in his subconscious, and the understanding that smoking is harmful, and the desire to quit smoking - it is part of consciousness. Therefore, it should be argued that people who smoke are not obligatory weak, but they definitely have some psychological problems. And the last example from my life experience. My father smokes about 20 years and when I ask him why don't you want to stop do this, he answers me that he has nervous job and cigarettes help him to relax. Therefore, from my point of view he is weak because he cannot cope with his problems without external means. Besides, he also tells me that it is very difficult for him to give up smoking. It is a good argument that provokes me think that his willpower is weak. Smoking - a habit which is caused by both physiological and psychological causes.People are seduced to try tobacco by the glamorization of smoking in the movies and in advertisements. Addiction to nicotine makes it hard to quit smoking once you have started, but this addiction can be overcome in two weeks once the psychological reasons for smoking are eliminated.Smoking is a biological addiction, with nicotine as addictive as cocaine and heroin. However, there is more to being hooked on cigarettes than the physical addiction to nicotine. When people want to quit, they also have a psychological habit to break. Social learning theory describes how we learn by example from others. We are strongly influenced by our parents, and other people we look up to, such as peers, actors and pop stars. This can lead us to emulate their behaviour and try smoking. There is an almost immediate effect on our brains with those first cigarettes, so we keep smoking to get this reward. Health promotion campaigns often use warnings and shocking images to try and motivate people to quit smoking. While these adverts are powerful for non-smokers, they may have little effect on people who are more willing to engage in risky behaviour. Peer pressure can be hard for anyone to resist, no matter what your age. Smoking can play an important role in friendships, while offering a cigarette or asking for a light can be ice-breakers to start a conversation. It can create a bond between smokers, for example the huddled groups who smoke outside offices. If your friends smoke, deciding to quit can be awkward because they may see it as an implicit criticism of their habit.Psychologists say that the smoking has it's roots in infancy. The breastfeeding gets replaced by thumb-sucking all of which is called Oral Fixation. Smoking is an extension of this Oral Fixation. You were orally fixated long before you started smoking. It was probably at the root of you even considering starting smoking. Alcohol abuse is another common trait in orally fixated individuals that 'blossoms' later in life. While some people may be repulsed by the thought of smoking, or becoming an alcoholic, the orally fixated suppress aversion to those habits because they can repetitively satiate the mouth. You likely indulged in other behaviors long before smoking came into the picture. Chewing gum, eating candy, over-eating, thumb-sucking, etc. may have all been things you did before cigarettes. But then, overcoming this a uphill task. To that extent smoking is a weakness. It is because of the deeply ingrained tendency that quitting smoking often needs counselling. I'm not a smoker, but, looking at this from my rather bizarre viewpoint, I think smoking could be viewed as a strength; at least, starting to smoke, depending upon the circumstances through which one begins to smoke. We are bombarded by anti-smoking propaganda wherever we go, at least is North America; commercials, signs, TV shows, etc. Essentially, at least in the last decade or so, the taking up of smoking is an action in opposition to "peer pressure", rather than peer-pressure causing one to smoke, as may have been so common in earlier decades. |
