7 Reasons why people start smoking

 “Hey come on, it’s just a cigarette, just have a drag, try it once, you‘ll feel better!” But the problem is, you try it once and you could get hooked.

There are many reasons why people start smoking, on the surface of it, the following reasons seem most logical:

1) Youngsters like to try out forbidden stuff, they like to rebel, so they make take up smoking as a form of rebellion, especially when parents are too “strict and disciplinarian”. what starts out as a rebellion, could turn into a serious addiction.

2) To imitate adults around them: usually parents who smoke, set an example for their children. Most people who smoke, have at least seen one of their parents/ relatives smoking. It seems to be okay to do it, and so they take it up as an accepted norm.

3) Some teenagers take it up as a habit in order to appear cool and grown up, or to imitate role models, movie idols, etc.

4) Peer pressure: smoking as a habit is picked up quite early in age. Many people start smoking in their teens, and it usually begins with peer pressure. Since the teenager sees most of his/her friends do it, they are pressurized in to trying it out in order to “fit-in” with the crowd.

5) It seems to go hand in hand with drinking.

6) Smoking as a stress buster: because of the “high” or the “kick” that nicotine provides the smoker with, many people turn to it as a stress buster. If you watch these people closely, monitor the times they light up a cigarette, you will find that there was a stress causing element that occurred just before the need to light-up.

7) Smoking as an emotional crutch: many smokers feel helpless, or out of control in their lives. They feel “uncared for” or “un-loved”. These people could use smoking as an emotional crutch.

The last couple of reasons - smoking as a stress buster and as an emotional crutch,  implies there is a deeper issue to smoking.

Subconsciously, people who smoke are running from some issues they do not wish to deal with. They use this habit of smoking, to create a smoke-screen rather than deal with the issue that troubles them.

If you do ask a smoker who finds it difficult to quit smoking, you will find he/ she as a lot of stuff in their lives they are not happy about. They have a long list of complaints such as broken relationships, boredom- they are bored with their lives, on the surface of it, they may have hectic, busy lifestyles, but they still seem to think something is lacking, they fill up the perceived void with smoking.

Smokers have a sense of low-self esteem. Usually they do not have a sense of self-worth, they mostly have dysfunctional families. They feel people do not accept them for who they really are, so they need something to hide behind and smoke provides the perfect screen.