Younger adults smoking - why?

[GrandmaSharksDentures]

I work as an advanced nurse practitioner in A&E. As part of taking a history I ask all my patients if they smoke. The majority of younger adults (under 35) tell me that they smoke, usually 5 cigarettes a day.
Now I'm sure that number isn't always accurate but I am so surprised that younger adults smoke.
I had genuinely though all the health education & pricing strategies (making cigarettes so expensive) had worked to reduce this.
So....if you fall into this category please can I ask....why do you smoke when you know how bad it is and how expensive it is.....and what do you think it would take for you to stop?
I don't mean this to sound judging or bitchy, I am really genuinely interested.

Doesn’t make you fat.( unlike food)
You can smoke and still work. ( unlike drink)
Dying is over the long term ( unlike drugs)

The more forbidden a fruit is, the more attractive it becomes. Especially to younger people who are all "it won't happen to me, 'cos I'm invincible". It's always been this way.

But where is the pleasure in it? It stinks, and makes you stink after, makes your teeth and fingers yellow. Smoking a fag is not an attractive look!

Its usually because their family smoke, or at least their close social group

Also, so many models/rockstars smoke and they are paid millions and are all over the internet and gracing the covers of Vogue, etc. It's hard to make smoking seem bad to youngsters when they see the health messages undermined by the "cool" people.

Why Is Everyone Smoking Again?
Models and Instagram influencers have taken their smoking habits public—but at what cost?

www.harpersbazaar.com/beauty/a9554018/smoking-on-instagram/

I'm 29. I started smoking when I was 12 because it was "cool", made me "popular" and was an act of rebellion. I'm now very addicted.

I quit once but my mental health went down fast and I overdosed. Started smoking again which improved my mental health (doctor said to use nicotine replacement instead of cold turkey..Said probably because I was so young when I started, it altered my brain chemistry and I need the nicotine. Nicotine replacements make me feel ill and nauseous so back to smoking it was...and it helped!)

I smoke tobacco which I buy in bulk in spain. Years worth for £340 so not expensive. When we leave the EU I will reassess my options. ( Vapes kill my lungs so not an option).

I don't smoke myself but my partner does and has consistently tried and struggled to quit, we often talk about why. He is 30 and in his social circle everybody smoked from a young age - people in the upper part of that age bracket are old enough to have firmly witnessed a time in which it was more socially acceptable.

Though I do agree when I see proper young adults doing it I do wonder why given that they didn't live through that time.

The pricing is probably why they are only on 5 a day and not 20! So I guess that’s helped in some way. You could ask why anyone does anything like that, smoke/drink/drugs. Because for that moment that the person is doing it they feel “better” in some way. It’s satisfies a need.

I clicked on this post because I was out in London yesterday with DS and saw so many young people smoking. Not vaping, but old-style cigarettes. I was so surprised. Not seen that many people smoking publicly in years. And I've noticed more of my students now smoke, For a long while, they didn't. They are also drinking again. A couple of years ago, they were all teetotallers.

I'm interested in the answers too. I don't know many smokers in the 30-40 age bracket but I know of many under 30s who do smoke and I've been wondering why this is the case. I also know of so many people, but particularly those 35 and younger, who regularly use sun beds. With all the warnings about these two activities it really surprises me how many people regularly do both of these things.

Interesting site:

www.vice.com/en_us/article/ppa8en/we-asked-young-people-why-they-still-smoke

I see many mention stress/mental health as a factor in starting and in not being able to see their way to giving up. I keep reading stats on how young people are struggling with mental health and support, so I guess smoking is a kind of bandaid for them which would be difficult to stop.

DH used to smoke from teen years through to 28. He enjoyed the social side to it, he loved standing chatting with other smokers outside pubs rather than sitting bored inside waiting for his mates to come back. It was also an appetite suppressant - his one regret in quitting is that he was a lot trimmer back then!

I'm mid twenties and I have smoked for a decade (stopped during pregnancy). I started as a teen because I was deeply unhappy and a lot of people I hung around with smoked. Back then a packet of tobacco was around £3 so it was an affordable pastime. I stopped when I fell pregnant but took it up again once DD was born as I was so stressed as 'D'P became a full on alcoholic and absented himself from family life, popping out to the garden in the evening for a smoke was my only 'me time'. I am deeply ashamed of myself. But it is too expensive now at £14 a packet. I know I should stop (and I'm going to have to as I can't really afford it anymore) and I want to stop intellectually but smoking is a huge emotional crutch for me. I also think with every cigarette I smoke im taking 5 minutes off my life, which in my warped depressed mind is a good thing. I wish I had never started because I am very addicted at this stage and quitting is going to be hard, but I already have so much stress to deal with I can't face it yet, which is why I keep putting it off.

That’s the thing, many people who start smoking are unhappy or stressed I think. I know I was. To me smoking has always been the least of all evils. I’d rather be a smoker than an alcoholic or a drug addict and I do think it’s the “least” harmful thing of the three to be hooked on. In my 20s I didn’t think I would need this crutch forever but at nearly 50 now, life has been damn tough and I still do. I buy in bulk abroad so it doesn’t cost me much, relatively speaking. I also think on a subconscious level, maybe even a slightly conscious level, I am intentionally trying to shorten my life. As I say, it’s been tough and I’m tired.

Maybe their lives are shitty and they don't see any way it's ever going to improve? Things haven't been good for more and more people here for years. Not everyone wants to live a long life, sadly. I used to smoke, but I started in the 80s as a teen when it was socially acceptable. I wasn't unhappy, but it was just a good way to strike up conversation in the clubs and bars, asking for a light.

I only know one person still smoking (she's in her mid-50s) who pays full price for fags, although she's European so often goes to Europe to visit and comes back with fags. I know quite a few people who smoke but they all buy on the black market, usually from E. Europeans or Russians.

What staggers me is the number of young people at my younger children's high school who never smoked but vape and think it's harmless.

This is really interesting thank you to everyone for your replies & experiences. I've never smoked & never really wanted to try so it's always seemed strange to me that people start.
Does anyone here just smoke "socially" eg when drinking or when with friends?

I’m 25. I’m Australian. The reason I don’t smoke is this:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=QnTcb-DR4RU

Every time I think of a cigarette I think of putting one of those in my mouth

This is really interesting thank you to everyone for your replies & experiences. I've never smoked & never really wanted to try so it's always seemed strange to me that people start.

Me too. I think if I was going to have started it would have been during my self harming period as one more way to fuck myself up so I’m glad I didn’t think of it.

Until a few years back I genuinely didn't know anyone under the age of 40 who smokes.

Now I'm seeing a fair few under 40s but they're nearly always Eastern European.

I'm not sure if smoking is as frowned upon in EE and I suspect cigarettes are much cheaper.

I smoked as a teen despite lots of anti-smoking education. I started as it was a bit of a rebellion really and it was normalised in my house as my Dad smoked and my Mum had smoked pre-kids.

Then, when I was old enough to drink, smoking was a great way to not be stuck inside sweaty clubs with sticky floors. The smoking area was much more enjoyable. I also liked having the smoking break excuse whilst studying.

I gave up quite easily when I left uni because I wasn't seeing my smoking buddies and stopped frequenting clubs.

There was nothing shitty about my life, and I wasn't unhappy at all. I think that's very similar to young people today a decade later.

I'm in my late 20s and have been a social smoker since I was about 16/17 on and off. I've had about 3 cigarettes in the last 12 months, though. I usually smoke when I drink, I've rarely smoked sober.

When I was younger (15/16) most of my social group smoked (and smoked weed, too). I smoked drags of weed before I ever smoked a straight cigarette, but after a while I started to enjoy the taste a bit and I suppose mentally associate it with being happy/pleasurable things.

When I started clubbing, we'd often all go out to the smoking area to get some air and have a break. Having a pack of fags and a lighter was a good way to strike up a conversation with people, so I carried on doing this when I started uni. I never smoked sober and could go weeks without smoking at all.

When I left uni, I didn't smoke much, but my boyfriend at the time did, so I'd have a fag every now and again when I was out with him. After we broke up, I didn't smoke at all for years, but last year there were a few times when I was drunk and really craved a cigarette!

The people I know who smoke are either from a working class background or into some kind of alternative sub-culture, or are heavily into drugs. The people I know who don't tend to be middle class and more straight laced. When I was a teen, I do think there were people who glamourised smoking, but I don't think that's the reason people smoked- I think it was more to do with seeing family role models who smoked or seeing it as a "rebellious" thing to do. I also know some people who got addicted to cigarettes as a by-product of smoking weed- when I was a teenager, nearly all my friends smoked weed at parties, even if they didn't smoke cigarettes at all ever.

I do think anti-smoking education has been good, but there is a certain sort of teen who will do something because they've been told not to.

I also think the prevalence of smoking weed contributes to addiction and makes it harder for people to quit.

I see it in my age range too (30s) I thought it would have reduced too. But I guess even with all the warnings and cost it doesn't matter, people will do what they want to do. I used to be obese and didn't care about how bad junk food was for me, I knew how to stop eating it but didn't want to..

I think in general it is on the increase again because the E Europeans all smoke.

2 of my DC took up smoking in their mid 20s bizarrely.

I smoke, I’m 31, I started when I was 21/22 as I knew that it would suppress my appetite. I enjoy smoking and get genuinely exited about lighting up, I have one in the morning, one on the way home from work and one before bed.