How long did it take you to become addicted to cigarettes?

[Ryedan]

I have not seen this polled here yet and thought it would be interesting to do. This is obviously for those of us who have smoked and felt we were addicted and I am asking only about the initial addiction.

I'm going to suggest we use this definition for 'addicted'; when you felt it would have been really hard to quit had you wanted to. I realize this is not the correct definition of addiction, but I thought it was a good one to use for this poll. Voting will require people to remember back to that time and estimate, so this will be totally unscientific anyway.

Pick the response that is closest to your estimate. If you estimate 2 weeks, pick 1 week. If it took 3 weeks, pick 1 month. I had 10 responses to work with.

I thought about including 'I smoked but never became addicted', but that would have taken away one of the other responses and I felt it would not be significant without more information like the time period and smoking frequency.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas about anything please post. I'll check in regularly and will be able to edit this post for a couple of days I think.

I would also like to ask folks to stay on topic here. If we start discussing the nature of addiction for example the thread could get off track quickly.

 

[VNeil]

I won't answer your survey because I have no real recollection of when it became a problem, nor do I know that I ever knew. I don't recall ever trying to quit, and without seriously attempting to quit I don't know how I would know.

(edit: I did attempt to quit about 17 years in, and it was difficult. But 17 years is not necessarily the right answer for me because I have no recollection of trying previously)

I know what gave you this idea, and I was thinking the same thing... a survey. But I see a serious problem with the population from which you are drawing this data. People who attempted to quit and were not "addicted" would not likely have started vaping. They would just quit and get on with their lives. You will not meet most of them here.

Skewed population aside, I think a better survey would ask how difficult it was to quit and how long you smoked. And that could include the first serious attempt at quitting even if it was a fail. A fail would answer the question as to the difficulty

 

[denis109]

How long did it take for you to become addicted to cigarettes?

Thirty seconds to 12 years old.

 

[Ryedan]

I won't answer your survey because I have no real recollection of when it became a problem, nor do I know that I ever knew. I don't recall ever trying to quit, and without seriously attempting to quit I don't know how I would know.

I know what gave you this idea, and I was thinking the same thing... a survey. But I see a serious problem with the population from which you are drawing this data. People who attempted to quit and were not "addicted" would not likely have started vaping. They would just quit and get on with their lives. You will not meet most of them here.

Skewed population aside, I think a better survey would ask how difficult it was to quit and how long you smoked. And that could include the first serious attempt at quitting even if it was a fail. A fail would answer the question as to the difficulty

Some great points VNeil , I also don't know when I first felt addicted to cigs, all I can do is estimate. At this point there is no better way I can think of for anyone to answer that question. For me, even though it happened 40 years ago I do recall it well enough to form an opinion.

I'm purposely only polling people who felt they became addicted to smoking. To include the folks who feel they never became addicted would IMO require more than the 10 response max we have to work with so would IMO be better done using a different poll. I could have used a different question, but then I would not have been able to ask this one which is what I'm most interested in.

Yes we are a skewed population, but that's true for any poll or thread on ECF. This is not a scientific study, it's just to see how long people here estimate they think it took. I think it will be interesting to see how people feel about it

 

[coolvapes]

I started smoking when I was underage so withing the first 3-4 month I was craving enough when I had no money or someone to buy them for me.

 

[hurricanegirl100]

I didn't think cigarettes were that great. All my 15 year old buds were smoking Marlboro Reds, so, hey, that's what I smoked, too! They were bad lol...nobody in my family smoked, so I really had to work at it!

After about six months of hanging out in the morning, smoking, I was just about ready to hang it up on cigarettes. They didn't taste that great, and frankly, there was other stuff I'd rather smoke! (heef you know what I say to you, dahlink...)

Until a friend handed me something new...try this, she said! I love them!
Newport?
Yeah, she grinned. Menthol!

And right there on that warm spring morning in 1979, I kid her about it to this day, I was doomed and addicted to analog cigarettes. That cool, refreshing feeling lasted about 28 years until it started to turn on me. Pneumonia, several times over. Chronic bronchitis. A heart attack when I was 42. A supervisor at work, ten years older than me, pulling an oxygen tank on three wheels into her office. (WTH is that?? That, my dear, she grinned, is my required oxygen therapy! Smoking! Don't you just LOVE it??)

You'd think after all that, it would've been a walk in the freaking park to quit the damn things! IT WAS NOT.

Thinking back, I think I tried, really TRIED, about eight times, to quit. Zyban. The patch. Nicotine lozenges. Cold, miserable, turkey. Heck, I even tried chewing tobacco once! (that did NOT go well lol..do not swallow! Not even a little bit! hiccuphiccuphiccup!!) The lozenges actually worked for a few months, but my lozenge habit quickly got even more expensive than my cigarettes, and that was the end of those.

Until I bought a cig-alike on a whim at Speedway and finally! I was free..

 

[Ryedan]

You'd think after all that, it would've been a walk in the freaking park to quit the damn things! IT WAS NOT.

Thinking back, I think I tried, really TRIED, about eight times, to quit. Zyban. The patch. Nicotine lozenges. Cold, miserable, turkey. Heck, I even tried chewing tobacco once! (that did NOT go well lol..do not swallow! Not even a little bit! hiccuphiccuphiccup!!) The lozenges actually worked for a few months, but my lozenge habit quickly got even more expensive than my cigarettes, and that was the end of those.

Until I bought a cig-alike on a whim at Speedway and finally! I was free..

That made me laugh hurricanegirl, but not at you, I get it and that's what made it funny for me. I tried the patch, the spray, cold miserable turkey and weaning down I don't know how many times. Nada. I got more motivated when my doctor told me I was developing COPD. Even that didn't do it for me but it made me look at it harder and I discovered vaping.

I never tried chewing tobacco and it sounds like that's probably a good thing

 

[zoiDman]

How long did it take you to become addicted to cigarettes?

I can't remember what I had for Breakfast on Monday. Or when I became Addicted to Cigarettes.

But Carter was in Office. That much I do Remember.

 

[Rcajun]

I don't know how long it took. I started in college when at the bars. Only knew I was smoking as I found packs when I woke up the next day.

 

[zapped]

I have an addictive personality so........about as long as it took me to smoke my first cigarette

 

[hurricanegirl100]

That made me laugh hurricanegirl, but not at you, I get it and that's what made it funny for me. I tried the patch, the spray, cold miserable turkey and weaning down I don't know how many times. Nada. I got more motivated when my doctor told me I was developing COPD. Even that didn't do it for me but it made me look at it harder and I discovered vaping.

I never tried chewing tobacco and it sounds like that's probably a good thing

Weaning down! I forgot that! Too many times to count, Rydan!