Gadalla

6 March 2013

The Smoker's Mentality

It was my first day-of-classes at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). I kept wading hastily through the crowds to catch my class five minutes earlier before it began. Unfortunately, when I took a deep breath to substitute for the oxygen I consumed while running and to gather myself up before class, I sensed a feeling of burn in my lungs and was going to choke. There was a clique of youth by the right side who were smoking their cigarettes as they gazed intently at the sky and on one another. I could not stand the fumes, so I simply sped up, evading the crowds, and ultimately managed to overcome the smell, reaching class on the timing I designated.

Later that day I began to wonder: Why would they keep doing this, putting up with their cigarette for such a considerable amount of time, obviously until it ends!? For me, just inhaling some of the smoke induced an intense feeling of burn in my lungs. There seemed to be a mystery behind that, and I was determined to unwind it; not for my own sake of pleasure in unwinding mysteries, or for the sake of the exploratory essay I am currently working at, but because we are all living together as fellow humans on this planet, and smoking has continued to maintain at a steady pace in our society, so we have to understand the smoker’s mindset in order to treat him or her efficiently, benefiting them as well as deploying their multitude experiences, knowledge, and skills.

First: Exploring Smoking with the Symbolic-Interaction Approach

In the conception of my work, I realized that we humans attach a meaning to everything we do, or else the odds are very low that we persist on doing them. For this reason, I decided to use the “Symbolic-Interaction Approach” of sociology as an entrance to exploring the smoking society. This theoretical approach will help me to describe, and therefore better understand smoking from the point of view of the people involved in it (Macionis 2011). That said, smoking would be described as a complex event. It is first triggered in the brain, like all other activities we do. Then, the smoker is driven by a sense to have a cigarette. It is finally manipulated when he or she lights up the ciggy and begins to inhale, sucking up the nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar, and then exhaling them at a steady pace.

Smoking could be manipulated in groups, or solely. In part, the manufacturing companies and smokers themselves govern smoking. But also seeing someone smoke and getting influenced to do the same is another aspect that governs smoking and keeps it surging.

Different people attach various meanings to their cigarettes: A monk once commented that smoking is reminiscence to childhood, when one was being breastfed. He concluded that smokers are unable to deal with their challenges, so they use cigarettes to remind themselves of childhood when they were irresponsible and surrounded by their mothers’ warmth–But in that case it would be the cigarette's warmth. (Matta 1991).

When observed, smokers tend to manifest different behaviors: Some smoke while directing their countenance up the sky, at an angle, flaunting their cigarettes as they get them into and out of their mouths. Others just sit back and enjoy the buzz. In groups smokers tend to discuss common issues and share life experiences. This is commonly known as "social smoking." It is usually then when new people are introduced to taking the habit (‪ps3isdasht 2012).‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Second: Seeking scholars

I sought many scholars in the course of my study, researching for the reason of smoking’s prevalence at youthful societies. Very few of the researches I examined were completely on my desired topic. It seems as if exiguous researches were put into such a cause. However, there was one particular scholar where it was evident that the research study members had spent the most effort pursuing the same answer I am searching for. The research team was a group of psychologists from the U.K. Routlege Magazine took up the enterprise of publishing their findings. Eighty seven, both smoking and nonsmoking, students were interviewed from the high school and university settings. Researchers used discourse analysis to determine answers for their inquiries (Brendan Gough el al. 2009).

At the end of their work they elicited three main repertoires: First, smokers downplayed the health risks of smoking, by mentioning other risky activities like cola, diet, and alcohol. Second, they tended to mention the putative benefits of smoking, as relieving stress. Third, they construed smoking as a temporal and youthful phenomenon that would end as they enter responsible adulthood (Brendan Gough el al. 2009).

Perhaps these three findings are good reasons for the young’s persistence to smoke: They feel smoking is just as risky as walking down the street, where one could get tossed by a car; also they see many foods and drinks are being discovered as deleterious nowadays–“So let’s do what we enjoy!” They say. Maybe they have other issues to worry about, more than smoking’s side effects, as failing exams or obesity –“So let’s do smoking to forget that!” They emphasize. “It makes us less stressed”, some assert. Also, many people turn to it as they have been cut from, or have shortage in, other things which they want. Finally, they interpret, or construe, smoking as a phenomenon which can be controlled and cut from their lives when demanded.

On the other hand, researches on adult smokers can yield results, which are applied on the young counterparts as well. For example, one research emphasized that smoking is influenced by two theories: The first, named the Theory of Planned Behavior [TPB], is when someone beholds a certain pattern, admires it, valuing its outcome, and once he or she realizes its convenience, they start producing plans on manipulating it. (Armitage & Conner 2001). The other factor is named “peer-pressure”.

These two findings did not convince me. For one reason, in the latter finding, one would not continue to smoke unless he or she likes this and wants it. Also the first one did not seem to me as a revelation at all. However, the two points they mentioned could be reasons for the smoking’s maintenance: First, the desire of people to smoke due to their admiration of its outcome, as increase of popularity. Secondly, youth succumb to their pals’ thrust to have a cigarette, as they want to appear cool and gain more relations, or to avoid denigration.

During my research I learned that people who tend to kick off smoking, or at least put it off for some time are, primarily, women who are delivering children – and they do not want their child’s brain to get damaged – also, people who are undergoing surgeries – and they do not want anesthetics to metabolize badly with the low oxygen in blood, due to cigarettes’ consumption -, and finally people who get inspired to change their lives and decide to put off all the crap. (Adel Elshimy 2006)

The results of my research impelled me to think that smoking is largely a state of the mind: Only people who have been acted upon by anti‐smoking circumstances‐as undergoing operations or giving birth and people deciding to change their lives and put off all the crap quit smoking.

Do we really have to be acted upon to stop the bad things that we are doing? Do smokers really “prefer the shorter and happier life of smoking, rather than the longer and boring life without it”!! Like Allen Carr, one of the most renowned ex-smokers, and the author of a book that has helped many people quit, once said.

For me I do not perceive smoking as worse than procrastinating and handing in a sheet of homework later than the deadline, or failing to take the chances and opportunities that present themselves to us each day, because in both we also wait until we are being acted upon. When I am at the library I have learned that before taking any book and putting it on my desk to read it, I must make sure that I understood the purpose of the book. Because if I did not, I am certain that I will waste the coming couple of hours reading a book which I am not fit for. The outcome would be that I wasted my time and even lost energy and momentum. The day gets lost!!! Same goes with smoking, if we were to rational it out before manipulating it we would certainly know that it is a loss of time, energy, and momentum. The days get lost!!

It is not about smoking and its deleterious health consequences. It is about our culture and us, how we have come to take up certain patterns, refuse to correct ourselves, and wait until we are being acted upon by external forces, as deadlines, health problems, etc. Now, after considerable investigation I know that smoking is just a by-product of the damage that is going within our society. Smoking is maintaining because there are many other things that need to be changed, and once they do smoking will automatically get adjusted.

After I finished my English class with professor Gaiser I was staggered to have found my colleague taking up a cigar, putting it in his mouth, taking a sniff, and on the go to put his cigar on fire. I ran directly toward him and checked him with my greeting, saying that I was very surprised to know that he was a smoker, had he been smoking for too long?

No it was his first year, he replied.

“But what made you take up smoking?” I asked, “Do much of your family members smoke, or did you just take it for fun?”

After he lit his cigar, took a deep breath, and exhaled it strongly in my deeply smiling face, I conceived he was about to point his cigar at me, so I excused myself and started running away. I remember the last time I had a cigar caught fire on me, was not a kind of experience I wanted to have again.

References:

1. Gough, Brendan, et al. “Why do young adult smokers continue to smoke despite the health risks? A focus group study.” Routledge 24.2 (Feb 2009), 203+. CINHAL. Web. 19 Feb 2013.

2. El-Meskeen, Matta. Rising from Childhood, St. Maqar’s Monestary. 1999. Cassette.

3. Macionis, John. Society: The Basics. Boston: Pearson. 2012. Print.

4. Ps3isdasht. Why Do People Still Smoke? 2012. Youtube. Web. 10 Mar. 2013.

5. Arabia, Riyadh Saudi. "Why You Should Stop Smoking Before Going For Surgery?" Health 5.1 (2006).