[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by Marcus on April 9, 2007, 1:09 pm, in reply to "A Little Bit of Risk..."
I'll chime in without M G F. She can counter my remarks later if she disagrees. I'm inclined to agree with you. On one front, when a person first decides to try smoking, he or she has an academic knowledge of the Risk he or she is taking. Smoking is addictive and bad for you. When you decide to try smoking, you are deciding to take a chance, albeit a mild one. (Contrary to what some AS materials would have a person believe, one's first cigarette doesn't make them hopelessly addicted) After overcoming the body's rejection to being poisoned and having carbon deposited on its delicate tissue the smoker discovers that, lo and behold, he or she is still breathing, still feels good, and his or her body now welcomes the abuse; but damage is being done. The smoker knows that, and that knowledge is always there, either lurking in the background or front and center in his or her consciousness. As you say, from time to time, the smoker comes face to face with the realities of what smoking has done to them and what the eventual result may be. Some, of course, quit smoking, horrified at the sight of a loved one with emphysema struggling to breathe or wasting away from lung cancer. In others the result is a gentle stimulation of the desire they first nurtured when they decided to try smoking and then force their body to submit. How many smokers see an AS PSA on television and have a cigarette lit before it is over?
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