The One-Month-Smoking experiment

(Wow, I reached a half-century of posts last time! And I dint even know it! Ok I'm not coming up with Singapore chronicles part 2 yet cos I dont have any photos, but what I'll do is post a story from one of my college-memories.)

I referred to it as the "One-month" experiment with Tobacco. Smoking. There was a great deal of talk (and I'm sure all of you know this) that once u get addicted to smoking properly its very hard to stop it all of a sudden, and u can do it only gradually. So this guy at our college wanted to test it out. No names, sorry.

The experiment : Mr X decided to start smoking one fine day. Continuously. In chain fashion. Packs after packs per day. He would do this suddenly and continuously for one month. And then, at the end of 30 days, he would (attempt to) stop it fully! Just like that!

It was an experiment not only to test the addiction of tobacco but also the guys self-control. It was a bad idea, doing that with his own life and health. We were all critical.. What if the guy failed the expt and did get addicted?

As everyone knows, quitting smoking is hard both physically and mentally. Physically, a smoker who stops for even a day, will experience headaches, tirednes, restlessness, and even problems in going to the loo ! (courtesty : friends of mine) Mentally, its hell, really.. you cant keep your mind under control for its cravings, its just restless, and you even lose your mood and isolate yourself from friends. I think these are called the withdrawal symptoms.

I underestimated the power of tobacco myself once. The first time i tried it out I hated it and hence took an oath never to do it again. But amazingly after a few weeks i started fancying another smoke! And to be honest, the first one dint even give me a high and tasted particularly bad too! I was amazed at how tobacco had fooled me! Needless to say, I did have a few smokes after that, but it stopped with college anyways, well, I got from it what change I wanted by testing it.

The point is that Tobacco is a highly underestimated, misunderstood evil, which in my opinion is worse than alcohol but sometimes not feared as much even. No wonder its so badly common then. A recent documentary i saw rates tobacco as the number 9 most dangerous drug on the list. And it comes above Cannabis, Ecstasy and LSD ! And the worst part? Its out there still, so common, that you yourself have a passive puff sometimes..

Anyways, Good news. Because after all this, Mr.X passed the one-month Test ! He stopped smoking one fine day after 30 days ! So, well, I guess the situation is more hopeful than we think finally.