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We will soon give you a few ideas on how to manage stress, but firstly let's affirm and acknowledge that smoking is the worst method of stress management.
As we have stated firmly above, smokers are more stressed than non-smokers, and that's a fact!
Also, please realize that stress is a sign of 'intoxication', and you don't treat intoxication with further intoxication. It just doesn't make sense.
If smoking works for you, it does so as a temporary and symptomatic relief but not as a strategy for coping with the stress or exhausting it.
Smoking when stressed is like drinking alcohol when anxious. The intoxication may put a person at ease and stop them from feeling anxious for the moment, but this is not really solving the problem. Whatever the source of the anxiety - insecurity, fear or some external pressure - it was merely suppressed by the alcohol, it was not exhausted and it was not resolved.
Generally speaking, it can be said that suppression is a very poor coping mechanism. Any suppressed phenomenon, it should be remembered, is still there. By suppressing the source, the phenomenon only grows and becomes further distorted.
People who drink in order to 'deal' with a problem are bound to create bigger problems for themselves. That's the way it works, and this is common knowledge. However, when it comes to their cigarettes, smokers are blind to this principle.
It's the same with other drugs. Heroin, for example, is the ultimate drug - not only does it eradicate all traces of pain, it also induces euphoria. Now what on earth can be better than that? Any problem that is dealt with by taking heroin immediately disappears and is replaced by total serenity and a sense of calm and pleasure. But in reality the drug produces only a short-lasting and artificial sensation of wellbeing and the problems are merely suppressed. The effects of the drug wear off, the problems occur again, and along comes a potential opiate addiction.
Heroin is the worst, rather than the best, way to deal with life's problems. Everyone knows that, and everyone knows the disastrous consequences for the tortured souls who are addicted to heroin. But when it comes to their cigarettes, smokers refuse to see the similarity. | |
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