Smoking vs. Drinking

No one I hang out with smokes. Everyone I hang out with drinks.

These are educated, professional people who mostly have smoked at some time in the past, but who've permanently quit. They are people who will have a glass of wine or a beer or two at a party, but are not controlled by alcohol to the point they have to abstain, or else get falling-down drunk.

The only people I know who smoke cigarettes, or who have problems with drinking, are people I see as clients of public agencies. Some are hard-working, responsible people, and some are totally irresponsible.

Another recent GD thread deals with the dangers of smoking and the dangers of government interference with smoking, and the call for equal penalties for alcohol use. My experience is that "successful" people (defined as those doing a pretty good job of managing their lives) are moderate drinkers, and not smokers. I also observe that while alcohol is often used in moderation, tobacco is generally a "habit."

What is your observation? I'd be interested in knowing your age and social scene, and your thoughts about the differences between the use and regulation of these two legal drugs.

Most of my friends are the same, although the older I get, the more I encounter friends who used to drink who are now teatotalers. As much as I can't stand smoking personally, its near-criminalization by society has me worried. I am very tolerant of those who haven't quit, and it bothers me how high-and-mighty non-smokers can get when telling smokers to "butt out" in public. (Reminds me of the self-righteousness of some Christians.)

I worry that someday drinking will also be downright outlawed, not just frowned upon. ("First they came for the smokers ... then they came for the drinkers ... " etc. etc.)

1) There are too many threads on topics like this going on recently. They belong in the Lounge, if anywhere.

2) There's an implicitly classist subtext to what you've posted (I hate the word "classist" but it fits here). "Clients of public agencies"? Mm-kay.

3) See ya.

doesn't belong in GD:

What I've been reading is that government regulation of tobacco and alcohol is the same topic, while I believe that they're very different in their effect on individuals and on groups. I think it's important to differentiate between them as subjects for control OR discussion.

but the the fact is that socioeconomis status is pretty strongly correlated with with both tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption.

So- indeed- a larger percentage of these people are clients of public health agencies.

There's not necessarily a moral overtone or judgment to that- although obviously there can be.

Taking it to an extreme- the same is true of, say Meth-

though there are parallels.

The fact is, that those who are more educated are more likely to not smoke and not drink to excess.

And those who are of lower socio-economic strata tend to be less educated.

--

What about doctors and lawyers????? What about musicians and movie stars? What public agencies are they clients of?

I'll tell you, I drink (don't smoke), I'm college educated, and am not a client of any agency, but I am just tired of the creeping Puritanism going on.

It is creepy...CLASS WARS!!!

They live on DU!

What about public agency employee's?? :rofl: I'll bet they drink and smoke a lot! ;)

do you think puritanism is just another term for the desire to control other people?

Also, I think that there is a psychology wherein some people like to do things BECAUSE they are forbidden. So, yes, control, and yes, titillation from doing what's supposedly wrong.

I happen to think it's healthier not to feel guilty about everything, nor to make others do so.

so do most of my friends. in fact, the higher up the socio-economic level they are, the MORE likely they are to both drink and smoke (everyone does one or the other)

but I may be in a totally different age group or part of the country from you.

you're in Oregon, I'm in DC. (but I grew up in Oregon) Even the nonsmokers I know will smoke when they get enough booze in them...

Unless and until a drunk gets behind the wheel of an auto, her/his habits have no effect on me, even if s/he is sitting 2 feet from me while downing a fifth. A person smoking does. There is nothing that smokers can do to get around that fact- their habit actually affects other people even if they aren't doing anything illegal like DWI.

If someone wants to smoke in their home or in public places where it is known that there will be smoke (like the casinos and bars), fine by me. But there is no reason that I should have to be affected by the choice someone else makes to smoke. Unfortunately for smokers, there is a difference between them and the drinkers, and it's one that causes even live and let live types like myself to side with the nanny staters on this issue.

(I don't know any movie stars.) The clients of public agencies are people with whom I work every day on issues of access to services and resources. I'm just describing my experience here, but some people sure got their shorts in a knot.

LOL. j/k

but seriously, I'm a musician, and I drink and occasionally smoke. just about every musician I know does some variation of both.

Now that I'm older, most of the people I'm playing with are EX-smokers. My first gig was in 1959, and my next gig is tonight (we start at 6:30 and go 'til 9, so that tells you how much I've wound down since the wild days) :-)

And I have to admit that since I've quit smoking, I've been know to bum a butt once in a while.

I smoke like a chimney - at my house in the country and at the bar. I don't smoke at work (too much trouble) and I don't smoke at restaurants if we go out to eat. I know plenty of smokers, it just depends on the crowd. You probably know a few smokers, too, they just aren't doing it around you.

I think the laws are just dandy the way they are now, although I would like an exemption written into most city-wide smoking bans that lets someone open a private club that allows smoking. I do not agree with the nanny-state to a degree that it prevents a person from doing what they want with their own property.

We do happy hours about twice a month, and successful or not, some people drink a lot and some drink a little. Some smoke, some don't. Our CIO, a successful man by any standards (two PhD's, published three books, etc.) smokes AND drinks too much when we go out.

Sounds to me like you have a pre-conceived notion that smokers are either classless 'tards or must all have some kind of behavior control disorder that makes them smoke. You might as well start calling out the fatties, too, while you're at it. I've done just fine for my family, we've hit every definition of "successful" that I can think of and yet I smoke. Why? I don't know, a lot of people in engineering school did, and a lot of people in the industry do. It doesn't seem to have prevented me from reaching my goals, however.

:toast:

:smoke:

I'm simply describing my own experience and observation, and inviting others to do the same. I happen to work with clients of various public agencies as part of my job, which is the source of that observation. I'm not entirely surprised at the defensiveness in some of the posts, but I was hoping for more description and less prescription.

Is that people with children tend to smoke less, at least on the East Coast. Otherwise, it's a total crapshoot. It used to be that blue collar workers were more likely to be smokers, but within the past 15 years or so that's become less and less true.

I have yet to come up with a theory about heavy drinkers, so maybe there isn't one to be had.

though I realize it's based on your observation. Your "pre-conceived notion" is that your observation is a true reflection of facts. I'll give a few bits of studies. I don't have links right now but they were copied from sites so if you put parts in google with quotes the sites will come up.

On smoking you're right.
those individuals below the poverty level, 34 percent smoke, 27 percent are obese, and 8 percent are obese and smoke. In comparison, among those earning four times more than the poverty level, only 18 percent smoke, 21 percent are obese, and 4 percent are obese and smoke.

On drinking you are wrong
A study by the Norwegian Institute for National Health has linked greater alcohol consumption to higher education and higher income. People who have more education and more money drink more than uneducated and poorer people, the research shows.

The Norwegian study, conducted between 1993 and 2000, found that there is not necessarily a connection between the people who have higher education and the people who have a high income, but both groups consume a more alcohol.

Here's another
Additionally, a thorough 1996 study reported that no higher prevalence of alcoholism among adult welfare recipients than in the general population (about 7%). There was also no difference in prevalence between poor African Americans and poor Caucasians.

The last study might not be the same now because pf the reduction in welfare with work requirements. Alcoholism is certainly a barrier to employment and more who had those problems would still not be working.

I've worked with welfare/low income people and know many high income people and would never have thought the poor people are likelier to be heavy drinkers, let alone alcoholics. I will say higher income/insured people are more likely to be able to quit drinking through inpatient rehab, even if it's more than once."Upper class" jobs are likelier to have that insurance and grant the time off work to do it.
It's one of the hardest treatments to get an uninsured low income person into, decreasing grants for it and long waits.

Also the richer alcoholics can get better medical care overall so some of the ravages are not so obvious.
Early on I think the higher income people are more motivated to hide the issue. With chronic alcoholism I'd bet there is more lower income people because the higher income people keep losing things as the problem gets worse...their families and jobs.

The definite alcoholics I knew/know well were a doctor, a counselor, a musician. a manager, a construction worker, a janitor (who died very old) (all sober now), a college professor and not yet in recovery (or lapsed) another musician, a very, very rich stockbroker and a factory worker (died young) .
People who knew them less well often didn't know they were alcoholics until they were in recovery because they were likelier to do less drinking in groups and then go get drunk alone. Reputations to protect. Come to think of it the two "lower class" job people didn't hide it.

Each of them had alcoholism in their families, the genetic component is very strong.
(Recovering alcoholics tend to be very cool people)

If we talk about social cost as much as we demonize smokers the effects of alcoholism/heavy drinking are a deeper cut...when they drive or hunt or fight or raise children...
Drinking in itself is not bad. The problem is it's the exposure to the social drinking which is such a norm that triggers the alcoholism is the 7% or so of drinkers.

I am glad you have seen so few people with drinking problems.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I smoke. A pack will last almost a week. I never smoke at work, in the car, or in my house. I have never smoked in front of my kids. I hoof it out to the garage (behind the garage) at night to have a smoke. I don't drink hardly at all and frankly can't stand drinkers. If I have 1 drink, I call a cab. How many drinkers do this? Why don't they?

Oh by the way....I possess a Master Degree and working towards a Phd. Grad school is chock full of smokers. :smoke:

in my 20+ years as an engineer one thing I notice, very few smoke. Practically none. This may be due to my entire career having been in California. When I visit relatives in Tennessee and Wisconsin I see a lot more smoking in general than in California.

and get back to me. We were one of the last buildings on campus to go smoke free, and up until 1995 you could still fire up a cigarette in class as long as you brought your own ashtray.

California is not and will never be representative of the rest of the country. Half of my family lives out there, and Californians march to the beat of their own drum all day, every day ;) Saying people don't smoke in California is like saying people in the 1800's weren't likely to have indoor plumbing. It's kind of an obvious statement.

I grew up on the East Coast (NYC, college in upstate NY, grad school in PA), but I lived in SF for a awhile. Engineers smoke like hell. I couldn't believe the difference re: smoking in CA (I'm a smoker). People would give you dirty looks on the street in SF if they felt that they'd moved through your smoke cloud. Never saw anything like that in NY (primarily cuz it would likely get you your ass well and truly kicked). But there was also a kind of underground of smokers in SF who were much more into anti-anti-smoking than anyone I ever met in NYC, thus proving once again that any social prohibition creates its own resistance. That said, I think I am a much more conscientious smoker as a result. I don't smoke around non-smokers if I can help it, I don't smoke in my house, I don't smoke in restaurants, and I feel weird smoking in other people's house even if they're doing it and they say it is OK. I kinda slink off to smoke now. And I kinda like that. When they first passed the NYC smoking in bars law I was outraged, but now I kinda like it. It's a better environment for most people, and I only feel bad for the people who live above the bars, where the most drunk must go outside to smoke and yell their drunk dialogue at 4 am.

Ooooh! I just flew in from Cleveland...and boy are my arms.....

i think that counts as 'successful'. he drank and smoked like a sailor.

if you have any.

when we had a large group a friends over for a "solstice party" that all of them, without exception, enjoyed the wine that was freely flowing, and not one person smoked. There was plenty of opportunity for smoking, since most of the activity was outdoors.

In contrast, every person I had dealt with in my job the week before was a smoker. And when I read the thread bemoaning the increasing restrictions on smoking, I thought about what are the fundamental differences between the two substances and their use.

You'll find quite a lot of cigarette smokers here in New Orleans (and Louisiana in general), drinking wine (whether from a box or 100 yr old vintage), beer, coffee, etc. That's why I asked for statistics.

smokers usually wait for someone else to start. If I know you are not a smoker and go to you home, I will not smoke out of respect for you and your home. Most of us are like that.

It is always amusing to me when I see dire warnings from health professionals about how men should only have 2 drinks a day and women one. People in France, Italy and Spain drink and have historically drunk more than that without becoming alcoholics. We are screwed up in this country about alcohol. We don't set a very good example for kids so they go out and get sh*tfaced at the prom. Personally, I couldn't (and wouldn't want to) drink a glass of wine with lunch like the French and Italians do, but I have wine with dinner every night and the only really bad effect is that it does add calories.

I gave up smoking in Jan. of 1981. I stopped cold and never smoked a cigarette after that. Now I just can't abide cigarette smoke so I am grateful for regulation of the air I breathe. What people do in their own homes is their own business, however.

last year. I went to restaurants and coffee bars that weren't tourist spots and I don't recall seeing anyone light up.

It will be interesting when I travel in mainland Italy this year. I'll be in Rome and Florence but also some smaller cities like Assisi and Perugia. It's gonna be all art (it's a Smithsonian tour)and food on this trip!

in someone's windowless art studio and *everyone* was smoking. The cigarettes there seemed to be extra strong. I was coughing up black stuff for days (i don't smoke). It was disgusting. That was ten years ago though. Maybe Europeans in general smoke less now? I'm going to Italy in a couple weeks too! Rome, Venice and Cinque Terre. Yay!

It sounds great. Is this a tour or are you going on your own? It's on the Ligurian Coast, right?

I'm already planning my 2007 trip. It will be kind of a "Shakespeare's Italy" type of thing. Going to Verona, Mantua, Padua, etc.

I've never been on an organized tour, you must learn a lot of information that way. your trip sounds like fun too.

i went to college in Rome for a year and I'm excited to finally go back. We're starting in Rome, taking the train to Venice, then driving to a small town outside Nice to see the chapel Cocteau painted, then down the Ligurian & Tuscan coast back to Rome. I sort of wish we were spending more time on the coast than in Rome at this time of year. Every time I mention I'm going to the Italian coast, people say "you *have* to go to Cinque Terre". Probably a sign it's going to be be crowded though ;-)

I remember when the Italy thing started it was just Rome, Florence and Venice. Then it was Tuscany, then Sicily, then Umbria and now Cinque Terre. Malta is getting popular with Americans too (my Swiss friends say it has always been big to the Swiss). I plan to go to Malta in 08 -- the history sounds fascinating. I'm a Caravaggio buff (did an Indep. Study on him in grad school) and one of his greatest works is in Valleta. From there, I can take an overnight ferry to Siracusa to see my favorite work of his, "The Burial of St. Lucy," now being restored in Florence so I wasn't able to see it when I was in Siracusa last year.

Another area that sounds interesting is the Aolian Islands (Lipari, Stromboli etc). You get there via ship, but I would guess you could fly to Catania from Malpensa or Rome and pick up a ship passage from there.

It's touristy, but Taormina is just gorgeous. I would go back in a heartbeat.

Just because "successful" people drink and don't smoke does not mean that drinking is less dangerous or negative than smoking. Alcohol is clearly much more dangerous -- how many teenagers have died after a night of smoking? How many people have been killed by someone smoking and driving (possible a couple!). You get my point.

I drink moderately, have never smoked or used drugs -- same with most of my friends, though more and more people seem to have quit drinking too :( . However, I believe ALL should be legal and taxed, and that owners of bars and restaurants should be allowed to decide which activities they permit on their property.

One way to deal with the health expense of all the use of substances is for insurance companies to charge extra to those who do. (They can figure out how to do this!) I'd be willing to pay somewhat more for the health risk I take by drinking.

and a quick one wrapped around a tree. DUI is a big issue in the past several years, and learning how to drink responsibly is a decidedly adult lesson. I'm not sure how one learns how to smoke responsibly.

:) :smoke:

Alcohol causes brain damage. :shrug:

I don't drink except for rare occasions, never much cared for it. Smoked like a weber grill for 12 years, until I decided it was time to conceive and raise a family.

Come from a fine middle-class family, made it through an undergraduate degree, then managed to land a grad school fellowship that lasted until my degree was done.

Watch your assumptions, sir. They're gross.

There's always plenty of anecdotal evidence, and somebody's grandpa always smoked like a chimney and lived to be a hundred.

All I'm saying is that many people with almost no money are spending a hundred dollars a month on cigs, and I realized that NO ONE I know in a social way smokes at all. I'm just asking for observations from others.

The reason that you don't know people who smoke because you don't smoke. It's one of the basic social truths about being a smoker... the habit dictates associations. As a smoker, at work you will hang out with people you see smoking outside. At bars, you're more likely to talk to somebody who can offer you a light or a cigarette, or vice versa. Non-smokers hang out together because they want to breathe. Smokers hang out together because they want to be able to light up without a public shaming.

Yeah - it's an expensive, unbecoming habit. But it's not just a habit - it's an addiction to nicotine. And if people with almost no money are spending $100 a month on cigs (hey, I did it) I think it needs to be talked about as an addiction, and not simply as one of the disgusting things that poor people do. After all, nobody says a peep about the money that wealthy people spend on cigarettes, even though their addiction is just as real.

"people with almost no money are spending a hundred dollars a month on cigs"

From what source are you referring? :shrug:

It just seems to me, having read through this thread, that this isn't so much your "observation" as it is your judgment of others shortcomings in your eyes. Just an observation.

helping them figure out their benefits, employment, etc.

Judge not, etc.

use of alcohol has adversely affected careers than those affected by cigarettes.

In fact, I don't even know what to make of that strange sentiment.

Learning to drink moderately is not a universal lesson, and I think this points toward the crux of what I'm trying to explore: the difference between a pleasure and an addiction. When I see people enjoying drink in moderation, it's a very different spectacle from a drunken mob, or even more sad, someone drinking alone. There are examples of both pleasure and addiction.

I think that sharing a smoke is something that can go quickly from a pleasure to an addiction. A psychoactive substance used in private seems very different from one shared among friends.

College degree, own a home, stable job in the private sector.

But then I have been called White Trash.:crazy:

only smokes after sex. He smokes every single day but says he is a non smoker. :rofl:

Smoking, drinking, sex, board games, sporting events, gambling, get rid of it all.

:-(

And your analysis is pure nonsense.

especially when the job requires no operation of dangerous machinery.

:P

the heart, aids in digestion, etc. I personally don't drink but I don't think it's the alcohol, it's the alcoholism that destroys peoples lives. I know many people who drink moderately who are healthy and are health nuts.

There is a lot of evidence also that it is the additives in cigarettes that are truly dangerous, including fiberglass in filters. Moderate consumption of pure tobacco does not have a great effect on health. Many countries, especially Asian countries have a different attitude toward smoking. It is more for relaxation and recreation. Not uncommon for people to have a cigarette after a meal, with a couple of drinks, etc. I know many people in Thailand for example that smoke 3-4 cigarettes a day with no apparent ill effects.

I often find that alcoholics are almost always smokers.

I never saw so much coffee and cigarettes in my life. I was used to playing in smoky bars, but this was a whole different level.

in softball. They were chronic smokers - they smoked while playing ball. It was not unusual to see someone pitching with a lighted cigarette next to him which he would smoke in between plays.

I work in a professional building and there are plenty of smokers - and it transcends job description - anyone from lawyers to secretaries to the cafeteria workers. Few of my actual friends smoke, and no one in my immediate family does now (though my parents used to). I noticed a big drop off with smokers about 15 years ago, but then it started creeping back up.

I don't really have any close friends who are blue collar. Of the job categories of my friends, the heaviest group of smokers is definitely lawyers. It's not even close with my friends in other jobs.

depressed because of the pile of shit we seam to be stuck in, and thats why there seems to be more smokers. Funny though, the wingnuts still proffit.

many in my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) used to smoke but not a single one of them does now and haven't for at least 20 years, they may have a drink now and then though.

Its the only policy that makes sense in my mind. Smoking is the most pointlessly idiotic social mores in America today. I know a lot of young people who smoke cigarettes. They started when they were less than 16 years old because they thought it was cool and they aren't old enough to have emphysema or develop other health problems from it yet. I do know a number of young women who claim they only smoke when they go out to drink in bars, but I have no way of knowing if that's really true. They could be closet chain smokers at home for all I know. It boggles my mind that people are worried about pot when we have the cigarette industry getting hundreds of thousands of children addicted to a very deadly habit every year.

unless we are hurting other people.

and none of our friends smokes.

They do drink, moderately (though a couple drink more than I'm really happy with, but not enough to make themselves sick or anything, and they're very responsible about not drinking and driving)

I didn't get fired from my job as a newspaper editor and have to sell my four-bedroom home because management wanted to get rid of all the over-40 types in the newsroom.

It all happened because I smoke!

Your theory about heavy drinking/smoking, ie chronic, and socio-economic status only holds at the absolute bottom of the ladder. ie, those w/out much hope at all of digging out.

My experience is that "successful" people (defined as those doing a pretty good job of managing their lives)are moderate drinkers, and not smokers.

That's a broad statement: successful people, defined as those who do a pretty good job of managing their lives, are people who adjust well to society. Currently we are in a society that shakes its head at smoking and excessive drinking.

Take a crowd of say, a couple hundred highly successful people (by your definition), and put them in an atmosphere where attitudes towards excessive drinking, and smoking, are permissive and you will see them lighting up and getting plastered in no time.

which is that in a festival atmosphere people will engage in behavior that is not part of their everyday routine. Several posters in this thread have said they drink only in a bar, or at a party. Perhaps people who don't carry a pack of smokes will "bum" a cigarette or two or three when they're drinking.

My interest in this thread is in why alcohol and tobacco get lumped together when people talk about regulation, when their effects and use seem different to me.

(I'll let your "get out more" comment slide, 'cause you don't know my age or history.) :hi:

My interest in this thread is in why alcohol and tobacco get lumped together when people talk about regulation, when their effects and use seem different to me.

Most everyone has a vice of some sort, and doesn't want to be hassled about it. Try to regulate my vice, and I'll point out to you why the next guy's vice is much, much worse. Human nature.

Cigarettes and alcohol used to be in reverse position on the vice ladder; smokes were considered harmless, booze was a great evil. Now, it's flipped.

I really don't see the point of drinking. If you don't plan to get drunk then what is the difference between wine and a Coke? Oh, I remember now... traditions... Besides, alcoholic drinks are full of carbs!!

How is that better for you? :shrug:

Give me a glass of wine any day over a soda.

Wine was so important it had its own god.

I know personally or am somewhat acquainted with a LOT of 'successful' (ie socially integrated, gainfully employed) people who smoke, including quite a few educated professionals (attorneys, engineers, editors, university professors, even physicians). Your observations probably have a lot to do with the fact that the local culture is going to vary from place to place; you're on the West Coast, where smoking among the adult population is significantly lower on average than in the rest of the US; I'm in Atlanta. So whatever your observations may be, there's a REASON that anecdotal observation is considered a unreliable basis for forming an informed opinion; the fact that it relies on your own immediate and narrow frame of reference to draw conclusions quite often leads to erroneous ones.

from them alone. That's why I've been asking for the observations of others, some of whom have given their experiences and some of whom have gotten pretty huffy.

I do wonder about physicians who smoke, though. That would seem to involve serious cognitive dissonance.

I work with this population on issues of resources, budgeting, access to services, and so on. Almost 100% of them are smokers, and this is one of the things that prompted this OP. I'm noticing that all my "clients" are smokers, but none of my "peers."

I'm looking for the observations of others in this area, and some people have had interesting reports, different from my experiences.

I do smoke weed on occassion, but I hate tobacco. I drink more than moderately, but it doesn't control my life. I just like to party.

Many of the corporate assimilators that I know don't.

I work as a secretary to some fairly wealthy people, and their offspring. My observation is that they tend to drink socially, and do so quite a bit more than I do, or my friends do. It's harder to observe how many smoke these days since support staff generally do not socialize with the professional staff, and smoking is outlawed in office buildings.

However, in the days when smoking was permitted, I would say that those in the professional class probably smoked less and drank more, drank less beer and more spirits, were more likely to go for cigars.

In other words, sometimes smoking and drinking became markers of social status. Alcoholism knows no class, though, and I've known more than a few alcoholics in the office, among all "classes."

they give away drinks, ferchrissakes. they glorify drunks. the most successful group of artists in chicago were represented by a gallery that was famous for the punch served at openings. it was about 80% hard liquor.
the whole industry would pretty much dry up and blow away without alcohol. the only thing that might save us is the obsessive compulsive collectors. but i'm not sure how many of them would even be spending without liquor.

die.

often enough. The generalizations, over-simplification, classist, views you espouse here indicate an undeserved felling of personal superiority. I'm guessing you're not really that bad IRL.

I'll take both and. Take my wife...please.

Oooooh. It gets bettah!

Ba-dum-dum-cha!

The rest are social drinkers, like me. In fact, my friend's health is in danger because of the amount she smokes. She has lymphedema of her right arm, which the doctor 'thinks' would go away if she quit smoking.

She smokes outside when she comes to my house, but isn't happy about it. She is terribly, terribly addicted.

My other friends are not big drinkers. As 'lacrosse moms', we don't do happy hours or things like that. Occasionally, we go out to eat, and once a month get together to play bunko, (12 of us).

I think there must be a couple who are closet smokers, but they must be WAY in the closet because I've never seen it.