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Imagine if nicotine had network effects (edit: I mean as strong network effects as fb). You can't quit unless all your friends do too. I hear some alcoholics ha
by 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Imagine if nicotine had network effects (edit: I mean as strong network effects as fb). You can't quit unless all your friends do too. I hear some alcoholics have a similar challenge when their social life revolves around drinking with peer pressure not to abstain.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago>Imagine if nicotine had network effects. You can't quit unless all your friends do too. As a former smoker, it took me moving from an office full of smokers to an office where I was the only smoker to finally motivate me to quit for good. I tapered down over about a year with a vape though, and I think that almost has an anti-network effect in that you kind of look like a bellend!
- ugjka 5y agoNicotine patches and Wellbutrin; I can be around 100 smokers and not give a shit
- speedybird 5y agoMy father picked up smoking when he joined the Navy so that he could participate in the smoke breaks. Fortunately he managed to quit when he got out. I wager many started smoking for the same reason, and never quit.
- tombert 5y agoWhile it was fortunately never a problem for me (I've never really drank a lot), when I did business travel for a living, it was pretty common to go to bars after work and expense some drinks to the company (the CEO knew about this, we weren't breaking rules). I remember thinking that if I were an alcoholic, this would either be the best job in the world or the worst job in the world, depending on your perspective. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to actually quick full-blown alcoholism if all the booze is free. Obviously you were allowed to just buy a soda or seltzer or something, and that's usually what I did, but I could totally see it being ten times harder to quit when all your drinks are comped and all your peers are drinking around you.
- jamiek88 5y agoMe stopping drinking ruined my career. I was unable to compete in the deep dark of late night initiation/boozing ceremonies that still drive most major business deals in certain verticals. When you’ve puked next to a ceo, they take your calls.
- nonameiguess 5y agoIt does. It's pretty common for friends groups to grow around everyone at a school, a dorm, an office, that take smoke breaks together.
- wintermutestwin 5y agoTrue story: I once got a major promotion because the boss was a smoker and he overheard me talking about coding - "oh, you can code?"