i started quitting almost as soon as i started smoking, and never really considered myself a smoker, but i had to live in the real world, and i found the withdrawals impossible to deal with. i'm sure they're less violent than any withdrawals i'd be dealing with from cocaine.
so, even when i was a smoker, i'd quit for a month or two over and over, but i kept relapsing because i kept having to work two jobs, or kept having to stay awake all weekend to finish an art project. i kept quitting, but i kept coming back to it to use it like strong coffee. i couldn't get out of this loop, where i needed the nicotine to be productive.
and, that lasted until the start of 2016, when i finally cut myself off. i no longer had to do anything, and i was increasing my estrogen intake to a point where smoking was becoming a serious risk factor. i had to stop; it was time.
and, i did. i succeeded. finally.
since then, i've relapsed many times, largely as a function of marijuana use. in fact, it's one of the reasons i've decided to strongly reduce my marijuana intake - i can't find a way to use marijuana, even casually, without relapsing back to tobacco. i'm still trying to figure this out; i still don't have an answer.
but, i need to be clear that i don't defend myself for doing this. when i relapse, i'm failing. i'm not asserting my rights (smoking is not a right, and it's stupid to suggest it is) or being free or anything like that - i'm failing in an addiction that i'm largely over, but still struggle with occasionally. i'm relapsing, and i'm not proud of it when i do it.
but, i have the decency and common courtesy to make an attempt to minimize the effects it may have on others when i do fail for a few days or a few weeks (it's never more than that) at a time by ensuring that i smoke away from the house and away from other people. so, i go for a walk. and, if somebody on the street were to address me about it, i would be sure to avoid their house when i'm walking. i'm very conscious of this.
you hear more about this on the anarchist right (the real anarchist right, not this randian selfishness-as-a-virtue bs), but it's a shared value on the anarchist left, even if it's often articulated differently. you can cite mill's harm principle or the nap, or ancient celtic customary law, but it's a foundational principle of all forms of anarchism:
my rights end where my neighbours' rights begin
what that means is that smokers that are also libertarians or anarchists need to be concerned about the externalities of their behaviour, otherwise they're not really anarchists - they're randian objectivists. anarchists give a fuck, because they understand that they can't have a functional stateless society unless they do. and, what that means is that the nap actually negates the concept of smokers' rights, due to the external effects of the behaviour, just as it would negate the right to produce any other sort of pollution.
i'm very conscious of this.
it frustrates me to no end that others simply aren't.
but, i know that very few people know how to think in this society, because they're not taught how to; in fact, they're explicitly taught how not to think. and, this is the result of that.
i don't care if my neighbours smoke, as a moral principle, or something. but, as a rights concern, i insist i have the right to breathe fresh air, and insist they adhere to a basic libertarian rights framework, which means that they smoke away from other people, if they choose to.
in context, that means that you don't smoke inside when you've signed a non-smoking lease, as my landlord has.
and, i'm just waiting for basic honesty on the point.