Five Reasons People Start and Continue to Smoke

It's the advice we hear from cradle to grave these days, from teachers, parents, the media, and everyone in between. So why is it that so many people still smoke in spite of all the warning and pleading not to? Why do so many people ignore the obvious health risks to continue an expensive and potentially deadly habit? It's a complex question, but we think we've wrapped our heads around it. The reasons can essentially be broken down into why people start smoking and why they continue smoking.

Why People Start Smoking

Many people begin smoking when they are teenagers. There are several reasons for this:

1) The desire to look cool

By far the biggest reason people start smoking is the desire to look cool. To a twelve-to-sixteen-year-old kid without much life experience, smoking a cigarette feels like a cool, "mature" thing to do. This is especially true if most of the adults in his or her life (parents, relatives, bosses at work, etc.) smoke cigarettes and have for most of their lives. Teenagers are still creatures of imitations, and if they perceive cigarette smoking as the "adult" thing to do, they will do it.

2) Peer pressure

Another reason people start smoking is peer pressure. While everyone responds to peer pressure differently, most kids are highly susceptible to its influences when they are in their early teens. This is when they care more about the opinions of their friends than anything else and will do almost anything to stay in their friends' good graces. Sadly, this can lead to things even worse than cigarette smoking, such as vandalism or hardcore drug abuse.

3) Rebellion

Between the ages of twelve and sixteen, kids also really begin to push the envelope in terms of rules and social boundaries. One way of doing this is to smoke cigarettes despite – or perhaps because of – pleas to the contrary. Kids are probably more likely to smoke if this pleading comes in the form of demanding (e.g., "you had BETTER not smoke!") than if it comes in the form of calm, rational explanations (e.g., "we can't follow you around and stop you, but we want you to know the health risks").

4) Poor coping skills

Some people begin smoking to numb their stress, which cigarettes are quite good at doing in the short-term. A teenager or adult with poorly developed coping skills, who has not learned proper strategies for solving life problems and dealing with stress, is more apt to start smoking than someone who has learned such strategies. Unfortunately, such people often truly don't know any better, and are just trying to feel better as best they know how.

5) Social habit became addiction

Still other people began smoking socially (at parties, after going out to eat, etc.) with no intention of becoming addicted. They may have started by only smoking cigarettes that addicted smokers offered to them in social situations, justifying it with statements like "well, as long as I'm not buying my own and smoking all the time, it's okay." While some people can pull this off, others cannot, and for them social smoking is just a greased chute leading to full-blown addiction.