i’ll stop smoking when…
looking at the tobacco-related news today, i was struck by something:
addicts don't count the cost; in fact, that's one of the most obvious things that marks someone as an addict.
the number of business owners who, in the wake of the federal government raising cigarette taxes and big tobacco (specifically RJ Reynolds) raising wholesale prices, worry that their businesses will be hurt because their customers won't be able to afford cigarettes any more, so they'll stop smoking.
which is, of course, nonsense: a practicing addict doesn't ask how much the substance to which they're addicted costs; it doesn't really matter.
and if the business owners who expressed these worries were uniformly non-smokers, i wouldn't find it so striking; i wouldn't expect non-addicts to understand the dynamics of addiction, one of which is, "price is no object".
but i do find it striking that business owners who are also smokers would have any such fear; after all, i'd think they would understand that their smoking customers aren't going to quit because cigarettes cost too much: they may bitch about it, but they'll pony up, just like the store owners themselves will.
but then, one of the things that practicing addicts are very good at is denial...
when i started smoking, cigarettes cost around 33 cents a pack. of course, the price rose steadily, and i remember swearing that i'd quit if the price ever went over 50 cents. well, the price went over 50 cents around 1972 and i continued to smoke. i also remember swearing that i'd quit if the price ever went over a dollar. lo and behold, the price went over a dollar and i continued to smoke. i also remember swearing i'd quit if the price ever went over a buck and a half, which of course it did, and yeah, you guessed it: i continued to smoke. (sensing a pattern here?)
when i finally quit for good at the end of 2001, a pack of name-brand cigarettes was running around $5.00, and i was still ponying up. in fact, if i hadn't been diagnosed with emphysema and had a doctor who made it real clear how horrifying it would be to die by suffocation in a few years' time if i didn't quit smoking before the emphysema got worse, i'd be paying $7.50 a pack now.
i'd be bitching about it, bit i'd still be paying it.
because addicts don't count the cost. that's one of the most obvious things that marks someone as an addict; in spite of the cost, the health consequences, the inconvenience (or even the legality, depending on what they're addicted to), an addict will continue to feed their addiction until they choose to stop, or until it kills them.
i read an interview with one tobacco store owner who said that, for her customers, with the economy the way it is, and the tax increases, and the price increases, "It could come down to do [they] buy a pack of cigarettes, or do [they] buy a loaf of bread?"
if that's what it comes down to, i guess i'd rather own the tobacco store than the bakery...
