Question To The Guys Who Don't Only Smoke Hookah

[guyt]

My brother is a pretty heavy smoker, one to two packs a day. I know he's been trying to quit so I thought of getting him a hookah as a substitute. Does that work at all or will it just make it more difficult to quit? I guess I'm asking if any smokers hear can cut the craving by lighting a bowl? I have an extra acrylic that I was going to give him, but if it makes it harder I'll just keep it

[Ooph]

It will help him quit generally. He will also get addicted to Hookah in the process.

[RayVer]

Actually I do know of someone that almost entirely reduced smoking cigs by smoking hookah.. What he did is every time he got an urge he would light up the hookah...over time he just let down the cigs. It takes a while to set up the hookah so he slowly let that down too. He still smokes a cig here and there but nothing in the amount of what he used to.

[Geiseric]

I did that. I actually kicked quite a few bad habbits that way, Whenever my friends were smoking cigs or whatever else I was trying to quit I would just pack a bowl and smoke some hookah. Dropped cigs cold turkey that way. But now I smoke hookah at least once a day, everyday.

..I hope I stayed far enough from naming names to avoid the ban hammer.

[chinamon]

isnt that almost like getting someone to switch from drinking lots of coffee to drinking lots of pepsi?

[MechAnt]

Chinamon has a point but I do have to say the main reason I quit cigs is because of hookah. It doesn't taste as good.

[iamscott06]

Yea i used to smoke cigs (not hardcore).. not much but like a pack every couple days.. But not after smoking so much hookah a cig just tastes like crap.. unless its some delicous flavored tobacoo from a store that i roll myself

[Canon]

Cigs and cigars make you stink (For the most part) Hookah doesnt.

[Geiseric]

I have lost my taste for fine cigars since becoming more into smoking hookah.

[dude3516]

I personally enjoy a good Onyx cigar, but deffinately the hookah takes the cake.

[leadpipecinch21]

mmm, onyx cigars are fantastic...a little expensive, but they're nice every once and a while.

and no, smoking hookah still gives you the nicotine buzz...it may help you to stop for a little while, but you'll eventually fall back in to smoking cigs...trust me, i started off with cigs, switched strictly to hookah, but once it became too much of a hassle to set up the hookah every time i bought cigarettes to smoke instead...so...

[Geiseric]

I never had that problem. Then again, I never smoked 2 packs a day, at the most I smoked half a pack a day.

[tj154906]

It will help him quit generally. He will also get addicted to Hookah in the process.

This past summer I smoked my hookah 2 or 3 times a day, almost every single day, for the entire summer, and when I came back to school and had to slow down to once a week, I had absolutely no problem doing so. That leads me to beleive that it's pretty tough to get addicted to smoking hookah. I suppose it would depend on the tobacco you smoke, but I smoked both washed and unwashed shisha. And then, maybe would be different for someone who was already addicted to nicotine, but I think that smoking hookah is a damn fine way to quit smoking cigs. I've seen plenty of people pull it off, many of whom had tried without the hookah before and failed miserably.

smoking hookah still gives you the nicotine buzz...it may help you to stop for a little while, but you'll eventually fall back in to smoking cigs...trust me, i started off with cigs, switched strictly to hookah, but once it became too much of a hassle to set up the hookah every time i bought cigarettes to smoke instead...so...

I'm sure it takes more than just a hookah to quit smoking. Willpower?

(edited for spelling ) Edited November 17, 2007 by tj154906

[Bushbr]

i used to smoke cigs hardcore, but when i got into hookah, i majorly slowed down. now that it's winter though it doesn't pay to take out the hookah *cant smoke inside* so im back on cigs

[guyt]

I know hookah isn't healthy but it is much less harmful than cigs. I just thought maybe it can make the process easier like the patch or the gum.

[Kathrynx]

i used to smoke cigs hardcore, but when i got into hookah, i majorly slowed down. now that it's winter though it doesn't pay to take out the hookah *cant smoke inside* so im back on cigs

But you still have to go outside right? Get you a jacket and a blanket and enjoy the cold while smoking. We do it all the time here...

[Geiseric]

Around here we call that hypothermia.

[Clammmms]

Meh...I don't know. I smoke cigarettes and hookahs and honestly the hookah doesn't satisfy me when I want a cigarette. It's not really about the nicotine. It's more the act of smoking a cigarette that I usually want, so for me, smoking hookah isn't a good substitute.

That's just me, though.

[erufiku]

I'll get back to you when I receive my hookah!
So far I've been smoking on and off for a few years, up to a pack a day this summer...
Then I went to England where everyone rolls and started doing that. Got sick of it after a few months, and now (after a major cut-back) I smoke 1-3 cigs/day.
I'm really hoping that shisha will help me kick the nasty habit. Hell, I don't even enjoy my cigarette anymore. Everything from the smell, taste, aftertaste, and afterstrench makes me sick :/

[PirateNinja415]

I have friends that smoke cigarettes, and they say that when they smoke hookah they loose the urge to have a cig. One of them told me that having the smoke in his mouth satifies him enough. I think it differs from person to person though

[Xeft]

As I've said before.

The nicotine level on a 50gram box of shisha is lower than a pack of cigs...by ALOT..

So honestly...everytime your brother has an urge to smoek a cigarette he'll probably want to smoke a bowl of shisha. In which case takes a long time setting up compared to lighting up 1 simple cigarette. Which means, this switching to hookah thing...probably wont work for him.

[cloudS*****]

-If you get him smoking AF, he'll be back on cig's in like five minutes. If you get him going on tangiers/starbuzz, it should fill every bit of his nicotine addiction. I used to smoke cigs, like a pack a day, now i only smoke like 5 cigs a day and thats because i work at a restaurant and i get like 2-minute smoke breakes. I couldn't even set-up a hookah/burn a coal in that time.

[guyt]

I know it's still not going to be easy to quit. I'm just trying to help him figure out the easiest way to quit, if it only mitigates the cravings but doesn't completely stop them its still something.

[Rani]

My friends at work and I who are all into hookah found several articles in which they stated that the worse thing about cigarettes is...... The paper! Sure, the tar that they add to cigarettes is pretty bad too, but the absolute worst thing in the cigarette is the bloody paper they're wrapped in. Which does make some kind of historical sense. Hookah and pure tobacco (Native Americans) have been smoked for centuries with seemingly no historical evidence that it causes lung problems. That could be that documentation didn't exist to show any correlation, but it could also be that tobacco has become deadly because of the new way it's been used. Loaded with tar and wrapped in paper that produces CO2 as it burns. I'm never going to say that inhaling anything but pure air is anything but bad for you. But compared to cigiarettes, hookah is definitely many steps above.

'Rani

[Zabiela]

At the moment a good friend of mine who was a pack-a-day smoker for 5 years has quit for 5 weeks now. Whenever he comes over, he's of course super eager to use the hookah. We dont really smoke more hookah than we used to, he just looks forward to it more. And he says it himself- it helps with his cigarette cravings. I think its a good thing, I think sharing even 2 bowls of hookah a day isnt nearly as bad for your lungs as smoking 20 cigarettes.