Is smoking–or alcoholism–responsible for misbehaviors?
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month (a “half-truthâ€): Smokers are more likely to get into trouble than non-smokers.
“Researchers found that Navy recruits who smoke before enlistment are nearly twice as likely to be expelled for behavioral issues. The study of 6,950 Navy recruits entering active duty in 2001 also found that smokers were five times more likely than nonsmokers to have skipped classes in high school and five times more likely to have been arrested or detained by police for non-traffic offenses. ‘Smoking suggests other types of problematic behavior,’ said Eli Flyer, one of the study’s authors and a former senior analyst for the Department of Defense.â€
So wrote Charles Duhigg in the Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2005 in “Beyond a craving: Despite all the evidence, why do some still smoke? Smokers suffer more depression and other mental disorders, studies show, yet nicotine may actually help them cope.”
The study’s authors seem completely unaware of several facts:
• Almost all alcoholics are smokers
• Recruits who inherited alcoholism triggered it at an average age of 13
• Many of those studied were already in the throes of early-stage alcoholism
We’re hampered by the fact that the study didn’t separate the alcoholic smokers from the non-alcoholic ones. However, alcohol causes distortions of perception and memory in susceptible individuals, resulting in impaired judgment, manifesting in observably destructive behaviors. Tobacco does none of these things. The researchers completely missed the idea that early-stage alcoholism explains the misbehaviors, while smoking, however much it is demonized, does not. Studies are needed to confirm the prediction that problem behaviors among non-alcoholic smokers are no different than those of non-alcoholic non-smokers.
The assertion that smokers suffer more depression and other mental disorders is also misplaced. The researchers were observing behaviors that look like Personality Disorders, but are usually symptoms of alcoholism, discussed in How to Spot Hidden Alcoholics (pp. 99-109), and Alcoholism Myths and Realities (pp. 82-88).
The researchers also claimed that smokers “consistently demonstrate higher-than-average levels of…high-risk behaviors, and show poorer impulse control than non-smokers.”However, alcoholism, not smoking, causes euphoric recall, which in turn fuels egomania, one manifestation of which is unnecessarily risky behavior. In addition, alcoholism damages the neo-cortex, reducing its ability to restrain the survival and emotional needs of the lower brain centers, resulting in poor impulse control.
The study seems to have completely missed the underlying cause of the misbehaviors observed. The report has done great disservice to a public already focused on reducing the use of tobacco rather than the use of alcohol by those with the biochemical disease of alcoholism. Far greater emphasis should be placed on addicted people whose misbehaviors regularly harm others than on those who damage mainly themselves.