Is social smoking really all that bad for me?

Dear Reader,  

While it may not seem like much, smoking even once or twice a week can have negative effects on your health. Whether you identify as a daily smoker, a social smoker, or even a non-smoker, any exposure to cigarette smoke can impact your health. Even infrequent smoking increases your risk of heart disease, lung disease, cancer, and stroke. While it’s hard to say exactly what the risk is, research has found that no amount of smoking is considered safe.

What are the physical health risks of social smoking?

Social, infrequent smoking carries negative health outcomes just like other smoking behaviors. Even if you don’t smoke every day, you’re still at risk of having more smoking-related illnesses and chances of death than those who don’t smoke. The risk for complications like cancer and heart disease for someone smoking just one cigarette per day is similar to that of someone smoking 20 cigarettes per day. In addition, social smoking can lead to more exposure to secondhand smoke, which has physical health risks including lung and heart disease.  

What are the mental health risks of social smoking?

Smoking is a risk factor for developing and worsening mental illness. This includes anxiety and depression, both of which can make it harder to quit. Even infrequent smoking can damage the nervous system and alter how your body reacts to stress. In between cigarettes, withdrawal symptoms can come on as nicotine levels in the body decline. To combat these symptoms, people often return for another cigarette and feel what they assume to be a temporary relief from their mental health concerns. This therefore causes them to associate smoking with de-stressing. However, the behavior of returning for another cigarette and feeling minor relief is actually only a response to the withdrawal symptoms they’re feeling. This is not in fact addressing their mental health concerns.  

When it comes to smoking frequency and mental health, the number of cigarettes you smoke each day, rather than how many days you smoke, can correlate with your anxiety levels. People who quit often report improvement in their mental health. This is because smoking affects coping mechanisms and can cause outside stressors to impact your mental health even more.

How does your social setting impact your desire to smoke?

Social smoking is often tied to the need for social interaction, and people can develop smoking cravings to satisfy their social needs. The stimuli associated with a behavior can increase the urge to do that behavior. Locations like clubs and bars have smoking-related cues that can lead to cravings. People often understand smoking as reasonable and harmless within these settings because it's perceived as normal behavior. However, this doesn’t eliminate the harm associated with smoking, and instead acts as a trigger to light up a cigarette even when you know the potential consequences. While smoking socially may lead you to have a lower dependence, you may still struggle to quit because of these social norms tied to your identity as a social smoker. You may experience psychological and physical urges to smoke in social settings and avoiding these settings may make it easier for you to quit.

How can you reduce your desire to smoke socially?

As you reflect on your smoking habits, it may be useful to consider some of the reasons why you smoke. You mention you only smoke when you go out to clubs—what is it about this experience that makes you want to smoke? Are your friends smoking as well? If they are, what would it look like if you still went out, but did not smoke with them? Sometimes people feel pressure to smoke to fit in with a group. If your smoking is primarily to satisfy this urge for social interaction, maybe you could still fulfill that without smoking by instead having a snack or chewing some gum while others smoke. You might also consider finding ways to interact with those friends in new settings that you don’t associate with smoking. Alternatively, you might consider if it makes sense to branch out and find other friends who don’t participate in habits you’re trying to avoid.  

Smoking, even socially, is not without risk. And it’s up to you as an individual to make the best decision for your health and well-being. If you’re interested in quitting, consider reaching out to a health care provider or check out smokefree.gov for resources to support you on this journey.  

Best of luck!