AmberMK
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2017
Generally speaking, I have no sympathy for smokers. Filthy and intrusive habit. And yet... I have a great deal of sympathy for those people dealing with anxiety. So... Here we are...
If my anxiety were assuaged by smoking cigarettes, I would find a way. Nature of that beast is that it is a transgression of the rules and it's an obvious one. Literally , where there's smoke... Have you tried vaping? Tobacco addicts I've talked with tell me it hits the spot nearly as well as a pall mall. If so, get the sort that lets you choose the liquid separately. The liquid comes in various strengths. Get a juice that delivers a cigarette's worth of nicotine with just a puff or two. If your liquid is mild in flavor and not blatantly tobacco flavored you would be able to sneak a puff from time to time without anyone knowing or caring. A friend of mine vaped throughout a day at Cedar Point, exhaling through the straw of a half-empty cup of ice water.
I don't know what the WDW policy on vaping is. I've seen a fellow guest huff on a nicorette inhaler at his table in the Yachtsman. Yet it's often the case that e-cigs are lumped in with cigarettes as an analog. In such a case, While you might be able to puff away completely undetected, I wouldn't advise you to attempt to dodge the rules. That said, finding an e-cig that satisfies you might still be a better option because you can choose a juice that get's you the nicotine in less time. Dodging out to a smoking section is still a hassle but less so than if, once you get there, it takes 6-8 minutes to puff through a smoke.
I get where you are Cobright, the whole smoking vs suffering thing, I was actually in much the same place as you when I was younger. I hated that my parents smoked, I hated being around it, and I even had a rule that there was no smoking in my room which had a fan to keep the awful stuff out, which to their credit my parents heeded with much grace so I always had a place to escape it.
It wasn't until my early teens, as my anxiety really started to "bloom" that I found the more I was around my smoking parents, the calmer I was for a time afterwards. Talk about a smack in the face, I had berated them for years, but in my mid teens I smoked my first one, and I can not even begin to tell you the relief that flooded through me as my mind settled, and anytime things got bad I picked one up, hated myself for it, but did it anyway, cause it helped. I am fairly sure I only made it through school because of it. It wasn't until I got pregnant that I tried to find out what was wrong with me and fix it.
I have indeed tried all of the patches, gums, candies, and inhalers, and when my father (a 3 pack a day chain smoker) managed to quit using vapor, I was all over it. I even got to the point where I learned to mix my own and was buying straight pure chemicals and mixing it up myself trying to make it work. I can officially report for my particular mix of issues, it is *not* just the nicotine or the ritual, there is something else going on. I do wish medicine would find the people like me and try to figure it out, I really do.
It is not in my nature to break the rules, I'm a big believer in rules, so I am *fairly* sure I won't be trying to sneak into a bush or the bathroom to smoke where I'm not supposed to (I say fairly because, well, in a panic state ya just never know what one will do and I tend to be overly honest about myself). But I have found in my life that I am the exception to the very general rule. Where I will leave if I am able before I break a rule, most people will put their own issues ahead of the rule. I am not saying I'm better than anyone else, I know I'm not. It just seems to be a very general trend in human nature. If ya gotta smoke, you're gonna smoke, so once again I'm not entirely sure what Disney was thinking about when they decided it was a fantastic idea to have only two DSAs in parks the size of MK and AK, as it seems they are just encouraging huge amounts of rule breaking by those that are of the mindset and forcing their guests like you, Cobright, to be at constant risk once again of being in a cloud of smoke at random and unable to avoid it.