Key takeaways
- Smoking once a year seems harmless, but addiction can form habits.
- Immediate exposure to smoke carries health risks
- Once-a-year smokers light up still at risk of addiction
- Light smoking still causes permanent damage
- Physiological impact depends on individual factors.
Smoking once a year seems harmless enough. After all, you’re not forming a dangerous habit and are just going for a ‘one-off’ naughty little day of smoking – surely that won’t affect your life for the long term, right?
For most smokers, addiction and habit formation leads to ingrained gestures that are hard to break and only tempt them to keep on smoking. This is something that once-a-year smokers shouldn’t have much of an issue with.
But still, the immediate exposure to cigarette smoke, even if it’s once annually, still carries many dangers that could cause permanent health issues.
Let’s take a closer look at them in this post.
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The Once-a-Year Smoker
You or probably someone you know may have admitted that they’re a once-in-a-year smoker – that is, they only light up a ciggie during their birthday, Christmas, or certain anniversaries where they choose to consume tobacco as a tradition.
From their explanation, it seems like a wise decision; they don’t form habits around ciggies and they enjoy its benefits completely – receiving the full ‘high’ it can bring that frequent smokers couldn’t feel anymore.
Once-yearly smokers are different from occasional and social smokers – occasional smokers only smoke once or twice a month (or even as frequent as every Saturday), while social smokers only consume tobacco during parties, birthdays, holidays, and any event they deem suitable to smoke.
Smoking once a year does sound better for you, but it doesn’t leave the annual smoker unscathed after their ciggie.
Effects of Infrequent Smoking
We’ve recently discussed that ‘light’ smoking, or smoking just one cigarette per day, still has the same danger as that of frequent smoking. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that it only takes one cigarette to cause permanent damage to your body.
Smoking contains ammonia, aldehydes, carbon monoxide, cadmium, and other dangerous chemicals that can exacerbate prior conditions or comorbidities.
For instance, if you’re a once-yearly smoker but consume tobacco while having an unidentified comorbidity, you could be increasing the risk the comorbidity could bring about.
Moreover, you have the least to worry about nicotine addiction by smoking yearly, but your body might have immediate allergic or adverse reactions to various chemicals in cigarette smoke.
Most smokers experience immediate allergic reactions that might worsen or dissipate over time as their body gets used to the triggers from cigarette smoke.
Given that our bodies change and can still develop new allergies as we age, a certain chemical from the smoke you inhale once a year could trigger a possible weak or extremely lethal allergic reaction.
Physiological Impact
According to studies, it only takes one puff for adolescents to get hooked on nicotine. Will smoking once a year cause the same problem for adults?
In most cases, smoking once a year won’t immediately cause anyone to get addicted to cigarettes and nicotine, but as always, there are a few caveats.
America’s Rehab Campuses lists various factors that can cause someone to get addicted to cigarettes, drugs, and other substances:
- Genetics
- Physical health
- Any mental health conditions such as anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, and depression
- The environment one grew up and lives in
- A constant presence of drugs
- Peers who abuse drugs
Even if you don’t have any of these triggers that increase the risk of addiction, the study also mentions that some vices are much more addictive than others.
And if you consume ciggies once yearly and continuously feel that it’s pleasurable and something you’d like to have daily, it might be having a negative impact on you – and that might be a sign to stop your yearly cigarette consumption.
Smoking Cessation Is Still the Best Case Scenario
Whether you’re a once-yearly smoker or a frequent smoker, the only way to consume tobacco safely is to not consume it at all. Tobacco smoking – whether just one stick or three 20s packs daily – brings about a huge number of preventable diseases in the future.
While this advice mostly suits frequent smokers, once-yearly smokers can also benefit from using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), the first-line solutions that help wean smokers off nicotine.
Even if you’re a once-yearly smoker, you might have felt the temptation to light up another ciggie because you’ve missed the taste and high it brings. NRT patches, gum, lozenges, and other products can help you delay your decision and ultimately stop you from lighting another stick.
And if you feel that the longing for cigarettes, even after just smoking once, is becoming progressively stronger after your single stick, it will help to see a smoking cessation GP and get yourself away from ciggies before you get stuck in too deep.
Summary
Smoking once a year might be the least risky of all possible consumptions of cigarettes, but it doesn’t mean you’re safe from nicotine addiction. It only takes one puff to make you change your mind, and only a single puff to trigger a possible underlying health issue and make it worse.
This is why it’s much better to quit even if you have the least risk of forming a habit around smoking. And we understand this isn’t an easy process – so we’re here to help.
Smokefree Clinic gives you access to many medically reviewed and trustworthy resources that can inform and aid you in your path to wellness, so have a look around!
If you’re ready to get started, Smokefree can connect you to friendly Australian healthcare professionals who excel in helping patients quit smoking for good, including using responsible vaping products where appropriate.