Enjoyment Versus Compulsion in Cigarette Smoking: A Tolerance-Based Account of an Enjoyment-Gating Rule, With Testable Predictions
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Accounts of nicotine dependence usually count cigarettes as equivalent units. This article develops an informal observation by the author into a theoretical account in which cigarettes differ in kind. The core claim is that "the compulsion to smoke when you dont [*sic*] want to causes the problems that you have," and that smoking only when it is enjoyable "reduces the feelings to need to smoke." The author identifies tolerance as what separates an enjoyed cigarette from a compulsive one, gives a momentary cue (a cigarette smoked "if you already have a buzz" is compulsion), and names the recovery interval: "Overnight." I formalize these claims as the enjoyment gate (smoke only when you would truly enjoy it) and a mechanism in which enjoyment requires low acute tolerance, whereas cigarettes smoked under high tolerance mainly relieve withdrawal. The author frames the gate plus the overnight rule as self-titration ("It's the dosage"), a gradual taper like those used in psychiatric and nicotine-replacement dosing. He also views periodic use as operant self-conditioning toward quitting ("It's like click training yourself") that "can be good and bad," since enjoyed cigarettes also reinforce smoking. I relate the account to incentive sensitization, habit, opponent-process models, nicotine and stress, scheduled reduced smoking, sensorimotor factors in smoking, and harm reduction, derive eleven falsifiable predictions, and sketch an ecological momentary assessment design.
Author: Withington, Cole David
Institution: Portland State University
Language: English
Subfield: Physiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222713131
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