If a lot of cigarette smokers can’t go more than a few hours without a cigarette, how are they able to sleep through the night without getting up to get one?
If a lot of cigarette smokers can’t go more than a few hours without a cigarette, how are they able to sleep through the night without getting up to get one?
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Because they are unconscious
same way you don’t wake up to drink or eat
Even if the addiction is strong it’s a choice if your tried you’re tired but there is some who smoke right before bed or do get up if they can’t sleep
Craving comes from brain. If brain decides not to crave, there’s no crave. Asleep brain craves a lot less. Also, there’s often no crave with strong common cold, like fever, runny nose and swollen throat. I guess brain is too busy being sick. Even if chemical craving is there, cigarette seems to have no taste and a smoker can go long time without one. Or on the other hand, when drunk, veteran smokers tend to smoke triple the rate. Again, there’s no real reason. Brain signals are just messed up due alcohol.
It’s all about brain, really.
The addiction is in the mind. Allen Carr’s “Easyway” (stop smoking book) uses this very idea… if you can go 8 hours through the night, surely it can also be done during waking hours (if you really wanted to)
I’ve known people who wake up in the night to have a cigarette. When I was a smoker I’d rarely wake up. I guess your sleeping state suppresses the cravings. I don’t know. I do remember waking up ‘needing’ a cigarette really badly
Some people do wake up to smoke in the middle of the night. Of course, being dead to the world asleep helps probably.
The same way masturbaters get thru the night. One last time before bed.
If I wake up in the middle of the night for some water or to use the bathroom I will lay back down in bed and think, ” I should go out for a smoke”. I tell myself it is 3:22 am, it is -42°C out, you will be frozen, and it’s stupid because you can wait until the morning. I will toss and turn, and toss and turn until I go outside and have at least a few puffs.
Does anyone know if this means I am addicted to cigarettes? /s
Because we are asleep
Wake up, first things first…coffee and cigarette
One of my pals had a huge vaping problem and his body would wake him up at night (while straight up entering withdrawal) to hit the vape and then go back to bed. But the strength of his vape was equivalent to like smoking an entire cigarette in a pull. I don’t know that cigarettes themselves are addictive enough to result in this, I think most bodies are able to make it 8-12 hours without withdrawal.
Also, my pal has quit and I am so proud of him!
I used to actually wake up in the night to go outside for a cigarette
Usually by making up for it by chain smoking in the morning
It is said that if you smoke more during the morning than during evening you are more addicted to it.
I once had neighbours in a set of town houses who smoked over a pack a day each. They only slept for about two hours at a time between smokes (the guy explained it to me). If I came home late or had to get up in the night for any reason, i could look out my window and they were almost guaranteed to be sitting outside smoking.
Cigarettes are expensive in Australia, and they spent more per week on smokes than we did on rent.
Not a good way to live.
I used to be a two packs a day smoker. I never once woke up jonesing for a smoke. Now, if I had to get up to pee, I might go outside and have one, admittedly.
Because you is sleeping and brain turn off now
They do. My dad has smoked 2 packs a day since he was a teenager. He’s 56 now. He gets up in the middle of the night to smoke and then goes back to bed. Been doing it forever. I used to stay up super late when I was a teenager and sometimes my dad would be sitting on the couch in the dark smoking a cigarette.
Smoking in bed used to be popular until all the fires.
I had a colleague of mine who told me her husband was an excessive smoker and had to get up every few hours or so to smoke
My uncle would wake up and have a smoke in the middle of the night. He passed away from lung cancer before he turned 50. His younger brother got lung cancer about a decade later and passed away before he turned 60. My father now has lung cancer just a few years after his second brother died from it. Please do not smoke cigarettes. Switch to non-tobacco nicotine at a minimum to give yourself a chance.
Only time when I went out for a smoke in the middle of a night was in the summer when I woke up because it was too hot and humid. Pretty much nobody who smokes that I know goes to smoke during the night.
My dad used to wake up in the middle of the night to smoke cigarettes he used to smoke 60 a day, he’s been off them 20+ years now though
I know more than a few who wake up several times a night for a cigarette.
They do get up an smoke
As a child I had a friend whose dad smoked, he’d get up around 2am hacking a lung out, go outside, smoke, and go back to bed
I did it when I smoked. Now I vape so I kind of roll over and hit it while I’m still mostly asleep
My wife’s uncle died in a house fire because he woke up, lit a cigarette in bed, and fell asleep with it landing on his mattress.
When I smoked I would usually end up going out side and having a cigarette if I woke up to pee or have some water.
I’ll add that when I did quit one thing I noticed was I slept much, much better after a week or two. I’m convinced that smoking means poorer sleep.
Used to smoke a pack a day. The trick is that your metabolism slows down while sleeping so nicotine actually stays in your system longer.
They get up in the middle of the night to smoke. I never did when I smoked, but that’s one thing they helped me quit was to realize that most of the time I’m not actually smoking and that I’d be OK if I wasn’t.
I haven’t smoked in almost two decades and I still wake up around 3am thinking I need one. I wander around untill I’m awake enough to remind myself that is easier not to start then it is to quit. Then go back to bed.
as a truck driver and smoker, it s way easier to take a few steps and get in the driver seat for a cigarette if i wake up to take a leak
I have a theory that your body craves nicotine during sleep. The short term withdrawal effects of going without a cigarette I beleive are felt even during sleep. This craving disrupts your sleep pattern and affects your quality of sleep
Ive known people who wake up during the night and have a stoge.
I work rotating shifts in a group home and there are staff that sleep there as well. When I work night shifts the clients/staff that smoke are typically up 2-3 times per night to go out and smoke.
That said not every smoker gets up to smoke in the night, some don’t at all but most do in my experience.
I know two specific life long smokers that are woken up during the night by their urge to smoke and because they have a smoke they’re in a never ending cycle of waking up every night to smoke but these are 4 pack a day smokers so perhaps in the extreme.
Try vaping.
I wake up several times a night and hit my vape, I never used to do this with cigarettes.
Because they are asleep. Having said that. I knew a guy in uni that did wake up around 2 – 3 to have a smoke every night.
A big part of the addiction is psychological. I don’t know how legit this is as I haven’t read into it deeply, but I remember hearing about a study that showed the craving adjusts for expectation, i.e. if a smoker is on a long flight or something and has no expectation of another cigarette soon they don’t crave it as mucb.
Especially on weekends when I can sleep in, I’ll wake up like 4am cuz I have to shit then I’ll have a smoke and then sleep for a few more hours
Knew one guys who was a hard core over a pack a day smoker and he used to wake up a couple times a night for a smoke.
That’s the neat part. They don’t.
Obviously many do sleep through the night but I know several who can’t, my Dad for example will get up 5 or 6 times a night to smoke.
Some wake up in the night and smoke
They do not. They get up at like 4 am and have a smoke, back to bed.
Umm, who says they sleep through the night? My mom and grandmother would wake up and have their middle of the night cigarette and then go right back to sleep.
That is the exact question Allen Carr asks in The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. The point being that the cravings are actually very weak. So weak that they don’t even wake up the smoker. However, it is the quality of those weak cravings which is what keeps the smoker addicted to nicotine. The cravings imitate the feeling of hunger.
Yes hunger. The most horrific feeling in the world. It drives people to steal, kill, swindle. It is the reason prostitution exists. It is why people go to work doing repetitive shitty bullshit jobs.
Read the book.
I smoked heavily for about 8 years. I’m doing decent on quitting finally, yay!!!! It’s not that difficult to resist cravings for 8-10 hours, but that was the point I started jonesing hard and getting very irritable. So if I started my day with a cig, I could get through commuting and working just fine. Then I had several throughout the evening. Sometimes one as a nightcap before bed.
I cannot speak for vaping, as a combustion cigarette smoker I enjoyed that it was a limited and discrete experience. I imagine if you are used to puffing every couple minutes in every setting, your ability to go without for hours is different.
Anytime I’ve been on a vacation with friends who smoke, they’re the ones up at 5:30am. My friend who used to smoke and stopped can now sleep in.
When I vaped I would wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing I would do is rip the vape
Some DO need to have one if they wake up in the middle of the night. Like if they wake up to pee or whatever they wont be able to fall back asleep unless they have a little puff. I know at the height of my aunt’s smoking, she would have half of one in the middle of the night if she woke up.
some don’t…my father in law would sleep about 2 hours, wake up and smoke and go back to sleep he’d wake up again at 4 am for the day and lit one before his feet hit the floor.
I frequently used to wake up for whatever reason (noise, to pee etc) and would use that opportunity to then light up. Can never say I woke up specifically with the intention to smoke. I actually find the smell of cigarette smoke repulsive now having not smoke in 9 years.
My grandma would wake from a dead sleep just to smoke but you best believe if it was her alarm for a dr appt, she was not waking up
I once had to drink caffeine to get to sleep.
I hit my vape when i get up to pee in the middle of the night…
After smoking for years and recently having quit (again!) I’m one month free of nicotine. One of the funny things you realise while quitting is how much smoking is a habit as well as a physical craving. When I woke up in the morning or finished a meal, I would feel like I should have a cigarette because of habit, and not always because of a physical/bodily craving. Only half of the addiction is nicotine withdrawal.
Often habit speaks instead of the craving and you’re pretty much like “oh I should be feeling a craving now, I just had a meal” or you just smoke out of boredom etc.
And so no, usually you won’t wake up to a craving, but if you wake up the habit might speak and you’ll say “oh I’d love a cigarette right now”.
When I was quitting smoking and having massive cravings my favorite time was night, because I’d go to sleep and 8 hours of cravings wiped right off the board.
Because it’s a mental addiction as much as, if not more than a physical one. When we’re asleep, our brain isn’t constantly nagging us to self-destruct.
J. Paul Getty, a famous multi-millionaire from the 1950’s or 1960’s, says that he was in a hotel in a strange city on a rainy night, when he woke up and craved a cigarette, but didn’t have any. He started to get dressed to go buy a pack, then stopped and asked himself, “What the hell am I doing?” He got undressed, went back to sleep, and never had another cigarette after that.
I wake up withdrawing from it. Sleep smoke and go back to sleep
My old roommate would wake up quite often to have a smoke and a soda. Sometimes he wasn’t fully awake. Since I worked 2nd shift and was up all night id hear his door open and then the fridge open, then he would sit on the sofa and smoke. Many times id go out there and his half burned smoke would be in his mouth and he would be asleep on the couch. Thank God for fire safe cigs. Oh and I would ask him the next day if he remembered, and rarely did he.
Being asleep makes you not aware of the nicotine withdrawal. Smokers wake up wanting to smoke quite badly.
Maybe because we’re sleeping (?). If I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night believe me I’m not thinking about a cigarette either, I’m thinking about not thinking so I can go back to sleep.
I used to wake up to use the washroom, and smoke a ciggie! Nightly!
Because they’re sleep
A woman I know used to breed conures and would wake up every 2 hours every night to feed the babies, and she would also have a smoke at the same time. She stopped breeding conures 30 years ago, still is up every 2 hours to smoke.
Nicotine patch on the arm.
I mean.. I wake up constantly through the night to hit my vape
Smoked for years and never had this issue. Never craved cigarette when I was thinking of going to sleep or about 2hrs after waking up. But I do know a guy who smoked 60 cigs per day and woke up about twice a night just to have a smoke. It’s wild.
Eh, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but when I wake up to turn around in bed, I usually hit my vape. One thing I noticed when I switched from cigs to a vape, I vape waaaaaay more than I ever smoked. I want to quit altogether but it’s hard. My last checkup, I asked my doc if my lungs sounded better since i switched, and he said yes. He said it’d be best to quit nicotine all together but he’d rather I use a vape than real cigarettes.
A lot of them don’t. My mother used to wake up several times at night to smoke
I’m a joker, I’m a smoker
I’m a midnight toker
True story….Back when spice was around I was so addicted to that shit it would wake me up out of dead sleeps. It’s still to this day the most addictive drug I’ve veer tried. BY FAR.
Who says i don’t?
As a former smoker, I found that if you smoke a pack a day or more, that’s when the cravings become enough to wake you up to want to smoke. Once I got to that point I started cutting back
I used to wake up, have one, then go back to sleep. I was an almost 2 pack a day smoker. Smoked for almost 30 years. Last cigarette was as Nov 15, 2023.
I knew a heavy smoker who would slap on a nicotine patch on his shoulder when going to bed, otherwise he would wake up at midnight to have a smoke in the bathroom. During daytime he could smoke almost 2 packs.
I had a downstairs neighbor that would always smoke in their bedroom around 5:30am. I hated being woken up by that because it would fill my room with scent and make me feel like I was not entitled to breathe clean air. Glad to not live there anymore. Other than the 5am stuff they smoked maybe 60% of their waking hours.
They don’t. All of the smokers I know wake up at least 5 times during the night.
I actually do wake up at night, have a cigarette, and go back to sleep.
It’s like getting up and getting some water for me.
Chemical addictions in all forms affect our sleep. They dont sleep as well because their bodies go through withdrals while they sleep.
That exact example is used in Allen Carr’s EASYWAY to give up smoking – to show you that it is a mental addiction, not a physical addiction.
When I smoked, I sometimes wished that I would get ill, or go into a coma for a few weeks/months, imagining that that would get me out of the addiction and I’d be free.
He explans however, that the first thing coma patients do is go out for a cigarette. Then he teaches you what is actually basic CBT – how to resist temptation and train your brain to think of the pangs as the “nicotine monster dying”. i.e. rewriting your mind’s programming to see the cigarettes as bad and the withdrawal as positive. If you get that, it works.
I stopped smoking in 2004 and after 4 weeks, I never had another craving.
I smoked for over 30 years and not once did I wake up from sleeping just to have a cigarette. (Currently over six years since I quit.)
Before my Father quit smoking be would get up in the middle of the night to go outside and smoke.
I think it depends on if you’re a deep sleeper or not but idk. When I’m asleep, nothing can wake me up lol not even nicotine.
When i was a broke teenager, I’d take naps after i got out of work to conserve cigarettes. Thankfully i dont smoke anymore, but yeah I’d force myself to nap for a few hours before I’d go out with friends cause i knew i had to make a pack last for a few days.
I’ve been around smokers that wake up during the night for a cigarette.
My mother smokes 3 packs a day and wakes up through the night to smoke… So she doesn’t sleep through the night.
I know my neighbor wakes up in the middle of the night to smoke because in the spring his cigarette smoke comes through the window and my wife wakes me up to close the window.
I used to fall asleep w a nicotine lozenge in my mouth- although it was not very good sleep at all
Sometimes it’s just something to do. If you are already doing a thing, like sleeping, you just don’t need to do the other thing.
I smoke, but go whole days without it if I’m doing other things like working, or just a day out with non smokers, because I’m doing other stuff.
What’s telling you that they don’t ?
I’ve seen some people smoking outside at impossible hours.
Growing up my mom would wake up and have one in bed.
The craving isn’t bad enough to wake me up, but it’s the first thing I want after I pee. Sometimes if I wake up in the middle of the night I can’t sleep again until I smoke though.
A few hours without? – many can’t go 5 minutes w/o. My stepmother used to have 2 cigs going at the same time upon waking.
Plenty of smokers get up throughout the night to smoke.
Sometimes they do.
Nicotine is addictive but not like proper drugs due to how it binds in your brain, it’s more like getting a new need in life like feeling hungry or the need to pee.
You feel the need to but if you sleep it’s not there. Depends on the person as well I assume, I sadly smoke pretty heavily but if I have to go a few hours without it, I have no issues doing it, most of the time I do it out of my own choice.
It’s easier not to smoke knowing you can smoke whenever than to try and quit, that’s when it gets bad, jittery and frustrating to exist.
Because we are asleep? As with any substance or drug I spose? I’m not smoking cones in my sleep and alcoholics probably need a break once in awhile same with meth heads so they sleep 😂. If we didn’t need sleep to survive then we could and probably would be smoking 24/7 I guess 😅.
I used to vape and I absolutely kept it right next to my pillow in case I randomly woke up during the night, and if I did, it always got hit.
One of the reasons i quit was because i waking in the middle of the night to hit my vape. Disturbed sleep because of nicotine is very common for long timer smokers/vapers. It was one of the last straws for me.