Is smoking cigarettes a mortal sin?

[thistle]

Well, I intended to ask him about it during Confession but my mind often goes blank while I am confessing my sins. That said, I did ask a different priest about it and he said it is not a sin.

We all know smoking per se is not a sin.
We don’t need to ask a priest that. Why didn’t you ask if EXCESSIVE smoking is a sin of grave matter and also how excessive is defined.
Its only the priest who can give you an answer. Nobody here is in a position to give you any definitive answer.

 

[Holly3278]

We all know smoking per se is not a sin.
We don’t need to ask a priest that. Why didn’t you ask if EXCESSIVE smoking is a sin of grave matter and also how excessive is defined.
Its only the priest who can give you an answer. Nobody here is in a position to give you any definitive answer.

I did ask and he said that excessive smoking is also not a sin but that it is just a very bad idea.

 

[Facite]

Facite,

If tobacco is the most addictive substance on earth and you smoke when do you decide that someone is addicted?

I would doubt tobacco is the most addictive substance on the earth. It may seem like it because of the large population of smokers, but that is only due to the fact that it is legal and readily available (like alcohol, for instance.)

 

[CopticChristian]

I would doubt tobacco is the most addictive substance on the earth. It may seem like it because of the large population of smokers, but that is only due to the fact that it is legal and readily available (like alcohol, for instance.)

Facite,

You would doubt what you do not know. Continue to doubt until you do know. This may help. From Stanton Peele, PhD. The Truth About Addiction.

I do such “experiments” all the time. For instance, I lecture groups of alcoholism/addiction counselors, people who swear that the only way addicts can recover is through going to treatment and joining AA or another twelve-step group like they did. I first ask them, “What is the toughest drug addiction to quit?” The audience, virtually in one voice, shouts out “nicotine” or “cigarettes.” “How many of you have quit?” I inquire. Often a majority raise their hands. Then I ask, “How many of you quit smoking because of treatment or joining a support group?”

In rooms of hundreds of people who work in the treatment field and have quit smoking, never more than a handful have ever said they quit with formal treatment. “Wait a minute,” I deadpan. “You people are too radical for me. You tell people all the time that they can’t quit addictions on their own. Yet you—a group of highly experienced counselors, many of whom have quit more than one addiction yourselves—tell me you quit the toughest addiction without treatment.”

Also try this…

newrecovery.blogspot.com/2006/09/nicotine-most-addictive-substance.html

“Nicotine is the most addictive substance known on this planet,” Dr. Reichert said. “It is more addictive than heroin or cocaine, it’s more addictive than caffeine, it’s more addictive than anything.” Reichert is lead author of a new study that finds smokers succeed more often at quitting if they combine behavioral changes with group support and pharmacological aids, than if they try to quit by will power alone.

Now that you know, would you still doubt?

 

[REDfan4Lyfe]

It is because you are putting your health at great risk. If you’re stuck in the habit, you should seek help because you’re solely responsible for getting the habit broken.

 

[CopticChristian]

I have a question for you all. Smoking in moderation is a venial sin as opposed to a mortal sin, right? I ask this because I have had a few cigarettes today but I have made sure that I spaced them out by at least an hour or two so that I am not smoking in excess as compared to before. I know some people would probably consider what I am doing to be excess but I don’t. I used to smoke a pack a day so 5 cigarettes is a major improvement on that. I am going to try as hard as I can not to pick up another one. This is incredibly difficult. I feel so ashamed that I fell in to sin again. I did go to Confession this morning. I sincerely hope that I did not commit another mortal sin by smoking those 5 cigarettes.

Holly,

I am not discounting thinking of smoking as sin and regret to say that thinking of something this way may help you stop however think of this.

Do you know your emotions?

Did you know that God gave you emotions for a reason? Of course you do.

Did you know that Tobacco prevents you from experiencing the gift of God, our emotions.

Tobacco is a stimulant. It causes us to never experience the highs and lows that we normally experience in our minds because the tobacco keeps us up.

Sadness is an emotion that is a catalyst for change. The extremes of low are sadness and depression. Sometimes not being stimulated or experiencing some sadness may be the cause for change that while smoking you may be missing.

Smoking is keeping you from experiencing the health of your mind and that health is a God given gift. Enjoy your gift as God intended.

All addictions stem from “Values”…when you value something it causes a change in behavior…all addictions change when the values change.

Will Power is a function of asking why?

Why do I choose not to do this…? continue to ask this question and you will come to a point that you have enough reasons not to do something based on this continual asking of “why do I choose to do something else”

 

[Facite]

Facite,

You would doubt what you do not know. Continue to doubt until you do know. This may help. From Stanton Peele, PhD. The Truth About Addiction.

Also try this…

newrecovery.blogspot.com/2006/09/nicotine-most-addictive-substance.html

Now that you know, would you still doubt?

Haha, okay. I’ll have to give you this one!

 

[AHapka]

. It also says in excess…how much tobacco is excess…in my opinion based on what I know any amount of a poison is excess.

Actually, quantity in many cases makes the poison.

There are many things that are not poisonous (or even essential for life) that will kill you or cause harm if you have too much of it.

Chlorine is a necessary element for the human body, but breathing it as the pure gas will kill you if you breathe enough of it.
Breathing pure oxygen for too long a time is bad for your lungs…not to mention that you can die from that if you do it for too long, and it’s also been studied to be bad for your brain (medicalnewstoday.com/releases/72299.php).
If you drink too much water, it is possible to kill yourself.

So whether or not something is a poison in many (but not all) cases does depend upon how much of it you are talking about.

 

[REDfan4Lyfe]

Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes is addictive. When you are addicted to something, you are it’s slave and it is your lord and master.

Volunteering to give your health, money, and control over to a poisonous chemical would seem to me a grave matter.
To continue to be a ‘captive’ without resisting seems to be a serious matter to me. We are just so used to smoking that we don’t see it as a slavery.

How can one say that culpability is lessened because they are addicted, when they knew before hand that cigarettes are addictive?

Addictiveness, in and of itself, is not intrinsically evil. However, if the addictive substance is destructive to the person, it IS IN FACT a sinful thing to engage in.

 

[CopticChristian]

Actually, quantity in many cases makes the poison.

There are many things that are not poisonous (or even essential for life) that will kill you or cause harm if you have too much of it.

Chlorine is a necessary element for the human body, but breathing it as the pure gas will kill you if you breathe enough of it.
Breathing pure oxygen for too long a time is bad for your lungs…not to mention that you can die from that if you do it for too long, and it’s also been studied to be bad for your brain (medicalnewstoday.com/releases/72299.php).
If you drink too much water, it is possible to kill yourself.

So whether or not something is a poison in many (but not all) cases does depend upon how much of it you are talking about.

AHapka,

Point out to me how much Nicotine is essential for life?

 

[AHapka]

AHapka,

Point out to me how much Nicotine is essential for life?

I never said or suggested it was.

I was merely pointing out that your statement “in my opinion based on what I know any amount of a poison is excess” is not correct in all cases.

There are some things which are poisons which are essential for life in lesser quantities. It does not apply to nicotine, but does apply to other things.

 

[andrewstx]

As usual we have cigarette suportersd defending smoking them, and cig dislikers condemning them.

I really don’t know, but I think smoking is not in and of itself mortally sinfull. but I feel that addiction can be.

Both my parents were cigarette people, and I am trying to give them up. Both died from cigarettes. One from lung cancer and the other from Emphasema.

They both quit but too late, both died from cigarettes, dad at only 34 years old.

 

[BellsMom]

They both quit but too late, both died from cigarettes, dad at only 34 years old.

That’s so terrible. I’m very sorry for you and your family.

I lost my favorite Aunt and Grandmother to emphysema. Quitting was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Now if I could only apply that dedication to loosing some weight!!

 

[CopticChristian]

That’s so terrible. I’m very sorry for you and your family.

I lost my favorite Aunt and Grandmother to emphysema. Quitting was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Now if I could only apply that dedication to loosing some weight!!

Bells,

If you can reflect on what caused you to quit then find a reason that applies to losing weight. You can do it.

 

[andrewstx]

That’s so terrible. I’m very sorry for you and your family.

I lost my favorite Aunt and Grandmother to emphysema. Quitting was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Now if I could only apply that dedication to loosing some weight!!

You can do it bells mom, if you can get off cigarettes you can do practically anything.

I have been more succesfull at losing weight than giving up cigarettes.

I have gone from size 44 pants to size 36 in a year and a half, by drinking sugar free or limited sugar pop, avoiding fried foods butter and lard, drastically cutting down on sugar as a hole, and limiting myself to only one beer or one glass of wine once in a while.

Eat lots of salads and veggies with virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. do not eat bread with every meal and do not eat white bread at all.

Substitute olive oil when ever you would normally eat butter or sour cream.

by limited sugar I mean things like Dr Pepper 10, or Pepsi Next. Due to the anti cholenergic effect or sugar free drinks they make me more thisty, not less.

 

[needsomehelp]

If masturbation is considered a mortal sin because it is a misuse of the sexual organs God gave you - then the Church is hypocritical to say smoking is not a grave matter - when it is a deliberate misuse of the breathing organs God gave us. On top of that it seriously damages the health of you and those around you via 2nd hand smoke.

It is a drug like any other - except this one is viewed as “legal”.

I think most would agree that sniffing or getting high off of spray paint would be sinful - yet everyone blindly views smoking as fine.

Of course knowledge and addiction play a role just like masturbation etc…