How Tobacco Use Affects Your Love Life
Imagine this: You have had a lovely third, fourth or fifth date with someone you are very interested in. Dinner was great. The drinks were awesome. The dessert was delicious. You are not quite ready to say goodbye, so you invite your date back to your place. You cleaned up earlier just in case things may come to this.
You walk through the door of your apartment and then it hits you. The smell of smoke is much stronger than you had realized. Suddenly, you wish you had a roommate you could blame the odor on, but it’s too late now.
Smoking can affect your love life in so many different ways, including physical and psychological. Whether you or your partner or both of you smoke, cigarettes and other forms of tobacco can really put a damper on things. Plus, if you end up in a long-term relationship with someone who uses tobacco, lung cancer, and heart disease are a couple of serious killjoys.
Ways to Quit
Though quitting is one of the hardest things tobacco users ever have to do, there are so many different ways you can go about it. Cold turkey is not the only option anymore, and there are others that are so much more effective.
Nicotine replacement therapies are a popular option that more and more people are using; and they include gums, lozenges, patches, prescription medications, even nasal sprays. These can be prohibitively expensive, however, unless you have insurance that covers these kinds of treatments.
Some people prefer to use reduction methods and systematically cut back on their nicotine to help reduce withdrawal. Others like to use tobacco alternatives, like Black Buffalo’s tobacco free pouches, because they can keep the nicotine and the ritual that they love, without all the parts they don’t love. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can help you kick almost any habit you wish to eliminate, and counseling can help you get to the root of any emotional issues you are using tobacco to cope with.
So Just How Much is Tobacco Use Affecting Your Love Life?
Tobacco use will affect your love life differently depending on which kinds of tobacco you use and your gender, but nicotine has similar effects in both sexes. The degree of these effects depends on a number of factors, including your overall health, your age, how long you have been using tobacco and how much you use.
Getting in the Mood
Getting in the mood on every level is affected by tobacco use. If you use dip or chew, having a big wad of loose dip in your mouth makes you pretty much unkissable. If you smoke, the smell of cigarettes on your breath can be a great big turnoff.
Additionally, if your environment has spit cups or ashtrays lying around, or your bedroom smells like smoke, it is much harder to stay in the moment, especially if your partner is a nonsmoker. It may cause a tickle in their throat or their eyes to water, which is an awful distraction when you are trying to enjoy the way your body feels.
Physical Arousal
The chemicals found in tobacco constrict your blood vessels, therefore inhibiting your circulation. For women, this is a definite damper on physical arousal, but for men, this can make or break whether you actually get lucky or not. Tobacco use contributes to or causes erectile dysfunction, but the good news is that stopping has a very good chance of helping. The key is quitting sooner rather than later, and the amount of tobacco you use will also have an effect on how much cessation of use will help.
Attractiveness
Studies indicate that smoking makes you less attractive to the opposite sex. Yellow teeth and bad breath are contributing factors; and premature aging doesn’t help much either. Dip stuck in your teeth and upper lip is not the most arousing thing, and the odor of tobacco is a big turnoff for many. Even when you shower, put on clean clothes, brush your teeth, and douse yourself in perfume or cologne, smokers still smell like cigarettes.
Fertility
Your goal may not be to have children right now, but smoking damages your fertility in the future as well. This is more of a long-term issue for women than for men because smoking can damage your eggs and cause you to shed a greater number of them in your menstrual cycle. If children are in your future, it is a good idea to quit using tobacco as soon as possible.
Final Thoughts
Smoking is going to have a bigger effect on your love life than using dip because the lung damage that comes with smoking is inherently more impactful in the short term. Bad breath caused by gum disease, however, is embarrassing and makes you less likely to spend much time smooching your partner. Plus, oral cancers are no picnic.
Regardless of whether you smoke or chew, quitting is going to be one of the best things you can do for your love life. You have lots of options for how to go about it, and you don’t have to do it alone. Make sure your partner knows that you are trying to quit, and they will be sure to cheer you on. If they also use tobacco, you could quit together for additional support. Make sure you have some social support and a plan in place no matter which way you decide to start your journey.
