Game on Smoking and Awareness: Farah and Karim
Scenario number 1: Peer Pressure
You are at a party where most of your friend group smokes cigarettes. You are tempted by the smell of the smoke to try one but decide to stay clean until one of your friends offers you a cigarette.
Choice 1: say no Consequence: Get mad and leave the party for being called a loser
Choice 2: say yes knowing that this will be your first cigarette ever. Consequence: you are putting yourself in a situation where you are most likely going to like it.
Scenario 2: Parental Influence
Both your mom and dad have been heavy smokers since you were at a young age. They generally smoke both indoors and outdoors.
Choice 1: follow in their footsteps and start smoking with them. Consequence: bonding with your family but risking repeating the cycle.
Choice 2: set boundaries for smoking indoors while ensuring that there is a conversation about the risks of smoking. Consequence: caused tension between your parents but setting a healthier environment for both you and your family.
Scenario 3: Teenage Rebellion
Your group of friends have been addicted to smoking since a young age and your family starts to get really worried and starts to struggle with not having control over the group of friends that are surrounding you. So one day your dad enters your room and starts to criticize your friends and ask you to step away and avoid any type of connection between you and them.
Choice 1: Obey him without trying to defend your friends. Consequence: you’ve distanced yourself from your social circle making you feel lonely.
Choice 2: Try to defend your situation since you do not smoke and wouldn’t be influenced by your friends without disrespecting him. Consequence: you find a middle ground where your concerns about your friends’ influence are heard while maintaining your relationships with them. Choice 3: Get into a fight with him, after answering him in a disrespectful way Consequence:
your relationship with your family is strained and you’ve created a more hostile environment.
Scenario 4: Deadline Stress
You have two essays to submit tomorrow and a midterm by the end of the week. You know, according to ads you see, that smoking can relieve stress and make you feel more calm
Choice 1: take a smoke break to alleviate your stress. Consequence: immediate relief is felt but your long-term health is harmed and your stress levels may heighten once again.
Choice 2: try to take your mind off of the stress by doing something healthier, like going for a walk. Consequence: Your stress may not immediately go away but you’ve used healthier coping mechanisms.
Scenario 5: Mental health
You have been facing a lot in the past few months and you are struggling with anxiety or stress and you find an online advertisement saying that ICOS smoking will make you feel temporarily relieved and you like the post. After this, the call center of this company calls you and tries to convince you to buy one.
Choice 1: Answer and order one to try it Consequence: potentially leading to addiction or worsening your existing stress and anxiety in the long run.
Choice 2: Decline the call, keep your values, and don’t even try to harm your health more than this. Consequence: you maintain your commitment to your well-being, avoiding potential health risks associated with the product.
Scenario 6: Dating a Non-Smoker
You are attracted to a person who is a non-smoker. You two fall in love and are in a relationship but your significant other is totally against smoking. This person still doesn’t know that you are a smoker.
Choice 1: tell them that you smoke frequently and try to quit for the relationship to continue. Consequence: Your relationship happily continues but you suffer alone from the symptoms of quitting.
Choice 2: continue smoking and hide it. Consequence: you have shattered the sense of trust between you and your partner making it very difficult to continue dating.
Scenario 7: Health Checkups
Every 3 months you go to run some normal tests to make sure everything is okay and that you are in perfect health. You go this time only to discover smoking-related issues due to smoking.
Choice 1: ignore the results and continue smoking. Consequence: risking facing major complications that may not be easy to cure
Choice 2: consider this as your wake up call to finally quit smoking. Consequence: your health improves and no more damage will be inflicted upon you but you will still suffer the quitting process.
Scenario 8: Impact on your sporting career
You have been practicing football for a long time and one day you saw your captain smoking outside the field with his friends.
Choice 1: You go stop him and tell him that what he’s doing is totally wrong. Consequence: The coach admires you and becomes his favorite since he feels that you care about his health
Choice 2: Ignore what you saw and keep acting as if you saw nothing. Consequence: Your coach saw you and will call you tonight to tell you how much he would have appreciated it if you advised him.
Scenario 9: Friends Intervention
Your friends notice that your smoking has gone way out of hand and start to show concern for you and advise you to start finding ways to reduce or quit smoking.
Choice 1: ignore their concerns and continue smoking. Consequence: missing out on your friend’s support potentially leads to a bump in your friendship
Choice 2: acknowledge their concern and try to motivate yourself to quit or seek the help of a professional. Consequence: your friendship with your friends becomes stronger and their motivation to help you increases even more.
Scenario 10: Smoking in a smoke-prohibited area
You are in a place where smoking is prohibited.
Choice 1: ignore the rules for prohibition. Consequence: you risked being caught and have made others around you face second-hand smoking consequences.
Choice 2: respect the rules and take this opportunity to try to stop smoking instead. Consequence: maintaining your respect for yourself and others but feeling the urge to smoke.
ChatGPT link: https://chat.openai.com/share/2a2947d6-ae57-4624-a137-f00a10e88ddf
Me then, now, and forever 