why anyone would use art for stress relief when bottling up your feelings and disassociating exists is beyond me but ok.

Why anyone would use art for stress relief when heroin exists is beyond me, but ok.

To add more to this: Retail and food service both heavily encourage people to start smoking. Managers give extra breaks to smokers, because the managers all take extra breaks to smoke and “it’s only fair, right?” So the employees start smoking to get the extra breaks. Because nobody wants to be the only server on the floor during the peak Sunday post-church lunch rush, getting screamed at by geriatric cunts about their food taking too long, when every single one of your coworkers is outside the back door showing each other memes while puffing on Marlboro reds.

And so those employees start smoking to get the extra breaks. And then those employees become the managers a year or two later, and continue to only give extra breaks to smokers. Because “well I had to start smoking to get the extra breaks, so they can start smoking if they want the extra breaks too.” And the cycle repeats ad infinitum.

And a lot of people work retail and food service when they’re in their late teens/early 20’s. Which means a lot of them start smoking early, and then struggle to quit as adults because they’ve smoked for basically their entire adult life.