Poll: How many pickers smoke cigarettes?

I think you have a really good point Jay_J, and for some people I think this is true, for myself how ever, It is not, I use to smoke a lot, I couldn't go anywhere for longer then an hour or so with out getting agitated and needing a cigarette, it got to the point that if I didn't have one there for in the morning, Regardless of the time/cost, I would go out, rain hail or snow to get a pack. In saying this, My skin picking didn't start until a couple of year after I started smoking, and was caused by an abusive (now ex) boyfriend, who would always point out my faults and abuse me emotionally, Long story short, I started ripping my skin apart due to wanting perfect skin, because I was always told it was not. It became a vicious cycle of wanting prefect skin, but trying to achieve it by tearing it apart. I think the smoking did come into it by infecting the open wounds I had, as I would sit while smoking, and pick every spot I could find, the smoking and picking helped me to calm anxiety my ex caused for me, but for me it wasn't replacing one compulsion with another. I do believe smoking does reduce the bodies ability to heal, you inhale toxins into your lungs where it is absorbed into the blood stream and flushed through the body to he outer layers of skin, which is the part we pick at, if our blood is full of toxins, the skin finds it harder to heal and the wounds do get infected, especially when we have a cigarette in our hand and pick at the same time, no smoker will wash their hands after EVERY cigarette, meaning the toxins are on our hands from smoking, we then pick at our skin, infecting it from the out side as well as the inside. I found once I left my abusive boyfriend and did the hard task of quitting smoking, my anxiety levels dropped and I stopped picking. I have moments of anxiety where picking helps, and I am by no means healed, but my picking is more controlled and heals better due to the lack of toxins no longer in my body. I don't feel that smoking replaced the picking, not the picking replaced the smoking. I believe the two are only connected in that way for some. My apologies for the super duper long comment. haha

Unfortunately I smoke. I was 9 years old when I started picking my thumbs. I started smoking when I was 17 and I'm now 20