Smoking: Burning white sticks

[Gil]

I used to smoke.
At my worst I was smoking two packs of "Cowboy Killers" (Marlboro Red-Hard pack) a day.
I went to 'boro lights for a while, and finally quit. I haven't really had and enjoyed a cigarette since about 1986.
I started smoking after I got out of boot camp, and quit right around the time I got out of the Navy.

 

[Sage]

Wow, that surprises me, with the medical career and all. I mean, I can understand with the Navy thing, but still, you were the last person I’d expect to (have been) a smoker.

 

[Matt R]

I've started smoking two weeks before my 18th birthday. I don't smoke cigarettes. I hate cigarettes. I actually smoke Black & Mild cigars. For a very long time now I've smoked in upwards of two packs a day. I know the danger of cigars, even cheap little ones like Black and Milds but I can't seem to kick the habit. I always tell myself I'm not addicted to them, yet I find myself buying a pack a day at the minimum. I enjoy the good smell and mild taste of them. I find that I enjoy the hell out them. If I'm bored..BOOM! I light one up at least every two hours, on a good day.

What I find funny, is that with cigars, you're not supposed to inhale them. I didn't hear this until after I had already been smoking and inhaling them for over a year. I don't get the "buzz" from smoking them unless I inhale.

I'm 19 going on 20 in a few months and have been smoking Black & Mild cigars religously since two week before my 18th birthday. I plan on kicking this habit when new year 2007 starts. It will be one of those new years resolutions. In December I will be inhertiting quite a hefty sum of money that will change my life forever. I've decided that I'll enjoy my cigars until the new year, and then start this new found life of mine smoke free.

 

[Dave A]

I had my first cigarette when I was 14, I have smoked other things since then albeit very occasionally, but I've been completely smoke free for last 4 years.

 

[Danny]

0 - 12 2 1.83%
13 - 15 13 11.93%
16 - 18 13 11.93%
19 - 21 3 2.75%
22 - 24 1 0.92%
24 - 397 0 0%
Smoke free and proud 62 56.88%
Look, a duck! 15 13.76%




On the topic, I despise cigarettes and people who use them.
I won't pass people their packet, nor will I ever try them. I have resolve.

 

[FoolKiller]

On the topic, I despise cigarettes and people who use them.

Um, why the people themselves? I can see hating the companies for producing an addictive product, but the people?

Does this attitude just go for smokers?
What about alcoholics, compulsive eaters, illegal drug users, legal drug abusers, sex addicts, fast drivers, or the thousands of other addictive and destructive behaviors that exist?

I just don't get what creates this extreme negative attitude towards smokers. If I had that kind of attitude I would despise most of my family and friends, including my wife.

Smokers are people too and many of them are extremely wonderful people, they just happen to have a bad habit. Some can be jerks about it but most aren't. My wife and mother both smoke outside. Two different women I work with smoked until they got pregnant and then quit.

Maybe being in Kentucky there are just enough smokers for me to know plenty of polite ones.

 

[barryl85]

0 - 12 2 1.83%
13 - 15 13 11.93%
16 - 18 13 11.93%
19 - 21 3 2.75%
22 - 24 1 0.92%
24 - 397 0 0%
Smoke free and proud 62 56.88%
Look, a duck! 15 13.76%




On the topic, I despise cigarettes and people who use them.
I won't pass people their packet, nor will I ever try them. I have resolve.

I used to say that before i started smoking! well i never despised anyone who smoked, just didnt like it.

 

[Gil]

Wow, that surprises me, with the medical career and all. I mean, I can understand with the Navy thing, but still, you were the last person I’d expect to (have been) a smoker.

You will note that I have been a nurse since the mid-90's. I smoked from 1982-1986. Add to that my mom who is also a nurse, has smoked off and on for as long as I can remember.
She has currently been off the smokes for about 9 months.

The only reason that I smoked--because when I was in BE & E (Basic Electricity & Electronics) school, I was quick to notice that the smokers took (and got) a lot more breaks. What started as a ploy to take more breaks, grew to a pack-a-day (sometimes 2 pack-a-day) habit.
When we were preparing to go to the Black Sea to record some Russian subs, we went from a 4-watch rotation (12Mid-4am/4am-8am/8am-12noon/etc) to a 2 watch rotation (midnite-6am/6am-noon/noon-6pm/6pm-midnite) When you stand watch 12-hrs/day and you're sitting in Sonar Control for that amount of time, you drink more coffee, and smoke more cigarettes.
My consumption went down, when we went back to 4-section watches.
I quit, pretty much "cold turkey" once I left the Navy.

 

[a6m5]

I think I've tried a cigarette or two when I was a kid. I don't smoke though.

On the topic, I despise cigarettes and people who use them.
I won't pass people their packet, nor will I ever try them. I have resolve.

Way to go, Danny. I think I've gotten FoolKiller going on the same subject before.

I'll say that secondhand smoke is annoying. I've had to fight it, and the smokers causing it, more times than I care for.

 

[standard235]

Hmm. I watched my grandfather die. His deathbed was about 6feet to my left right now. He was here in agony a week before he passed.

And my mom, who witnessed this for an entire week, still smokes. If the sheriff lets me, my mom and I are going on the Memphis to Peoria St. Jude run with my friend who's a cancer patient so she'll quit smoking.

Oh yeah, and all my money goes to my bike and funding trips to skateparks and bike parks and stuff. :-d Good to have a "hobby" or LIFESTYLE to keep you away.

Oh yeah. **** being cool too.

 

[Keef]

Yeah, the whole "being cool" thing annoys me. I was leaving school earlier and saw this gorgeous girl standing by a door. She was packing her tobacco nice and tight.

"Well, you were hot..."

 

[Boz Mon]

My grandpa passed away at the beginning of the summer from emphasema. He used to smoke when he was in the army. He quit 2 times in his life (this was before I was born) I remember him tellng me that he could smoke a cigarette easily this many years after he quit. When he was alive he could barely walk from one side of the house to the other without being out of breath. He was on oxygen when he needed it. He sat in the hospital for a little over a week on a ventalator in a doctor induced coma. I would wish that on no one if anyone who smokes saw what he went through, you would probably stop smoking. I will never touch a cigarette in my life. It is a disgusting habit with no positive gains. It just makes me kinda sad that all these people dont know what they are doing to their bodies or they just dont care.

And another thing: Today in one of my classes the kid who sat next to me reaked of cigarettes. I dont know how anyone could live like this. I wanted to get up and leave it smelled so bad. Its just gross.

Thats my $.02

 

[LoudMusic]

Do my eyes deceive me? Has someone else revived one of my threads? Ha! I believe this is a first. I feel special.

Still not smoking! Exactly 28 years of life without smokage. Well, plenty of second hand. None first hand.

 

[Kylehnat]

My grandpa passed away at the beginning of the summer from emphasema. He used to smoke when he was in the army. He quit 2 times in his life (this was before I was born) I remember him tellng me that he could smoke a cigarette easily this many years after he quit. When he was alive he could barely walk from one side of the house to the other without being out of breath. He was on oxygen when he needed it. He sat in the hospital for a little over a week on a ventalator in a doctor induced coma. I would wish that on no one if anyone who smokes saw what he went through, you would probably stop smoking. I will never touch a cigarette in my life. It is a disgusting habit with no positive gains. It just makes me kinda sad that all these people dont know what they are doing to their bodies or they just dont care.

You're not alone. This is exactly my grandpa's situation (except for the fact that he never tried to quit, doing so only when his doctor gave him a month to live if he didn't). The last 10 years of his life have been absolutely horrible. He's basically been at death's door that whole time, with several life-threatening illnesses. He's only 72, but his body is so deteriorated, he looks about 100. He can barely move anymore.

The sad part is, he's never had lung cancer, so he won't be counted in that pathetic smoking/cancer-death statistic. He'll die of something else, but smoking will have killed him, pure and simple.

I second your notion: if everyone saw my grandpa, they'd quit smoking immediately.

 

[Keef]

I dread the day when my mom has those problems. They're coming, and probably sooner than I'd like them to. I remember a while back when she got pneumonia and was in the hospital for 2 weeks. Two weeks!! She could have been in there for a few days, but she just had to keep smoking...

 

[Omnis]

Exactly. My grandpa is a doctor, and we can always tell when people smoke. I've met lots of his patients that have smoking-induced illnesses, and it's not pretty.

Emphysema is bad. Your entire back swells up into your neck because your lungs get so messed up. Here's a really brutal picture of the lungs after a bad case of the disease: http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6268/emphysemaiu2.jpg

 

[ßen]

Smoke free and proud buddy 👍
I worked out how much my parents spent on cigarettes over the years, and in the last 20 years they spent


£50,000 between them! £50,000!

 

[GT4_Rule]

Smoke free and proud. No intention to smoke unless someone jams it in while I'm sleeping.

 

[Slicks]

I don't smoke on a regular basis, and I've only ever had the occasional cigar or mini cigar (Think, a few times a month here). I've never had wacko-tobacco, with no intention to try it anytime soon.
I know that any smoke you inhale will damage your system, but with how completely little I smoke cigars, I doubt the effects will be noticeable.
(I just thought that I'd add, for measure, that the majority of the regulars I hang out with smoke any of the big three on an occasional basis, with only a couple friends being regular smokers)

 

[Danny]

Um, why the people themselves? I can see hating the companies for producing an addictive product, but the people?

Does this attitude just go for smokers?
What about alcoholics, compulsive eaters, illegal drug users, legal drug abusers, sex addicts, fast drivers, or the thousands of other addictive and destructive behaviors that exist?

Personal choice, Okay?

It's highly publicised what damage smoking does.
Okay, so I've never smoked, and so don't know how difficult it is to stop, but how hard is it to just not buy cigarettes?

I've a few friends who smoke. They know they should quit, but can't be bothered. What exactly is that saying? Little white sticks of death aren't important enough to have a resolve to stop?

Okay, some might say that they foolishly tried it once while they were young and couldn't stop.
You run an increased risk of dieing, so it isn't worlds apart from foolishly driving while intoxicated, but just once because you were young.

 

[FoolKiller]

It's highly publicised what damage smoking does.
Okay, so I've never smoked, and so don't know how difficult it is to stop, but how hard is it to just not buy cigarettes?

It is also highly publicised about how hard it is to quit. Some even say it is harder than quitting heroine. My mom has tried to quit about 20 times.

It's easy to say, "just don't buy cigarettes," but try saying the same thing to a crack or heroine addict. If it were that easy it wouldn't be an addiction.

Anyway, I was really just asking because you used the word despise and that comes off kind of strong. But since you apparently have friends that smoke I guess I am just reading too much into it. Didn't mean to irk you, man.

 

[Danny]

It is also highly publicised about how hard it is to quit. Some even say it is harder than quitting heroine. My mom has tried to quit about 20 times.

It's easy to say, "just don't buy cigarettes," but try saying the same thing to a crack or heroine addict. If it were that easy it wouldn't be an addiction.

Anyway, I was really just asking because you used the word despise and that comes off kind of strong. But since you apparently have friends that smoke I guess I am just reading too much into it. Didn't mean to irk you, man.

Don't worry mate, it's just a subject I feel immensely strong about.

 

[LoudMusic]

It is also highly publicised about how hard it is to quit. Some even say it is harder than quitting heroine. My mom has tried to quit about 20 times.

It's easy to say, "just don't buy cigarettes," but try saying the same thing to a crack or heroine addict. If it were that easy it wouldn't be an addiction.

Anyway, I was really just asking because you used the word despise and that comes off kind of strong. But since you apparently have friends that smoke I guess I am just reading too much into it. Didn't mean to irk you, man.

I have friends who have quit, many friends. I also have friends who have quit and started again either after a short time or after a long time. And I have friends who have never been able to quit even for a day. It is a chemical and physical addiction.

For me, in the habits I've quit, it comes down to one realization. Anything that makes you feel good, even for a moment, can be addicting. The reprocussions are irrelevant because the user is only thinking about the initial impact - feeling good. And we all want to feel good. You have to catch yourself in the act, even before the act, and think about how you feel hours afterwards, not during, and then decide if you're going to continue or not.

My friends who have successfully quit smoking all say that every time they smell a cigarette they want one. I would imagine that that is very painful, psychologically, but they continue not smoking which tells me they've made the decision that not smoking and living with the unquenchable craving is superior to smoking and living with the associated life difficulties.

 

[Mark T]

True.

Playing a certain computer game, eating sugary foods (which give a rush) even excercise can be very addictive. I've never smoked myself (apart from a cigar at Christmas with my dad).

None of my close friends smoke either which I think helps.

 

[a6m5]

Some even say it is harder than quitting heroine.

Oh, come on. I've never been addicted to either one, but I don't even want to think about fighting heroine addiction.

 

[F1GTR]

Yeah, those female heros can be mighty addictive!

I don't smoke. Disgusting habit.

 

[Danny]

Yeah, those female heros can be mighty addictive!

I don't smoke. Disgusting habit.

Millions of people have stopped smoking.
It's not for lack of help that people don't quit.

 

[FoolKiller]

Oh, come on. I've never been addicted to either one, but I don't even want to think about fighting heroine addiction.

Granted, having visions of babies with spinning heads crawling on ceilings and attacking you doesn't sound like fun and the other withdrawals are far scarier than a headache or hunger cravings, but the desire to do both is equal.

The effect that heroine can have on your body is far stronger than anything nicotine does, but you can want nicotine as much as you do any other drug.

From here.

The 1988 Surgeon General's Report, "Nicotine Addiction," concluded that

Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting.
Nicotine is the drug that causes addiction.
Pharmacologic and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Withdrawal symptoms may be different but the addiction symptoms are not.

 

[socomplayer2]

just went out for one to calm me down after a fight... it worked.... i usually have one once or twice a month.. not much i know but i usually have more when i drink

 

[a6m5]

Granted, having visions of babies with spinning heads crawling on ceilings and attacking you doesn't sound like fun and the other withdrawals are far scarier than a headache or hunger cravings, but the desire to do both is equal.

The effect that heroine can have on your body is far stronger than anything nicotine does, but you can want nicotine as much as you do any other drug.

From here.


Withdrawal symptoms may be different but the addiction symptoms are not.

I don't doubt that. But as far as saying that it is harder than quitting heroine, I disagree.