Do You Smoke Or Use Tobacco Products?

[luvmuslmen]

I and a friend bought a pack of menthol cigarettes when we were 13(you could buy them from vending machines back then). We smoked the whole pack, but I didn't even know how to inhale, so I basically was just sucking on them. You know the old Clinton line "I didn't inhale. Anyway, it was the best thing that I ever did, even though it would have seemed foolish at the time. I got so nauseated by them that I thought to myself, why the hell would anyone want to smoke these. That was the first and last time that I ever used them, except for the second-hand smoke that I got from my mother's smoking. Yuck!!! I also made it my policy that I wouldn't even date a smoker. :no::no::no:

 

[waistingmytime]

I commend you for quitting after 30 years.....It's hard for me to understand why someone would start back after quitting for so long......My dad quit for about 7 years then started back......Several years later he quit for good.....

I've heard people say that if you watch someone die from a smoking related illness then you will quit but that's not always true .....I helped care for my grandfather as he was dying from lung cancer, then two years later my mother's sister.....The experience didn't make me want a cigarette any less.......

It was my mother's father and her sister that died ...My mother continued to smoke until about 5 years ago when she had a double pulmonary embolism and had no choice but to quit.....She says she wants a cigarette just as bad today as she did the first day she had to quit .......

 

[dargelos]

To play Devil's advocate, there is another side to tobacco. It is possible that it helped to keep me alive. When there is nothing to live for, as long as you still have some cigs left then you still have something, not much, but something left to live for. When all there is to look forward to is your next cigarette, something, anything, is better than nothing. Medical antidepressants are vague and slow acting, nicotine goes BANG! straight to the point. It would be a good drug if it wasn't for the way it destroys your health.
The damn things are so expensive in the UK. When the price went up to £6 a pack that was a big incentive to stop. Now we can pay £11, that's $15, soon there won't be anybody left over here who can afford to smoke. That might appear to be a good thing but the fall in tobacco consumption has coincided with a rise in alternative stimulants like cocaine which are even less healthy. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

 

[topdog]

... That morning I finally honored her wish. I quit.

That is an amazing story. I have tremendous respect for anyone who even tries to quite smoking - I can't imagine what that is like.

When I was about 11, both my parents quit smoking. The Surgeon Generals report had come out linking cancer and smoking. They didn't want the kids to smoke, and they figured they couldn't tell us not to if they were still lighting up, so they quit together. My mom has said that was the hardest thing she's ever had to do. But I respect them for that.

Turns out, I was a solitary independent kid who had already decided to be a singer, so I had no intention of ever touching a cigarette anyway. But that's not the point of the story.

I think, like you W!nston, quitting just for their own benefit was tough - but there is a power inside us that activates when we tie the act to doing it for someone we love.

 

[tiogilito]

I used to, really lots and lots... Then I discovered a little pill called "Zyban".... if you take one a day, after a few days you simply don't feel like smoking any more. I took them for about 3 months, and have not smoked since. That is 10 years or so, now.
If you work it out, a packet of cigarettes these days costs about £10. I used to smoke about 3 of them a day. That is just under £11000 a year. The money I saved bought me a little house in Bali with a pool, for holidays... And I am positively chased by boys there... so I am very happy to have stopped.

 

[jeansGuyOZ]

Never smoked, never wished to.

I did, however, collect cigarette packets, the way many people collect stamps. I have several hundred different ones, from all over the world, most of them mounted in albums. I'm hoping to find someone to donate it to who will appreciate it, as I no longer have the interest. It seems a shame to just throw them out.

 

[trencherman]

My dad trained me to choose the most evenly rolled cigars from the box at the retail store. He never bought the whole box. He wanted only the best and the freshest so he asked me to buy them just two at a time. When I came home from uni he taught me how to smoke them. When I got to Canada, my Jamaican boss had a friend who was Fidel Castro’s apologist in Canada and consequently got presented regularly with Trinidad cigars which were given only to the diplomatic community and important state guests. He passed them on to my boss who invariably gave them to me. I got tremendous enjoyment out of them but was able to stop once my stash ran out after I left the company.

 

[waistingmytime]

Tobacco is more addictive than heroin. It is insidious in that way. I've heard it said we all have to die from something so one might as well smoke.

I smoked for 30 years with a break of 2 years in the middle when I tried to quit. I worked in sales and everyone else chain smoked. I surrendered and started smoking again.

My mother had pleaded with me to quit for years. After she survived cancer of the larynx she feared I may not be so lucky. I never honored her pleas.

The morning she died in 2009 I was beyond devastated. I cannot put into words the loss I felt and still feel today. That morning I finally honored her wish. I quit.

I did it without fanfare. I never ragged on others in my family who still smoke and even smoked around me. I just reminded them how happy mama would have been if I could have had the strength to quit while she was still here.

I didn't need patches or gum or hypnotism. I had my mother's strength inside me. There was an open pack of my cigarettes on the night stand with a lighter. I did not throw them away. No. That day I broke the chains that cigarettes had used to keep me prisoner for so long. I was now in control. The cigarettes were MY prisoner. I kept them close. I kept them in my shirt pocket with the lighter. I did not hear their siren call any more. They were powerless over me. I kept that partial pack of cigarettes for more than 2 years. Instead of a temptation they were inspiration. I looked at them for what they were. I used them as my source of power over them. I could be around others smoking and it did not bother me. I was free, at last.

So my advice to anyone trying to quit would be to follow the same path I did. All you need is the desire to quit. Then you take control over them. You become the master and they become your prisoner.

When you said you took a two year break from smoking while you smoked, did you crave a cigarette ? Why did you start back after the two years ?
It just seems like if I could go two or three weeks I would have it beat, although I know it really don't work like that......:thinking:

 

[W!nston]

When you said you took a two year break from smoking while you smoked, did you crave a cigarette ? Why did you start back after the two years ?
It just seems like if I could go two or three weeks I would have it beat, although I know it really don't work like that......:thinking:

Let me give my answer some context.

I didn't start smoking until I was 24. I always hated the smell of cigarettes and couldn't understand why anyone would smoke. In the 50s & 60s my parents and other adult extended family smoked. And I hated it, lol. I never thought I would ever start but I did.

We called wanting to fit in 'peer pressure' back in those days. Now it's something like social pressure or whatever. I started a job working with a bunch of guys as lab techs but we had to be mechanics & grounds keepers too. So it was a little time in the lab but most time outside rain or shine. It was glorious. All those guys sweating together with almost nothing on when it was hot. Muscles glistened, bulges bulged and my mind could not stop fantasizing about all those balls full of hanging low and dripping sweat. The guys were all perfect specimens with a team attitude and great camaraderie. I think I was in love (lust) with all of them.

Every day at quitting time we went to a bar for pitchers of beer. We sat at a big round table all together. The waitress would keep the pitchers coming. I was the only 'man' at the table not smoking. I felt like an outsider even though none of them ever did anything to make me feel that way. I wanted to be just like the rest of the guys.

One day I asked the most beautiful one of the bunch, Dave Metzger, with his, what is now called a fashy-haircut, perfect black hair, perfect green eyes and perfect teeth smile, for one of his Benson & Hedges Menthol 100 cigarettes. Benson & Hedges was one of the first brands with 100s. I coughed a little at first but not much. The guys all toasted me! I felt like I had finally really become one of them. That's all I wanted. Acceptance.

Fast forward 12 years. I was now working the the sales department of a medical lab. There were like 10 of us. We did cold calls and service calls to existing clients. But a large part of the job was in the office writing up proposals, working out problems with the service and making phone calls. I sat next to this obnoxious woman who chained smoked. Even if I was smoking I felt like I was at all times. I developed bronchitis that turned into pneumonia and I was hospitalized. I quit smoking while I was in the hospital for a week. It wasn't really a conscious choice to quit. I just didn't start back after I'd been off them for that week.

The woman, Pam Nixon, didn't stop. When I returned to work she continued to chain smoke. I tried to reason with her but she wouldn't stop or go outside to smoke. This went on for 2 years. She had seniority so that was that. I started back myself. Mind you, I hadn't really chosen to quit. It had just been a temporary pause.

The social element of smoking is what started me. The pain of losing my mother is what stopped me.

Nowadays the social pressure is reversed. Smokers are the outsiders. So you would think all smokers would quit. But the addiction is so strong it takes a strong will and a good reason to quit.

 

[dargelos]

Don't go beating yourself up because you have one bad habit. It's not the worst thing in the world, fatty food and lack of exercise kill far more Americans than tobacco does. When you really, really want to quit, you will. Imagine paying British prices, $12-$15 a pack, argh, that's enough to make anyone give up.

 

[tonib]

My grandfather smoked unfiltered camel cigarettes. Watching him die slowly from cancer cured my of any desire to smoke.

 

[igorgc]

Sometimes I smoke hookah

 

[bobby15]

no

 

[ralph145b]

Do You Use Tobacco Products?

Quitting Tobacco was a long hard process!

 

[Dom1]

havent been able to quit but have managed to cut down to 3 a day... unless im drinking... then the pack disappears pretty quick