Smokers....

Help me out here.  I don't understand.  Expensive habit, terrible health risks, stinky, stains your tetth ass ugly yellow and brown, ash tray rotten breath.  Why would any one smoke?  I have a friend who quite cold turkey after 30 years.  Admitted it was the best decision he ever made.  He said  at the time, he thought it made him look "cool".  Cool?  There is nothing more un-cool than watching people smoke, especially when it is 0 degrees out and they are all huddled up and freezing their asses of "getting a fews puffs in".    Seriously, why??? 

Smoke Reefa baby

 

Cuz I'm an idiot.   

 

Both of my parents smoked for 30+ years......

 

Moms quit cold turkey  -  going on 9 years.

Pops quit cold turkey  -  going on 7 years.

 

I need to do this as well.  Momz & Pops said they simply got bored with it, and stopped.

Because its an addiction, just like herion is an addiction. Its just as difficult to stop ciggs, then it is herion. Ya, its terrible, we all know that. But, as you stated about your friend, people start young and then they are hooked. Not sure what you don't understand.

the stress of gambling doesn't help a smoker to quit either i'd assume.

Its all in the mind.

Smoking "reefa" doesn't harm the lungs or stain your teeth?

you start off young in high school or college out drinking one night and you have a few cigs and they feel great when drunk. That slowly escalates and you get hooked. Tobacco addiction is a very tough one to break. I have been dipping for 10 years. Quit for 6 months last year cold turkey and got suckered back in during baseball season by some bad influences( brother/best friend). Now I have decided to quit again.  5 days clean so far and I think I'm going to make it this time. Been puffing a cigar a day to help with the withdrawal symptoms and also have been taking some clonapen to help as well. Once you get past two weeks you're home free.

back in the days you would see it everywhere...TV, movies, etc..

the industry portrayed it to be cool...thus brainwashing the masses.

humans learn by imitating what we see.


 

 

To start with, I am 53.  I can remember in grade school being informed how bad smoking was for anyone.  All through school, we were told the risks, how addictive it becomes, several times people who used to smoke and now were dying (at a younger age) or had holes in their throats from smoking lectured us on the harms of smoking.  So, again, WHY would anyone even start.  Hell, I am not perfect by any stretch, but that was enough to scare the hell out of me from every lighting up.   I just don't believe all of us coud have been informed any more that what we all saw growning up.  Jel, heart and lung associations, all kinds of information being presented to us in every medium almost every day.  Why would anyone even start, knowing all of that?

 

 

OK, so it is the "cool factor".  The big lie...

if im not mistaken most started when they are in their early teens...

teens = gullible sheeps

That's correct.

 I dipped for 25+ years and quit 3 years ago. However I have dipped 4 times since then without relapsing. I have decided that I am going to infrequently dip again without starting up the habitual routine. I miss going on a road trip without dipping as well as driving to a club to see a band,having 2 or 3 beers and then discreetly takin' a dip to maintain my buzz and still remain legal to drive.I won't even go into the fishing thing.

fishing and baseball.....both are optimal times to throw in a dip. I will miss those moments for sure. Sucks this shit is so bad for you.

I quit gradually. First thing that happened was the economy in the shitter and i'm trying to figure out how to get more cash. Packs were all but 7$ sometimes, x 7 days a week, x52 wk per year = 2500. But it's hard to change, and quit habits, trust me, i've made my rounds. So i started rolling my own because it was much cheaper. I ddin't use filters, so they packed a mean punch and didn't need to smoke as often and for some reason, everyone is a "pack a day" smoker, and all packs have 20, so i didn't feel the need to get my daily 20 in now that it was a bag of tobacco and some papers. Eventually that got old, going thru all that shit just for a smoke, so i would just bum one when i needed it, but didn't like filtered cigs anymore, so i just gave it up. I still crave them at certain times, but i feel much better not smoking regularly.

I HATED cig smoke when i was young.  It's hard to eat massive amounts of acid and not smoke cig's though, so i smoked um. Hell, they were 1.89 a pack back in '96 and the people at the store didn't mind selling them to kids

i h8 cigs ive only smoked cigs once and i smoked a pack 1 night.

Has anyone ever liked a cigarette the first time they tried inhalling one?  Probably coughed and couldnt breath, don't know what would make you want to try it again

Cigarettes are nasty...ughhh there have been a few nights of drinking and i ended up smoking some cigs and woke up the next day reeking, cotton mouth and the worst taste ever in my mouth. Fail.

No, it isn't.

Once the threshold has been crossed, it can become physical just as with alcohol or any other chemical addiction.

There was this guy I used to work security with...

Show up half hour early to have 2-3 cigs with his friend

Start his shift, have 1 or 2 more

Take breaks every half hour or hour to have 1 or 2 (or more)

End his shift and have 2 more before going home

Thats about a pack just in the 8 hours hes working, I'm sure hes smoking on the way to work and home from work in the car.  I mean, smoking literally controlled his life, he said he wouldn't fly anywhere because he couldn't go that long without having a cigarette. 

 

How much are cigarettes?  I just heard in NYC they hit $11 a pack!

Thats $330 a month for a pack-a-day smoker, $660 if you smoke 2 packs a day, like my co-worked I just talked about.  He brings home about $400 a week from his job.  So lets assume the low end and say he spends $400 a month on cigarettes.  Thats 25% of his income just on that

 So true.  Those first several days are hell, as your brain is craving the nicotine.  But if you fight through the urge and sleep through the withdrawals, after 2 weeks, you won't even miss the drug.  Based on my experience, this equally applies with caffeine or any other stimulant.