Smoking thread

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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:01 pm

It's been five days since I stubbed out my last one.

Ignore everything they say about giving up! It's bloody easy not to smoke, you just don't put the things in your mouth is all. The difficult part is not killing everybody.

Anyway I gave up for exactly the right reasons: My smug little monkey assistant designer bet me a months worth of coke that I couldn't last a week. Little does he know that I drink more or less his body weight in coke every hour while I'm at work. He's going to be looking forward to a very spartan life style in two days time Twisted Evil

I shall probably continue the abstention after the week is out for reasons of health and going on the pull.... with my wife of course.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:11 pm

Sorry, I'm addicted to the weed. I smoke about 10-15 a day.

I say sorry, because you're pretty much forced to be a social outcast these days if you smoke. You live an apologetic, guilty existence, furtively looking over your shoulder to see if anyone is going to shout at you.

There's now only 2 places I smoke. My own back garden, and on the pavement outside the pub. I respect everyone's right not to breathe in second hand smoke, but now that it's banned in ALL public places, I feel we went a bit far, we don't live in LA. (Yet.)
Some choice would have been nice, that's all I say.

Outcasts I tell you, outcasts! Crying or Very sad

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:16 pm

so....battery does coke and Mugatu likes weed...... are we sure we are talking about cigarettes here? Battery, good luck giving up. You know, quitting is not that difficult, it is not starting again after a while.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:30 pm

Your right about being a social outcast as a smoker mugatu. Luckily I work with a large number of other smokers but we still get comments when we come in from a ciggie break (reformed smokers being the worst).
I have no intention of quitting at the moment, as I enjoy it too much.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:30 pm

how much coke

Shocked

ya lungs will intact but no nose left

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:44 pm

Just the drink form of coke unfortunately.

I live in China where you are considered a social outcast if you don't smoke. Generally speaking, cigs are the first thing offered after your business card at a meeting. The same goes for dinners (business or otherwise), outings with friends and meeting the girls parents for the first time.

No wedding table is considered primed and ready without a stack of packs waiting for the nicotine hungry guests and nothing could be more respectful than passing a few round after a quiet funeral.

Politicians here have famously yellow fingers and everyone can tell you which ex chairman smoked (and embezzled public money into) what brand of tobacco.

The only place you find smokers being moved on is in places like Starbucks and Mac Dees, which are after all, little scattered pieces of America.

So If I was in LA I'd probably smoke just to annoy everyone. Here I'm quitting for the same reason. Laughing

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:04 pm

Well, just so you're doing it for yourself...

Razz

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:19 pm

you would be on your own in the UK as we as smokers are now banished to
the back of the pubs and bikes sheds.

very strange for a 40 yr old

Shocked

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:32 pm

I quit last November. Not that I didn't like it, I just felt it was time. It was very hard for about 3 months. Now I get a craving every once in a while but it's easy to ignore it. I do feel better. And no, I don't mind being around someone who is smoking.

Hang in there, it gets easier.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:48 pm

My mother died of a smoking related disease two years older than I am now. Not a nice way to go. So you can probably guess which side of the fence I sit on.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 02 Jan 2006 Posts: 2021

Its been 4 months since my last smoke, I miss it but no way would go back to it.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:22 pm

Excuse me for not being very PC here, but my sympathy for the plights of smokers wouldn't fill a fly's thimble.

Quitters deserve support, and lots of it, but not praise.

A dear, dear friend of mine died a few years ago of lung cancer. Two long years of despair and extreme pain, most of it in the hospital. In his place, I'm certain I would have committed suicide. To this day I don't know how his poor wife coped.

Any smoker who thinks it can't happen to him or just ignores it, is an exceedingly stupid person.

So, if you want to send Shiver a cry-baby PM complaining about the evil mod KD, go ahead, I really don't care.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:12 pm

I quit smoking 37 pounds ago. Mark Twain was kidding when he said "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times." Knocking off crack and eight balls is harder. Good luck and try to keep the weight off.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:22 pm

11 years since I quit. At the age of 35 I struggled to walk round the golf course (gave that up too - mainly because I was crap). My dad died at the age of 42 from heart disease - he was a heavy smoker. The realisation that I was approaching the same age & spent most of my time huffing & puffing gave me a bit of a shock. Hypnotherapy did it for me - one session was all it took. Threw my ciggies & lighter in the bin & never touched one since.

Now I'm 4 years older than dad was. OK, I'm overweight & my blood pressure's a bit high but no signs of heart problems & I regularly go out walking up hills. Best thing I ever did.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:38 pm

I've been on nicotine gum for 9 months now, I do miss the social aspects of smoking and the perception of an escape from stress in work and such, but I don't miss the smokes themselves. I hate the blocked nose and crappy taste in my mouth in the mornings.
I have some of the strongest jaw muscles in the western world now too!
It is easy to light one up when the going gets tough though even when you've been on the wagon for sometime. I have done it a few times. The main motivation for me though is that wifey used to smoke too. It was a catch 22 when attempting a unilateral quit, but the same thing works in reverse and I do not want to feel responsible for tempting her back to it.
I'm a hell of moody git when I forget to buy gum though.

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:05 am

Made a little sign on the door to make them feel the same as what they do to me Laughing

Quote:

Caution
Cigarette smoke in this house!

As both occupants of this dwelling are addicted to nicotine by in haling the smoke of burning tobacco we have to warn you about the health hazard you may risk when you enter this house.

By law we have to bar all minors from entering this house.
Adults who enter this house by their own free will and thus endanger them selves have, by entering this dwelling, waived their right to a trial by jury or participate in a class action lawsuit.
If you don�t agree, please use the door bell and we will talk to you outside, while standing down wind of you.

XXXXX Family

Peppy and Bill

[rant]
Hey it's not illegal yet, but they sure make it hard to enjoy public entertainment.
A government approved addiction, only 550 additives added to make it more addictive.
If I do drugs I can get help, but a smoker is put at the end of the hospital list! [\rant]

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 1:12 am

kleindoofy wrote:

Excuse me for not being very PC here, but my sympathy for the plights of smokers wouldn't fill a fly's thimble.

With that in mind, I've decided that I will definitely continue my non-smoking into the indefinite future. However, in order to mittigate the Holier than Thou tones of your above post, I will have to invest heavily in tobacco products, campaign for their right to advertise and sell the odd pack to children walking home from kindergarten.

** ACCOUNT CLOSED ** Joined: 15 Apr 2007 Posts: 766

@battery

Yes, I find insulting fat people about their weight, how unattractive they are, how they are a drain on the health care systems, REALLY helps them with their dieting and exercise, especially if they are children. . . .

You are to be commended especially since you are surrounded by cigarettes. At least in the US and now UK you can work and go places without being surrounded by your addiction.

It DOES get better. You will also feel better in the long run.

I find telling fat kids they are worthless helps . . . when there are no kittens around. . . .

Cool

--J.D.

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 2:06 am

If non smokers could stop telling me to stop smoking, half the incentive would be gone. I don't mean that in a kind of rebellious way either.
When you're thinking about having a smoke, your mind looks for any excuse to take one, so the screw-you smoking lapse has happened to me a couple of times.
A national shut the hell up about smokers day might just be the day I could quit.

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 7:17 am

I quit last november, 9 months smoke free now. Cravings lasted for exactly 2 weaks, peaking at day 3, after that only the occasional reminder of some imaginated relaxing effect. I can surround myself with smokers and I still like the smell. A couple of weeks ago I decided to try the ultimate test and smoked one (I can rely on my stubbornness) ...did like it somewhat but had no desire whatsoever to smoke another one after that.

Quitting to smoke is nothing to be proud of, it's incredibly stupid to have started in the first place since tobacco is the most pointless of all drugs - it's only purpose is to fight it's own withdrawal symptoms and keep your wellbeing on a level with non-smokers. Stupid drug without any major effect, costs a fortune, ruins rather effectively lungs and cardiovascular system and contains a few hundred carcinogene substances in the smoke.

I would never tell a smoker to quit though, smoking is just one of a billion ways to kill yourself. I quit because I don't like to be dependent on something or someone - I'd go on smoking if people told me to quit. Wink

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 9:24 am

^ Plain ordinary Coke? I thought Whiskey and Green Tea was de rigeur in China these days. Wink

On smoking, never have. Most of my friends give up at least once a year but then start again.
The problem is they all stop at different times. Then, they take it up again when they see the others still "enjoying" a tab.
If only I could get them all to quit at the same time. Surprised

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 10:00 am

FACT: Everything about smoking sucks. There's nothing good about smoking. It kills people, it smells, and it's gruesome. And I smoke.

OTHER FACT: In my house (which I don't smoke in), anybody can complain about second-hand smoke. As long as they don't drive a car.

OTHER FACT: When any physician or scientist produces evidence that smoking is NOT as bad/dangerous/deadly as it is viewed to be, their theories are (rightly) scrutinized under a microscope and then dismissed. When anyone at all forwards evidence that smoking IS as dangerous as the popular view, their theories are accepted at face value as fact without any questions.

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 10:02 am

I'm with KD on this.

Before the smoking ban was introduced in my part of the world, I hated going out for a drink or a meal because of smokers. If I had wanted to smoke I would have. Smokers never give a damn about other people. Their attitude is I want to smoke and I don't give a shit about you not wanting to breathe in the shit. If you don't like it, eff off. Well, now I'm waiting for winter so that on a cold, rainy wintery night I can go and laugh at the buggers getting soaked.

Smoke gets everywhere, it changes the taste of things. To echo what one chain smoker told me when I asked him to try and keep his smoke away from me, if you don't like it fuck off somewhere else. Smokers are only getting now what they have dished out for years.

On the day that the ban was introduced I went to my local to enjoy a pint. When I got there someone had put the song 'Smoke gets in your eyes' on the jukebox.

EDITED TO ADD: The evidence for the cancer causing properties of tobacco is pretty incontrovertable. One reason why 'pro smoking'** studies are not taken seriously is the fact that they are partially or completely funded by groups set up by the tobacco industry.

**By that I mean that smoking is not as bad as studies show.

Posted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 10:31 am

I started smoking at the age of TEN years and since I tried seriously to stop it only once while being admitted to a hospital.

Didn�t work out. Sad

Unfortunately I am a VFL though knowing too well that stopping it would help improve my bad health, maybe save my life. Mad

Now I am 54 and since one year I have to live with my very high blood pressure (currently 190/110/ pulse 70/ body-weight 115 kgs) although my medic prescribes all kinds of very good medicaments for me. Mad

Time for me to make my 2nd holidays this years at the sea soonest Cool

** ACCOUNT CLOSED ** Joined: 15 Apr 2007 Posts: 766

Regarding public smoking, the problem is it removes the choice to NOT smoke from bystandards.

There is nothing positive about cigarettes other than the fact that you can use one to kill a person who irritates you.

That being said, support those trying to quit. Same with other destructive behavior like alcoholism and country-western music.

--J. "Occassional Cigar" D.