If you smoke or used to smoke, why did you start smoking?

[Moostache]

3. 1987 - 2009 smoked at least a pack a day every day...

I started because my friends and I had fathers that smoked and we stole cigarettes from them at first. We'd get together in the woods or on side streets and thought it was cool. Plus I got high off of the nicotine. It was not long before I was stealing tins of dip and chewing tobacco and eventually started buying both when they were dirt cheap in the 80's.

Cigarettes were $0.99 a pack and a tin of Kodiak chew was $1.50.
As I got older, cigarette and chewing tobacco prices steadily climbed, but while I quit chewing in 1990, I continued to smoke for another 19 years to satisfy that nicotine craving. Even the year I quit, I would occasionally catch a nicotine "buzz" off of a morning smoke.

It was the diagnosis of small cell renal carcinoma at age 37 that led to me finally quitting - cold turkey that day, well - I did use the nicotine gum to ween off but have not had a single cigarette since that day.

I am currently starting to have some additional health concerns (not sure if they are kidney-related yet or not) that I fear may be residual from those 22 years of smoking non-stop; but had I kept smoking, it would have likely already been game over for me. I was lucky once with an early, freakish diagnosis of my cancer - had I not been smacked in the face with that when my youngest was 6 months old, I would likely still be rationalizing the habit and smoking away to this day.

Cheap, easily accessible cigarettes are a major factor in people starting, nicotine addiction keeps them hooked and social reinforcement and habit make it insanely difficult to get out of the habit.