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

[OriginalGeek]

10. I remember trying smokes in 6th grade

My friend and I would sneak unfiltered pall malls from his dad's packs and we thought we were so cool. Then we figured out if we went up to the nearby grocery store and said we had to pick up smokes for our dad they'd sell them to us (it was maybe a quarter for a pack??)

Then we moved and I lost touch with that friend and and I started being forced to go to church and then to a religious high school and nobody smoked because it was a sin. I didn't miss it and frankly don't even remember wanting to smoke during high school.

Then I finally got sick of religious bullshit and graduated high school at 17 and moved out a few months later. Got a job and new friends and everybody smoked so I started smoking too.

by my mid/late 30s I was up to 3 packs a day when I finally said "enough." It cost too much and made me feel like shit and everyone around me had already quit so I was the odd man out holding people up while I grabbed a quick smoke. My company made me an offer I couldn't refuse by subsidizing the cost of patches for all employees and it was cheaper than cartons of cigarettes so I got on the patch and in about 3 months had completely quit smoking and on 4/20/2002 I stubbed out my last butt.

I miss it every day.

But I'm not going back to cigarettes.

I will smoke 2 or 3 nice cigars a year.

And as soon as I am no longer beholden to a random pee test I will get my Medical Cannabis card and start smoking weed on occasion. My wife just last week bought me a cool a Rick and Morty bong to save until that glorious day.