Smokers only SVP!

[yasmina27]

We've had alot of threads here lately about the pros and cons of smoking. My question is: Why haven't you quit? We know all the bad stuff, that should be enough for nightmares, and yet we continue.

My reasons:

1. Dammit - I enjoy it!

2. I'm sick of the cigarette nazis telling me what I can and can't do. I accept no-smoking areas, but QUIT PREACHING! I know reality and if I choose to smoke in areas where it is permitted, then LEAVE ME ALONE!

3. I don't want to

4. I'm afraid to if my husband doesn't quit too. Not because I don't think I can, but because I know my lungs will kick up a storm once they've cleared and just smelling smoke will activate my allergies. They're bad enough as it is. Shit, just writing that makes it sound pretty stupid.

[nealmhughes]

1. Several reasons in no paricular order. I am weakwilled. I am easily swayed

by peer pressure. I refuse to bend my own will to the Nanny State and bourgeois convention. I am a psuedo-intellectual and quasi-bohemian, therefore in hip past days, I am retro hip, like Anna Magnani or Audrey Hepburn...
It makes me kewl. I enjoy bankrolling the government thru my vices. And finally, and ultimately, I am addicted and enjoy it.

[Greyhound]

2. Hmm, methinks a non-smoker snuck in despite your request. n/t

[Warpy]

3. I worked in coronary care for years

(that's hearts), and my approach was different from everybody else's.

I'd just ask if they knew all the reasons they should quit and they invariably said they did. I then told them to consider themselves lectured, it was part of my job. Then I dropped it.

Most of them called me back within a couple of hours, asking me HOW to quit. That's when it was appropriate to give them literature and describe some things that weren't in the literature.

Lecturing didn't do a damned bit of good. Folks will quit when they're done, not one minute sooner. The best we can do is let them know what help there is when they're ready.

[idgiehkt]

10. my cousin just had a quadruple bypass

I almost typed my baby cousin, she and I were so close, only a year apart in age, growing up. They told her one more cigarette could have killed her before the surgery, something about how the drug constricts the veins or something. It's been two or three months since the surgery, and I have just learned she is smoking again. I am so upset, for her more than anything, because I know she wanted so badly not to start up again. She tried so hard. She is only 37 years old. I guess now that she has new veins going into her heart it's alot safer for her, but I am devastated for her. I've been through the quitting thing many times, and it is so tough.

[Warpy]

11. No, it's not safer, at all

because the bypass grafts only bypass the worst arterial blockages. She's still got a lot of partially blocked arteries around her heart.

Nicotine causes smooth muscle, the type of muscle in artery walls, to spasm. That's why smokers have noticeably cooler hands when they're smoking. It's why their skin ages more quickly, and it's why they have more heart disease. Any time a partially blocked artery spasms shut due to nicotine's action on the muscles in the artery walls, it can be trouble for most body systems; it can be fatal when we're talking about partially blocked arteries surrounding and supplying the heart.

People can have a maximum of two bypass operations. Those grafts won't last nearly as long in someone who is smoking again. I've seen bypasses last in smokers for as little as six months. That's six months instead of ten years.

She has my sympathy. It's a vicious addiction and some people can't seem to quit. With any luck, she'll disgust herself soon enough and try other strategies and succeed in quitting for good.

[idgiehkt]

12. thanks for explaining that, Warpy.

It's depressing. I understand it much better now. Unfortunately she is now dating a man that smokes and I believe they are now living together, so the chances of her quitting are probably very slim. She has bad nerve problems, depression, and that kind of thing. She sees both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. Her childhood was filled with turmoil and I think this is the cause of her nerve problems as her Dad was a son of a bitch and still is and will be until the day he dies. She has never dealt with any of it. I'm so sad about this. She is so young to be going through this. I really believed that she would be able to quit, but since she started at 14 and has now been smoking for 23 years the likelihood that she would stay quit was very small. I hope she will just keep trying until she does.

[Warpy]

30. She's getting mental health help

and right now, that has to be enough. She's got enough on her plate without having to go through nicotine withdrawal.

I never knew anybody who continued to smoke after that second bypass. There is nothing like certain death as a motivator.

[idgiehkt]

33. very good point.

I think she did make it a couple of months though. The scary thing is she is about to lose her job, and with it will go the health insurance that paid for this bypass. My poor cousin. I am so sad about this. Our generation has just been so fucked economically...she won't make half of what she makes now if she loses this job. I have to believe that if she made it a couple of months then she will at one point put them down again and go the distance.

[MrCoffee]

4. 1. I'm a junkie. 2. I'm addicted. 3. I'm hooked.

[Phillycat]

29. Ditto, ditto, ditto. nt

[Uben]

5. I quit for a year, last year

Cold turkey, no aids! I psyched myself for months, saying I would not smoke after I turned fifty.
It wasn't too difficult, either. But, after sitting on my butt all summer with a broken leg, I finally gave in around Christmas and snuck one. That was it. I actually got a high smoking that cigarette!

Cigarette smoking aids global warming, and it is all the fault of non-smokers! There was no problem until they made us go outside to smoke. Now look at it! Ha ha! Damn non-smokers!

[LynneSin]

6. No it doesn't make you sound stupid

It's difficult to quit when your partner refuses and the benefits of quiting probably wouldn't be as good if he's still smoking around you.

I'm an anti-smoker, I know what happens quite well - but you're going to quit when you decide!

[SteppingRazor]

7. I need a reason to smoke?

:shrug:

:smoke:

[bigwillq]

8. I'm not ready to quit right now.

That might sound like a lame excuse but it is what it is.

I enjoy it.
I am addicted.
My other lifestyle choices prevent me from smoking.

I will know when it's ready to stop.
I don't think stopping smoking is a decision that should be forced.
When a person is ready, they will do it. It's up to them and only them.

[Blue Diadem]

9. I'm hooked and I get cranky and nasty when I go through withdrawal

I want to sleep for 3 days straight, then I'm a bear to live with..so bad I can't stand myself for a week or two. I don't like being short tempered..I don't want to crab at my family. I don't want to put on another 30lbs. Most of the weight I've gained from the previous times I quit never came off when I began smoking again.

There needs to be affordable smoking cessation retreats or something..where people can have peace and calm while they're quitting.

[Fuzz]

13. I had a cuban cigar tonight and and an smoking a Rocky Patel 92

Torpedo at the moment.

I'm not a smoker, I'm a tobacco enthusiast. :)

[meegbear]

23. Me too!

Got a Zino Platnium calling me right now, but saving it for my birthday this Saturday with a fine cognac.

[Fuzz]

31. Happy Birthday!

I've got one of those in one of my humis too, haven't tried one yet. Smoked a Diamond Crown Maximus #3 earlier today. Now an Oliva Series G.

Good times. :)

[everythingsxen]

14. Because I am going to die

Just like everyone else is going to die. Smoking keeps my brain chem humming along swimmingly. If weed was legal, I would give up cigarettes. It's not though, so smoke on I will.

Also, the various medical reasons really mean nothing to me. The anti-smoking nazis like to rattle off statistics of how many people die from smoking each year, but the stats are skewed to hell and back. I cannot even count how many 70, 80 and 90 year old smokers I know or have known who smoked since they were 10 or older.

[Lilith Velkor]

15. I don't fucking feel like it. n/t

[radwriter0555]

16. You're paying republicans more than $3000 a year to kill you.

The $3000 a year you spend on cigarettes funds george w. bush and the rest of the corrupt republicans.

That was the last incentive I needed to quit for the last time.

I've quit 5 times.

You don't actually enjoy it, you're just addicted to it.

I wish you the best of luck. It's really, REALLY hard to quit. It takes a lot of time and effort, but when you're ready, it can be done and we're all here to help.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. Nonsense.

Not every purchase of cigarettes or tobacco goes into the pockets of corporations that donate to the Republican Party.

Case in point: I spend about $200 a year on cigarette tobacco (rolling tobacco, not manufactured cigarettes), which is enough to supply my modest 5-10 smokes a day. I smoke 100% Turkish tobacco; it's smooth, aromatic and flavourful in a way that most cigarettes aren't. I actually DO enjoy it; it's a sensory pleasure, not just an addiction. The tobacco I buy is manufactured by a small independent company not affiliated with RJR or Philip Morris. The owner of this company, so far as I can tell, hasn't really contributed ANY money to political campaigns, for either party. When I DO buy manufactured cigarettes, they're made in Germany, by a small company that specialises mostly in pipe tobacco and has no involvement in US politics at all.

So, I'm sorry, but just about every point you made is wrong in at least some cases.

[radwriter0555]

21. You're definitely in the minority, clearly you're not one of the addicts that's been

exploited by the US tobacco cos, that's for sure!

[Hippo_Tron]

18. I'm not a smoker but I know that life is stressful enough as it is

Adding the stress of trying to get off of a drug that's almost as addictive as heroin simply isn't possible for some people. I definitely feel for all of you who want to quit but simply don't have the energy to do so

Also I can't deny that I definitely enjoy my occasional cigar and when I want one but it's not around ever so seldomly I'll resort to a cigarette. Fortunately this only happens once in a blue moon.

[Rowdyboy]

19. How about a really sympathetic ex-smoker?

I did from one to three packs a day for 17 years, starting in college. I quit when I was damn well ready (15 years ago). I quit only when I wanted to and was ready. My partner, a non-smoker, NEVER said a word to discourage me from smoking or press me into giving it up. I knew when it was time for me. You'll know when the time comes.

To your points:

1. Dammit, thats what being an adult is all about

2. I hate cigarette nazis, food nazis, beer nazis, porn nazis etc.....

3. Dammit, thats what being an adult is all about

4. It's tougher if your other half is a smoker. I was lucky. Like I said, though, you'll know when its time.

[Withywindle]

20. My reasons are pretty much the same as yours.

The thing I always wonder about is this: do the people who lecture us really think they're offering any arguments we haven't heard before? Do they think the idea that smoking is really really horrible and bad for us and can kill us in terrible ways is some kind of new revelation? And do they actually think that nagging has ever worked for anyone, anywhere?

(It got to the point where I had to tell my mother that I was going to have three additional cigarettes that I wouldn't otherwise have smoked so quickly for every time that she brought it up. :evilgrin:)

I'd like to quit, sure. I'm very skeptical about my ability to do so, especially since my partner, whom I live with is, is also an unrepentant smoker. We'll have to quit together or neither of us will succeed, that's just how it is. And he's younger than me and isn't feeling the effects yet as much as I'm starting to.

(When I know it's time, I'm hoping to bribe/inspire us with a trip to the Mediterranean with the money we'll save! He's a big geek for boats and history.)

[Bassic]

22. I want ot quit for my health.

But dammit, I like it so much. It's not just nicotine addiction, although that plays a big part, I just enjoy having a goddamned smoke.

[RebelOne]

24. I know I should quit for health reasons.

But I like to smoke.

[kwassa]

25. Quitting is the best thing I've ever done for myself.

[LostinVA]

26. Me too -- 11 1/2 years

[kwassa]

27. 22 years for me.

I used to smoke 2.5 packs of Marlboros a day, for about 14 years.

[LostinVA]

28. I smoked for almost 12 years -- two packs a day of Salems

[Redstone]

32. I'm an American Indian. No other commentary needed.

Redstone

[sendero]

34. I smoke a ...

... pack every two weeks. I'm sure it's not good for me, but I'm equally sure that it is very unlikely to kill me.

I do not smoke in the house, I do not smoke in the car. I enjoy my cigs, and I don't want to quit :)

[TheBaldyMan]

35. I smoke because I like it. Tried nicotine gum but it's not the same

[Jamastiene]

36. No health insurance means no nicotine substitute or

extreme sedatives to keep me from going insane everyday surrounded by Freepers here in red state hell.

:smoke:

[Dulcinea]

37. Reasons 1, 2 & 3.

I like to smoke. I lack the necessary motivation at this point in time. And spare me the lectures about polluting YOUR air, cancer, and all that other crap. It's my air too.

Eventually we're all going to die from something, and I for one would rather not give up all of life's pleasures just to squeeze out an extra year or 2 at the end. That's for cowards. Plenty of people have lived long lives that weren't tobacco-free, so don't bore me with that, either.

Creeping fascism is worse than tobacco. It's not a perfect world. It never will be. Get over it.