How many of you smoke?

[chris2008]

Me:never ever
DH: party late night smoker, maybe 5 cigs/year.

 

[Ronstar]

Maybe 10 cigarettes lifetime. Havent had one since mid 1970's. My dad smoked like a chimney, and died of lung cancer at age 59.

 

[bruce1]

I quit 30 years ago. If anyone needs any incentive to quit my neighbor/friend/long term tenant was diagnosed with incurable lung cancer last month at 64. She has lost 50 pounds and can barely shuffle across the drive let alone climb a flight of stairs.

 

[scrabbler1]

I vaguely remember seeing a pack of cigs around the house when I was about 5 years old back in the late 1960s. But my dad, after hearing me learn in school about the perils of smoking, knew he had to quit so that I would not be receiving a mixed message about it at home.

Fast-forward to the 1980s and I was a bit of an activist against smokers. I was able to get the manager of the college dorm I lived in to to establish a separate non-smoking section (now known as a "secondhand smoking section") in the dorm's cafeteria. They also put up "no smoking" signs in the elevators even though that had been illegal since at least the 1970s (it is a fire hazard, of course).

I had many run-ins with smokers back then, as the laws to protect non-smokers in public places were rare and not very effective. I often kept elevator doors open if I saw a smoker enter one with me without putting out his lit cig first. Many restaurants lacked separate non-smoking sections so my family had to go elsewhere to find a place which did (the adjacent county had passed a stricter law back in the early 1980s). Movie theaters were another tough place to go to even though they had separate smoking "sections" on the wings.

At work, there were no separate non-smoking areas so one smoker could foul the air of many who sat near him or her. Commuter trains had separate smoking cars but that sometimes left me with the awful choice of standing in a non-smoking car or sitting in a smoking car. Airplanes, even though I did not fly often, were bad if you sat within a few rows of the secondhand smoking section.

But things began to change for the better in the late 1980s and early 1990s. First, the Long Island Rail Road banned smoking on all of its trains in 1988. Smoking was banned on most domestic airplane flights in 1990. And when my company moved to a new building in 1991, smoking was banned even inside private offices.

I wrote my state and local legislators many times in the 1990s as they considered passing tougher anti-smoking laws in public places. They did pass some good laws banning smoking in places such as restaurants and pool halls. It has been many years since I have had a run-in with a smoker, thankfully.

I can't imagine why anyone would engage in a habit which only harms the user and everyone around the user and costs the user lots of money.

 

[Martha]

I can't imagine why anyone would engage in a habit which only harms the user and everyone around the user and costs the user lots of money.

Addiction is incredibly powerful. I quit back in the early 80s. Every bone in my body hurt. I ate so many carrots I turned orange. I dreamed of accidentally starting to smoke for years afterwords.

People start young when they felt they were invincible. People don't start smoking when they are 30. I also jumped off cliffs into the local swimming hole, drove 70 miles an hour down rutted dirt roads, and dropped acid. Some of us, especially when young, have poor impulse control.

 

[MichaelB]

Addiction is incredibly powerful. I quit back in the early 80s. Every bone in my body hurt. I ate so many carrots I turned orange. I dreamed of accidentally starting to smoke for years afterwords.

People start young when they felt they were invincible. People don't start smoking when they are 30. I also jumped off cliffs into the local swimming hole, drove 70 miles an hour down rutted dirt roads, and dropped acid. Some of us, especially when young, have poor impulse control.

Good post

 

[Fireup2020]

I'm a Maduro girl (Romeo & Juliet or Gurkhas preferred)...also the foo-foo Acid Cigars/cigarillos...if drinking with other smokers, will break down if they are smoking menthols. I was bumming smokes from civilians one night at McSorley's like mad during Fleet Week in NYC (did not make it home until 0900)...good fun, but I could barely breathe the next day!

 

[Retire2013]

I quit when I turned 23. Don't crave anymore except on extremely cold wintry days or lovely crisp cool fall days when I am out on long walks with my dog. But I never once succumbed to the temptation. So far so good!

 

[BTravlin]

I can't imagine why anyone would engage in a habit which only harms the user and everyone around the user and costs the user lots of money.

It's not a habit, it's a drug addiction. Tried to stop my habit 3 or 4 times over the years with no success. DW decided she was going to quit and read a book given to her by a friend who said over a dozen people had read the book and stopped smoking for at least a year or more. She read the book and smoked her last cigarette as instructed about 4 1/2 years ago. I knew there was no way we were going to remain happily married as one smoker and one ex-smoker so I read the book too. The book convinced me that smoking was not a habit but actually a dirty, smelly, unhealthy, expensive drug addiction that, in large part, ruled my life. I had my last cigarette a week after she did. We have passed the book onto others who have successfully quit as well.

For anybody that wants to kick the addiction:

The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr

The first few days are really tough as you fight through withdrawal but after that it's easy once you've decided not to let a drug addiction ruin your life.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Question: Do you smoke after sex?

Answer:
|
|
|
I don't know, I never looked.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I don´t know if this is too personal a question. But I am curious, because we, in Spain, think that smoking is something of the past there in the USA. Reports from California or New York lead us Spaniards to believe that smoking is for you something akin to a crime/rude behaviour.

I'm from California. I don't like to be around smokers. None of my friends smoke. They don't allow it in restaurants, or anywhere else indoors thank goodness. If someone smokes around me I do consider it to be rude. My opinion on this topic is by no means unique to me. There are those that are very militant about being able to breathe clear smoke free air. It is (In California at least) the opposite of cool to be a smoker.

There are lots of exceptions but mostly smokers are from the lower socioeconomic ranks/blue collar/low class. Smoking rates keep dropping.
My question for you is... Why would anyone choose to smoke now knowing what we know ?

 

[Moemg]

I smoked socially in college until I witnessed my first autopsy on a smoker . I stopped and never looked back.

 

[KM]

Addiction is incredibly powerful. I quit back in the early 80s. Every bone in my body hurt. I ate so many carrots I turned orange. I dreamed of accidentally starting to smoke for years afterwords.

People start young when they felt they were invincible. People don't start smoking when they are 30. I also jumped off cliffs into the local swimming hole, drove 70 miles an hour down rutted dirt roads, and dropped acid. Some of us, especially when young, have poor impulse control.

Thirty years later and I still have that dream about once a year......


My uncle lived with emphysema for years. I remember my mother saying emphysema won't kill you - it will just make you wish you were dead. He committed suicide a couple years ago. As heart-breaking as it was, I think his kids and wife understood. Life was hell for him.

Yes - for many, smoking is not just a bad habit. It is a drug addiction.

 

[Alan]

Addiction is incredibly powerful. I quit back in the early 80s. Every bone in my body hurt. I ate so many carrots I turned orange. I dreamed of accidentally starting to smoke for years afterwords.

People start young when they felt they were invincible. People don't start smoking when they are 30. I also jumped off cliffs into the local swimming hole, drove 70 miles an hour down rutted dirt roads, and dropped acid. Some of us, especially when young, have poor impulse control.

I am so relieved that I did not get addicted, since I smoked between age 8 and 11. While clearing my Dad's house over Christmas we were emptying bookcases and came across a book with hollowed out pages containing 3 cigarettes. I'd completely forgotten about that little hiding place I'd made. My brother also smoked during those boyhood years, but like me quit very young. Our 2 younger sisters were not so lucky. One of them still smokes and the other managed to stop ~7 years ago.

 

[haha]

I think being miltantly anti-smoker, particularly when you get in people's faces marks you as a bit too arrogant. Get real, smokers pose a very very small risk to you, smaller than almost anyone driving down a road you are on.

Anyway, as a matter of personal survival I avoid confronting people. If you live long enough, plenty of people will take the initiative and confront you on whatever trespasses they have decided that you are making against them.

I don't smoke and never have, but I don't consider it to be a moral issue at all. Many very nice, well educated people smoke. Like Martha said, many started along time ago and have not been able to quit. Barack Obama smokes, and which of you is cooler than he? Vicente smokes, and what male on this board has a more pleasant persoanlity than he? Certainly not I and I am a nonsmoker.

Ha

 

[scrabbler1]

I think being miltantly anti-smoker, particularly when you get in people's faces marks you as a bit too arrogant. Get real, smokers pose a very very small risk to you, smaller than almost anyone driving down a road you are on.

Anyway, as a matter of personal survival I avoid confronting people. If you live long enough, plenty of people will take the initiative and confront you on whatever trespasses they have decided that you are making against them.

I don't smoke and never have, but I don't consider it to be a moral issue at all. Many very nice, well educated people smoke. Like Martha said, many started along time ago and have not been able to quit. Barack Obama smokes, and which of you is cooler than he? Vicente smokes, and what male on this board has a more pleasant persoanlity than he? Certainly not I and I am a nonsmoker.

Ha

And I would describe arrogant, militant smokers as those who smoke (or carry lit cigs) in areas they know they should not be smoking, such as elevators, movie theaters, trains, near gas pumps, and restaurants. But when a non-smoker complains about these rude, inconsiderate, and illegal acts, they are the ones portrayed as the arrogant, nasty people, not the ones who actually caused the problems - the smokers themselves. If the smokers would stop lighting up where they are not supposed to, we non-smokers would not have anything to complain about.

In one of my elevator confrontations back in the 1980s, I held an elevator door open as I politely asked a man with a lit cig to please put it out or leave the elevator. He did neither and I had 8 other people in the elevator angry at ME, not the smoker who was causing the problem. Strangely, everyone else chose to leave the elevator instead of joining me to get the real offender - the smoker - to either put out the cig or leave the elevator so I would let the door close. So who was the arrogant one? Not me!

 

[haha]

Well, I do see your point, particualry since you apparently restrict yourself to confronting illegal smokers.

But I guess the elevator experience that you recounted in above post does show that social perceptions don't always follow moral principles.

But as I said, I figure a small exposure to illegal smoking is less danger to me than getting vocal about it. I don't like it either when a group walks 3 or 4 abreast and I have to clear aside for them to pass on the sidewalk- but I feel that the discrete thing to do is to realize that there isn't much courtesy around, and one really doesn't ever know who he is dealing with, so be cool ha.

If it were dangerous, like around solvents, I would just get the hell away. I could be gone by the time I made the stop smoking request.

Ha

 

[samclem]

. I don't like it either when a group walks 3 or 4 abreast and I have to clear aside for them to pass on the sidewalk- but I feel that the discrete thing to do is to realize that there isn't much courtesy around, and one really doesn't ever know who he is dealing with, so be cool ha.

. . . and sloppily "sneeze" in their direction as they pass. "Excuse me! These allergies . . . "

 

[73ss454]

I remember once back in the late 70's getting onto an elevator in a court house. The elevator was packed and one person came on with a lit cig.. Turns out there was a cop in plain clothes on the elevator and asked the man to put out his cig.. He refused and the cop ID himself and the man still refused. Turns out he was an attorney with his client. The cop told him to get off the elevator while holding the door open for him. He again refused, the cop grabbed him and took him off the elevator and gave him a summons. The law was clearly marked inside the elevator. Everyone started to applaud. I though it was great. He was one unhappy attorney.

 

[samclem]

The elevator was packed and one person came on with a lit cig.. Turns out there was a cop in plain clothes on the elevator and asked the man to put out his cig.. He refused and the cop ID himself and the man still refused. Turns out he was an attorney with his client.

I'll bet there's quite a bit of , um, "chemistry" between cops and criminal defense attorneys. You might have witnessed one chapter of a long-running story. Good for the cop--lots of witnesses and a clear violation--SCORE!"

 

[vicente solano]

Barack Obama smokes, and which of you is cooler than he? Vicente smokes, and what male on this board has a more pleasant persoanlity than he? Certainly not I and I am a nonsmoker.

Ha

Ha.....Now you´ve overdone it. And being mentioned in the same pragraph with Obama. Some people might not like the association and turn their back on your president:
And I don´t fool myself: I´m a bit embarrassed by my addiction. Most of my friends my age have quit along the past few years.
There are no excuses for me .....but my sedentary life and being an early riser with so few hobbies don´t help. Most of them a sedentary ones: reading, listening to audiobooks, watching movies, slow walks.....

 

[vicente solano]

I'
There are lots of exceptions but mostly smokers are from the lower socioeconomic ranks/blue collar/low class.

That´s certainly not the case here in Spain. All sorts of people smoke, quit, relapse (90%) or never have smoked.

 

[CuppaJoe]

I think being miltantly anti-smoker, particularly when you get in people's faces marks you as a bit too arrogant. Get real, smokers pose a very very small risk to you, smaller than almost anyone driving down a road you are on.

Anyway, as a matter of personal survival I avoid confronting people. If you live long enough, plenty of people will take the initiative and confront you on whatever trespasses they have decided that you are making against them.

....

....

But as I said, I figure a small exposure to illegal smoking is less danger to me than getting vocal about it. I don't like it either when a group walks 3 or 4 abreast and I have to clear aside for them to pass on the sidewalk- but I feel that the discrete thing to do is to realize that there isn't much courtesy around, and one really doesn't ever know who he is dealing with, [I]so be cool ha[/I].
....
Ha

Very well put, Ha. What pops into my head is that the good social aspects of being around a smoker outweigh the temporary discomfort. I grew up with chain-smoking second-hand smoke both at home and in cars. I cough, my eyes water and god knows what it did to my long-term health. Most people I know these days are discreet about it, hold the cigarette away from others, walk behind whoever they are with, downwind, take the outside chairs at the coffee shop, etc. (My Dutch acquaintances remind me that coffee shop in Holland is where one buys weed).

Not confronting people is common sense street smarts, IMO. I live in an apartment building where you don't hear what goes on inside apts. but you can hear what is said in the hallways. Well, last evening one of my neighbors confronted me. She totally lost it, loudly; now anyone within earshot knows how she deals with frustration. One of my belongings, that is, my cat, had escaped into the hallway where she joined two others that are always out there when their "staff" is home. Neighbor was screaming that she can't control her leashed dog, is afraid she will lunge at a cat and kill it, "don't sue me if it happens." I could get an eviction notice over this and somehow it strikes me funny this morning.

Being cool will be a challenge today, we're into another heat wave without A/C.

 

[haha]

Neighbor was screaming that she can't control her leashed dog, is afraid she will lunge at a cat and kill it, "don't sue me if it happens." I could get an eviction notice over this and somehow it strikes me funny this morning.

Being cool will be a challenge today, we're into another heat wave without A/C.

I hope eviction will not be an issue. Probably you will be fine. A lunatic loudly went off on a guy in my building about some infraction that he was doing, but he was told to shut down (he was operating a bike repair from his garage) and she was warned to watch her language and aggro tendencies or she would be evicted.

That weather is strange. It is quite cool up here now-65 and sunny at 10:20.

Ha

 

[KM]

And I would describe arrogant, militant smokers as those who smoke (or carry lit cigs) in areas they know they should not be smoking, such as elevators, movie theaters, trains, near gas pumps, and restaurants. But when a non-smoker complains about these rude, inconsiderate, and illegal acts, they are the ones portrayed as the arrogant, nasty people, not the ones who actually caused the problems - the smokers themselves. If the smokers would stop lighting up where they are not supposed to, we non-smokers would not have anything to complain about.

In one of my elevator confrontations back in the 1980s, I held an elevator door open as I politely asked a man with a lit cig to please put it out or leave the elevator. He did neither and I had 8 other people in the elevator angry at ME, not the smoker who was causing the problem. Strangely, everyone else chose to leave the elevator instead of joining me to get the real offender - the smoker - to either put out the cig or leave the elevator so I would let the door close. So who was the arrogant one? Not me!

I suspect this had a lot more to do with people's desire to avoid confrontation than supporting smoking. My guess is they were upset because you "made a scene". The average person does not like that......regardless of who is right and who is wrong.

I doubt I would have made the effort to confront him, but I sure would have been pleased as punch to see someone else confront him, and would have supported your position.