Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 59 total)
  • Smokers – help me understand.
  • convert
    Full Member

    One for the smokers really – those that don’t and never have are probably as much in the dark or full of preconceptions as me…..I’ve never smoked and never felt the urge to smoke. Smoking has been on my mind a bit recently and I thought it would be interesting to get some views to help me understand “the other side”.

    My father died a few weeks ago of lung cancer and was a lifelong smoker. He supposedly gave up a few years ago after family pressure a little while before diagnosis but we knew he still did in secret. After he died I went through the pockets of his coats and found secretly stashed away packets (each accompanied by a pair of latex gloves and a pack of polos!). When I was in my early teens both his parents died of smoking related illness and despite that and me and my sister asking him to stop he carried on and 25years later history has repeated itself. At exactly the same time my father was diagnosed a work colleague’s father was also diagnosed. She had been a smoker and gave up upon the news and managed a year smoke free but has recently gone back to it (her father is still alive but getting to the nasty stage). I have friends who smoke and promised to give up when they became parents – they are now parents and guess what – they still smoke!

    My father lost his golden retirement years but I think the true looser is my mother (non smoker) who is bereft of her life partner and facing a lonely and financially difficult later life. I’m currently selling their campervan for her which they were so looking forward to spending time in enjoying a well deserved retirement and she can’t face using on her own and now needs the money – it breaks my heart.

    I ask this after an interesting week at work. I’m a teacher and as part of some other work the students were asked about their smoking habits. If you are to believe what they say something in the region of 65% of the cohort of 14-18yr olds smoke every week and at least half that number admitted to smoking multiple cigarettes every day. Whilst I appreciate some of these are “image” smokers and will grow out of it a good number won’t. I find it so sad looking around my tutor group and knowing that there are some young people in front of me about to step on to the same life conveyor belt as my father with the same outcome.

    But the last thing I’d imagine that is going to stop a 14yr old from smoking is an old bloke (that’s me in their eyes!) talking about an even older bloke who died at an age which to them is ancient. One thing I have learnt is smokers of all ages seem pretty defensive and directly confronting them rarely works. I’d assume most think they will be able to stop when they want to and don’t associate it with their older self. As a smoker do you think you should be left to make your own decisions and the rest of us should butt (pun intended!) out? With your adult head on would you rather now someone had persuaded you otherwise at a young age or just left you be? What would you have found a persuasive argument? Assuming you think that reducing smoking in the population is a good thing is banning their sale the only way to make it happen or even then would you be motivated enough to find a source?

    slimjim78
    Free Member

    Sorry to hear about you father.
    I dabbled as a teenager and am terrified of my son growing up to be a smoker so will be doing my best to convince him otherwise.

    To me, it seems 99% of all people need something to keep them on a level, something to make the world seem a little more bearable.
    To many its drink, to some its food, to others its smoking (or a combination).
    Then others seek adrenaline release, or a very rare few with no ‘vices’ turn to literature etc for a little escape.

    Smoking fills a little void and I think this is human nature, some are more susceptible to tobacco than others. Peer pressure and image obviously has a lot to answer for, but its the stress release of nicotine that eventually keeps them coming back.
    I think the only real answer is to keep gradually upping taxes on fags. Its scary to me to think people still pump £8 per packet per day into cigs, but there must be a price at which most people (despite complaining) decide it would be easier to switch to another ‘vice’. (hopefully not booze..)

    cheekyboy
    Free Member

    Smoked on average 30 tabs aday for twenty years, I ve been stopped for years now and feel good. A health shock did it for me and a ten sty in hospital, a kind nurse gave me patches and encouraged me to stop, I was very lucky and it worked.
    IMO it must be the most addictive substance going, I say this because there is no benefit from it, the best description I have ever heard is:

    “that the last cigarettes you smoked was to stop the nicotine craving you had which was left there by the previous one”

    I there is one good (New)Labour Legacy this will be War Against Tabs

    And by the way smokers “you really do stink”

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    ScottChegg
    Free Member

    I truly think smokers don’t grasp the whole health issue thing with smoking.

    A guy at work is a lifelong smoker; his wife died of lung cancer last year. Has he given up? Has he buggery.

    I hate smokers indoors, especially around my kids. Sparking up like that is thoughtless and arrogant. I had some chump at a family gathering tell me ‘it won’t do them any harm’. I can’t sit out in my garden in summer as my next door neighbours smoke constantly, stinking the place up.

    Nicotine is a crutch for some folk like drink is for others. It helps them function. If they gave up and got over the craving it wouldn’t be any more.

    nealglover
    Free Member

    I think the only real answer is to keep gradually upping taxes on fags. Its scary to me to think people still pump £8 per packet per day into cigs, but there must be a price at which most people (despite complaining) decide it would be easier to switch to another ‘vice’.

    If the government wanted to stamp out smoking properly, the best way to do it would be to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes by 1 year, every year (and enforce it) until nobody was old enough to buy them anymore.

    Nobody would have to quit due to the change in the law, but anyone currently under the age of 18 would never get the chance to start (legally)

    It would take a while, but it’s guaranteed to work.

    [ps, I smoked for 20 years almost, and was averaging about 30/day when I stopped. Which was three and a half years ago]

    johnners
    Free Member

    Everybody knows the health risks involved, but unless they’re already suffering from a smoking related disease no smoker really believes it’ll be them. I don’t think there’s anything you can say to get someone to stop, they’ll only do it when they’ve made up their own minds.

    And smoking secretly? Good grief, everyone knows you’re at it, you absolutely stink. Polos or chewing gum don’t come close to covering it up.

    BigDummy
    Free Member

    I absolutely love smoking, and smoke about 10 cigarettes and cigars a year. 10 per year.

    I actively enjoy the scent and taste of it (decent cigars especially) and it tends to happen around women I’m very attracted to and who smoke themselves. Because I’ve never built up any kind of tolerance, every cigarette I smoke seems to give me the sort of nicotine hit that the very first one did: I get a massive, smooth buzz out of them. If I smoke a big cigar in the evening I’ll be up really pretty late on it.

    As with drinking whiskey, which is also excellent, the key to it in my mind is great moderation.

    Obviously, not many people smoke as little as I do despite enjoying it so much. And I don’t purport to have any understanding of how one makes children do things. But I do wonder whether actually it would be better to approach smoking education more like we approach alcohol – it’s quite nice if you like that sort of thing, but don’t go crazy on it and if you’re instinctively reaching for it in loads of situations then you’ve got a problem with it.

    I’m 34, and I’ve known and understood that I’m going to die eventually for as long as I can recall. My tendency when people give me dire health warnings about indulgences is to ask myself whether I will live forever if I abstain entirely. I’m reasonably sure I shan’t. Also, and I may be entirely alone in this, I’m not in the business of organising my life so that I don’t die until my wife has had enough of me. It seems strange to feel that someone dying before someone else who loves them is necessarily selfish – if we approved of the behaviour that had arguably hastened the death we wouldn’t put that spin on it I think. It’s an awkward subject, and I may well be (a) too young and (b) insufficiently capable of love to understand how someone would feel. But short of managing a Bonnie & Clyde while everyone is still young and full of hope losing your loved ones is always going to be hard I suppose.

    Rambling rather, anyway. Thanks for a measured and non confrontational OP. 🙂

    butcher
    Full Member

    There’s not really any argument that will convince a teenager. It’s one of those things where it has to be very much on your own terms. It’s not easy to give up, and your head needs to be in the right place, doing it for all the right reasons. Where anyone else’s head is at will not make a jot of difference.

    It’s fine to encourage, and educate. But like you say, at that age most don’t care. Any imagined consequences are so distant in the future that it’s not worth worrying about, and that’s where their head’s at.

    johnners
    Free Member

    I absolutely love smoking

    Me too, started at school, smoked off and on for years, last had a cigarette 15 years ago.

    smoke about 10 cigarettes and cigars a year

    Couldn’t do that, I’ve come to the conclusion I either smoke or not, I’ve chosen not to, although I’m still convinced that a Gauloise and an espresso is the finest breakfast known to man.

    And smoking really stinks, and so will you if you do it.

    restless
    Free Member

    I started smoking at 14 because everyone else did, my family, freinds and it was just normal to smoke.

    I only managed to stop long term at 32, about 4yrs ago.

    The health problems never bothered me when i was younger at all. The only thing that worried me was the money and being able to afford them. The local shop selling singles for 10p was a big help when at school.

    It’s an addiction and thats why smokers will carry on regardless of price or risks.

    nealglover
    Free Member

    Gauloise and an espresso is the finest breakfast known to man.

    A mug of tea and a couple of ‘Bensons’ coming close second

    (for those times when you are not feeling all..’James Bond’ :mrgreen: )

    johnners
    Free Member

    (for those times when you are not feeling all..’James Bond’ )

    There are no such times. I’m proper jet-set, me.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    I have friends who can have the “odd” fag – every so often – when they’re having a beer, and then not smoke again for ages…could be months, could be years. Lucky bastards. I’d love to be able to do that. I’ve tried after being off them for years…and lo, I was back on them again after a few weeks. And then ensued, another long battle to give them up again.

    I started and was hooked before I had the sense to know better. Oh how I laughed at the kids that puked up and never lit up again, while I being such a dude, absolutely loved it. Anyone who’s not been properly addicted to nicotine, and I mean, so much so, that smoking becomes interwoven into the fabric of your life, has no idea how difficult it is to give them up. It is **** fard. And it still is.

    There is no doubt, that as you hit the second half of your thirties, you begin to notice the decrease in lung capacity, the effect it’s had on your skin. The thing is, we have this marvellous thing called the human body that despite the abuse we throw at it in our younger years, still manages to do a good job of repairing itself. I’m constantly amazed by how much better I feel physically as a non-smoker, never mind all the anti-social aspects of it.

    I’d love to be in BD’s position, but there just isn’t a hope. I’m either a smoker or not a smoker. And for now, I’d prefer not to be one.

    Edric64
    Free Member

    I gave up 8 years ago just before I was 40 .Even now there are times I hanker after a decent cigar or a rollup ,but ready made fags just bloody stink

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    a rollup ,but ready made fags just bloody stink

    Aye, indeed. But, the smell of someone lighting up a Drum or a Golden Virginia rolly…mmmmm. 🙂

    emsz
    Free Member

    I almost hate to admit it, but I luv smoking. I love the red and white packet (marlboros are poison of choice) I get the soft pack from a dodgy corner shop, and TBH they’re one of my most fav things. I luv the smell, and I luv lighting and smoking them, shallow I know, but my gf looks soooo **** cool smoking a ciggie, it’s hard not to just go for a pash right there!!

    try to just smoke at the weekend, and make a pack last, but I need to stop again. Sorry to hear about your dad convert, my mum glares at me, and my dad hates it too.

    Edric64
    Free Member

    Most of my mates roll so I dont mind standing in the pub smoking shelter chatting to them

    _tom_
    Free Member

    I have friends who can have the “odd” fag – every so often – when they’re having a beer, and then not smoke again for ages…could be months, could be years.

    This is what I do, as BigDummy does I get the same feeling with each one because my tolerance is quite low. Beer + cigarettes go so well together. I hate smoking in the day though, don’t like having the stale smell lingering around me. Much prefer roll ups, smell and taste way better and seem to get more of a buzz from them. Fully aware of the health implications and always feel a bit guilty about it but not enough to stop me..

    nickhart
    Free Member

    i’m in a similar position working as a teacher and trying to educate the dark side of smoking.
    i thought that me being off for two years with fairly serious bouts of cancer and the sights i saw would help them understand but it didn’t. i’ve possibly smoked ten cigarettes/cigars in my life (40) but thoroughly hate it with a passion.
    i’ve tried loads at school, getting the nurse involved getting parents involved science experiments etc. then i saw a y10 (14 year old) rolling his dad’s tabs and rolling one for himself and wondered why i bothered! the area I work in is not prosperous, many generations have been unemployed since the coal and steel industries changed. the only pleasure (!) many have is smoking and drinking. go figure.
    while i was off during one of my chemo rounds my district nurse told me her father had his tongue removed due to cancer, continued to smoke until the big c had finished him off!
    the worst one i saw though was a guy in hospital with me on a drug experiment, he had to record everything he ate drank pooed and pee’d. he didn’t record the cigarettes he went outside and smoked though. wtf!
    good luck, don’t sell the camper, get your mum to enjoy it on her own.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    for many smokers its a real addiction with unpleasant and insidious withdrawal. Perfectly possible to stop but it really gets a hook into your brain – years after stopping I can still feel cravings and a little voice in the back of my head saying ” just one will be OK”

    couple that with easy availablity so its just too easy to backslide

    chewkw
    Free Member

    As a smoker do you think you should be left to make your own decisions and the rest of us should butt (pun intended!) out?

    If you are below 18 then both parents and teachers should have the rights to punish the children for smoking. Put them to hard labour. Fact! None of your politically correct shite. Children are meant to be punished if they have done wrong. If you want them NOT to develop the habit then this is the time. i.e. stop them from smoking their first cigarette before they got hooked.

    The next stage where you have the chance to stop someone smoking is in their early adulthood where they have moved on from being a teen rebel.

    Once they have gone beyond 18 then the parents step in. Yes, the parents and not your bloody nanny society state. However, you have a problem here because the society has made or educated a person to be so “individualistic” the element of respects for the elders is practically gone. Therefore, you cannot stop smoking and nobody can.

    In a way you can only advise others of the bad consequences for health if they smoke but you cannot do more than that. In another words it is none of your business if the adult refuse to listen. Let the nature takes its course like a natural culling system.

    With your adult head on would you rather now someone had persuaded you otherwise at a young age or just left you be?

    My parents would beat the crap out of me when they caught me smoking in my late teen. Yes, with belt and rattan cane but my skin was so thick it’s practically impenetrable like rhino. They just said that smoking was bad but they did not know how to explain why it was bad. So perhaps you would like to explain the “technical aspects” of why / how smoking can be bad. I stopped for many years when I took up spots because I thought it affected my stamina. Still not sure if that is the case.

    What would you have found a persuasive argument?

    Nope. There is no persuasive argument when I could see an old man of nearly 100 years still smoking and still looking “healthy” having smoke all his life with no serious illness.

    My view is that if your gene or DNA is not capable of handling the toxi from of cigarette then no matter how little you smoke you will die by simply inhaling 2nd hand cigarette smoke.

    A simple fact is to research to see if a city with heavy smog produce more lung cancer death.

    Assuming you think that reducing smoking in the population is a good thing is banning their sale the only way to make it happen or even then would you be motivated enough to find a source?

    If you ban cigarette that then kids will just smoke crack cocaine instead as a substitute then turn into zombie prostitutes. If they smoke cigarette then they might graduate into smoking something stronger like weed if you do not beat the crap out of them. Not all but some … the “cool” ones.

    Stop being a nanny state and I am sure people know what is good or bad for them if you can tackle the issue in the early years. However, if adults decide to take up smoking that’s their problem and don’t blame the cigarette if you’re dying. Blame your weak gene.

    ***Advertisement music on with a macho voice commenting***
    “Smokkinggggg !… the pleasure of liffeeee … a natural way to culll a populationnnnnn …”
    ***Advertisement music off***

    johnners
    Free Member

    Have you missed taking your meds again chewkw?

    chewkw
    Free Member

    johnners – Member

    Have you missed taking your meds again chewkw?

    Smoked about 8 sticks of tobacco roll ups yesterday. 🙄

    Slowly giving up …

    kayak23
    Full Member

    I’m 34, and I’ve known and understood that I’m going to die eventually for as long as I can recall. My tendency when people give me dire health warnings about indulgences is to ask myself whether I will live forever if I abstain entirely. I’m reasonably sure I shan’t.

    I think its a common view folk have about longevity of life. That old thing about tabs taking 5 minutes off your life. Sadly death may not simply be a slightly premature flick of a switch. Smoking increases your chances of a horrendously long and drawn out period of ill health which could be years before you die , It’s not just a case of living it up then suddenly kicking the bucket.

    Smoke free now for about ten years. Promised myself I’d give up before I was 30 which I did.
    Really hate public buildings and pubs now with skanky tabbers huddling outside.

    King-ocelot
    Free Member

    I smoke around 8 Cuban cigars a year, and I love the taste and aftertaste, the smell and being in the garden enjoying them.

    I used to smoke cigarettes off and on. The reason I started was stupid, someone at school had a pack and shared them out, I was the only one that didn’t cough or choke on their first attempt, I got instant cool so carried on. Smoked from 14-16, Quit easily due to expense and thinking of cancer, started again in my early 20 for 6 months or so but quit when a family member died. If I’m honest I don’t like cigarette smoking unlike cigars.

    chewkw
    Free Member

    I can’t smoke cigarette or I hate the taste and smell of cigarette but I like smoking roll up tobacco or pipe … 🙄

    Smoking pipe is a ritual …

    danceswithcats
    Full Member

    It’s a curse. I can’t explain how I can desperately miss something that I hate so much. Don’t try to understand, just avoid.

    PrinceJohn
    Full Member

    I have an idea for an anti smoking campaign that I think would eradicate teenage boys smoking.

    My campaign would compare the happy long slow suck on a cigarette to that of a gay man pleasuring another gay man’s winky. Get that message across, then you only need to come up with a similarly controversial one to put off the girls.

    flippinheckler
    Free Member

    I really can’t understand the logic of smokers, they know the damage smoking is doing to them and others around them, especially if they are parents and they smoke around their children either in the car or at home, it’s wholly selfish and inexcusable. It’s a filthy habit and I don’t like being in the company of smokers, they have little respect for themselves and environment and littler by just chucking their cigarette butts wherever they like, disgusting, no excuse.

    hora
    Free Member

    Even after 13 yrs of going clean I still get the odd powerful craving.

    At the time that l smoked I thought nonsmokers were sad and its my body.

    Post quit you realise you craved a drug soo much that you felt oppressed by do gooders

    tazzymtb
    Full Member

    for me, smoking was inherently linked to drinking and having a good time from my teenage years. The only way for me to stop smoking was also to stop boozing and clubbing/gigs.

    If I have a beer I’m still behaviourly programmed to want a fag. Pubs seem like soul-less canteens without smokers , I miss the dark dingy smokey cabaret and alternative clubs.

    We’re all going to die and we only have one shot at life, If people make a lifestyle choice that’ll shorten theirs, but give them some “enjoyment” then let them. I can’t stand health fascism.

    poly
    Free Member

    If the government wanted to stamp out smoking properly, the best way to do it would be to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes by 1 year, every year (and enforce it) until nobody was old enough to buy them anymore.

    Nobody would have to quit due to the change in the law, but anyone currently under the age of 18 would never get the chance to start (legally)

    It would take a while, but it’s guaranteed to work. You’ve really thought that through haven’t you? Because its not like people under the legal age for fags and booze manage to get their hands on it or that anyone who want illicit drugs can’t just pop out and buy them with little effort?

    flippinheckler
    Free Member

    Pubs seem like soul-less canteens without smokers , I miss the dark dingy smokey cabaret and alternative clubs.

    Thats rather pathetic!

    chewkw
    Free Member

    flippinheckler – Member

    Thats rather pathetic!

    LOL!

    I smoke tobacco but I hate others smoking in front of me or having their cigarette smoke blow into my face.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    We’re all going to die and we only have one shot at life, If people make a lifestyle choice that’ll shorten theirs, but give them some “enjoyment” then let them. I can’t stand health fascism.

    this

    but I don’t like parents smoking around their kids, or pregnant women smoking, seems unfair.

    I remember going into a pub in London after scotland had banned smoking in pubs but before they did, and thinking it was really weird and unpleasant that it was full of smoke. Nobody seems to smoke on buses any more either, which is nice.

    Been thinking of trying a pipe, to keep the midgies away!

    bigjim
    Full Member

    actually I think a lot of smokers have a ‘the damage is done now’ attitude/excuse for not giving up. I used to smoke a lot of dope when I was a student and in my 20’s, and don’t want to think what my lungs look like, but it does make it quite easy to think oh well what difference does it make having a smoke now, after all that.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    May seem strange to non smokers, but it is actually really enjoyable…you can bring in what ever draconian laws you like though, I think it’s been proven that prohibition doesn’t work. If people want to do something they’ll find a way to do it.

    chewkw
    Free Member

    bigjim – Member

    Nobody seems to smoke on buses any more either, which is nice.

    Yes, one thing I hated most in the past was people smoking in the buses especially during the winter time … FFS! Do they have brains? When I was in the far east people smoked in the bus but all the windows on the bus were wide opened and wind blowing in …

    tazzymtb
    Full Member

    Thats rather pathetic!

    thanks, it’s always nice to appreciate those with a viewpoint different to yours.

    onceinalifetime
    Free Member

    After having just come in from having had a rollie, YES, I would of found it extremely helpful if someone impartial gave me advice on not smoking.
    I have an eletric ciggy ready for the next day or so but it’s more a case of force of habit than addicted to nicotine.
    If your debating giving advice, I would say give it, what’s the worse that can happen…
    It’s a foul anti social activity of the young and if it is taken on board and understood what the cons are for doing it then they would surely see it outweighs the ” cool ” factor of taking a dirty drag.

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