Just heard my little cuz has terminal lung cancer caused by smoking since she was 16. Cost her thousands of pounds and it will kill her within 18 months,before she reaches 48, leaving 3 kids. And yet I still see kids wandering about smoking at 15 and thinking it’s cool. What a **** up concept. That’s all, off for a ride now to get my shit together before popping round to see her.

Really sorry to hear your news fella. Stay strong for the kids. They’ll need you

Sometimes we’re not the most rational creatures. Sometimes we’re idiots. And we delude ourselves that we’re indestructible, and it won’t happen to us. I’ve smoked all my adult life, up until six weeks ago, when I had what I’m determined to be my last ever fag. The reasoning? I’ve pushed my luck far enough, and my girls need a dad. Even one as fundamentally flawed as me

So to everyone as stupid as me… Probably time to knock it on the head, eh?

Not good to hear Rogerthecat 🙁 sympathies go out to all your family. Good luck Binners stick with it !!

Hope you manage to find a good way to handle it Rogerthecat. I love riding for these sorts of things as it keeps your body busy while giving you time for reflection. The whole indestructible thing is a double edged sword as well as it allows you to do things and go places that you would otherwise avoid but sometimes you do need to take control of it.

Hope you and your family find a way through it
+1 to well done Binners

rogerthecat – sorry to hear your news.

I pass a school on the way to work and the number of schoolgirls i see smoking amazes me. Rarely see any young lads smoking though.

My mum had a lung removed 20 years ago due to lung cancer. She stopped smoking for 15 years after that but started again 5 years ago. Madness!!

My dad died of lung cancer and the wife’s aunt has just been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I always wonder if people who are life long smokers expect to get it, or at the very least are completely unsurprised when they are diagnosed with it. What do they expect…?

I don’t mean to sound harsh if that’s the way it comes across, it’s a genuine question, I never got the chance to ask my dad before he died, and he was a very heavy smoker for most of his life.

Thanks for the replies, was a bit angry and perplexed this morning, a ride up around Mam Tor has cleared my head.

I was mostly annoyed because she lost her Dad to Mesothelioma (I know that has a different cause but she saw what a death from cancer looked like at first hand) then we lost another uncle from the same disease, because he worked in the same factory, each time she stated that this was the tipping point, did not want to die this way and would stop smoking, never happened.

As a hardened libertarian I still struggle with smoking and the harm it causes. Heading off later to see her and see what needs to be done.

My mum died from lung cancer.
I looked after her throughout her illness, with the help of some amazing MacMillan nurses.

I smoke very occasionally. You would not believe how angry and guilty this makes me feel at times, but I can’t help it.

Unless you’re a smoker, you just have no idea how hard it is for some people to fully kick the habit.
I completely gave up alcohol for a while a few years ago – I found that far, far easier than giving up smoking.

I’m all for personal freedom when it comes to most things, but I really can’t see a downside to banning the sale of tobacco.

rogerthecat, thoughts are with you.

Smoking highers your chances of developing lung and mouth cancers. But sadly it also affects non smokers.

Sympathies to your family.

I’m all for personal freedom when it comes to most things, but I really can’t see a downside to banning the sale of tobacco.

Govt gets immense revenue from tobacco sales, if they banned the sale of it other taxes would rocket. Shortfall would hit us all somehow.

See so many many people effected by the many illnesses smoking causes, must wish they hadn’t started and the heavy smokers find it extremely hard to quit. Terrible drug that causes awfull illnesses.

Granted the tax brings in a lot revenue but it costs millions to deal with the side effects of smoking.

Govt gets immense revenue from tobacco sales, if they banned the sale of it other taxes would rocket. Shortfall would hit us all somehow.

The figure of net tax income only works if you deduct the cost of all consequences of tobacco sales – related deaths, cost of all treatment / investigations. The difficulty is definitely attributing the illness / death directly to smoking.

As I said I am not one for banning anything, quite the contrary, and the consequences are ones that you should bear. It’s that young kids seem not to be appreciate the consequences.

I’ve done so many stupid things in my life but the one thing that I wish I’d never done is starting smoking as a teenager.
I have found it incredibly hard to kick it completely, have given up several times for as long as 12 months and somehow ended up starting again.
I now use one of those vaporiser things which has helped me immeasurably. I do still smoke, but nowhere near as much. I wish I had the drive to quit entirely but I guess the number of failed attempts previously sabotage my ability to make it stick. I know it’s happening but I guess that’s the thing with an addiction, it’s all too easy to give in to the craving…

You know that thing where you walk into a shop, give someone eight quid, and they give you a pack of cigarettes? If you stop doing that, it’ll be immeasurably easier to quit smoking.

My dad’s in a care home with vascular dementia, and won’t be coming out. Lack of blood to the brain killed a bit of it. He’s had to have a big toe amputated as it was necrotic, and they’ve been treating a festering wound on his leg for a couple of years now. He’s got a broken hip from a fall during the months he was in the hospital as he couldn’t stand and didn’t have the mental capacity to realise that (“what do you want us to, strap him down?” was the attitude of the nurses); this was untreatable as his weight fell to about six stone and his body wouldn’t have taken the surgery. With supervision and a walking frame he can actually knock about a bit now, thanks to extensive physio.

Anyone guess why all this happened? Anyone?

I really can’t see a downside to banning the sale of tobacco.

Tax aside, if you banned it then it’d just get driven underground. Smokers would turn to illegal imports, or smoking other things.

My Mum died of lung cancer, 20 years after she gave up smoking. Diagnosed in April 2000, died in April 2001. Horrible experience.

@cougar- been giving his a bit of thought.
I don’t think it’s about banning smoking.
It’s about stopping it being cool or acceptable.
No more heroes smoking in films, tv, etc.
Help people see the misery it really causes.

Both of my grandfathers were smoking champs.. both lived well into their eighties. Not saying they weren’t ruined by that point but they were there.

No idea why anyone would want to start. It’s merely letting a big corporate take control of your brain so that you obediently send them money regular as clockwork for all of your life. Then they kill you. What’s “cool” about that?

Sorry to hear, Roger.

It’s about stopping it being cool or acceptable.

We’ve come a long way towards achieving that. Now just need to work on this pesky ‘peer pressure’ thing.

Smoking kills
Choosing to smoke is Darwinism in action.

Really sorry to hear OP. Must admit the new billboard ads are giving me the willies…so will be attempting to give up yet again.

All best to you and yours.

It’s partly cool because you are being told not to do it :(. It’s not until too late that you realise that that in this case the warning is probably correct.

When it looked as though I had lung cancer last year the surgeon said that if I had been a smoker there would have been no question about it, they would just have removed a lung and had done with it. It was only because I was a non smoker that they did loads of tests and only removed the absolute minimum that they were unsure of instead. At that point I was massively glad to never have smoked

Good luck to all those giving up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco

The health education campaigns over the years have impacted on a public who are used to soundbite information, and the idea that smoking = lung cancer is well embedded.

The truth is far more complex and sinister, and the damage caused by smoking is less well understood by those who choose to do it. It will eventually kill you, but will also kill you early while slowly destroying your quality of life.

I walk into the hospital where I work and see men sat in wheelchairs at 6 in the morning, both legs missing, smoking at the entrance.

There has never been a better time to stop than now; keep your addiction to nicotine by whatever means be it gum, lozenges, patches, e-fags, but please stop smoking.

3 years now since I gave up, best thing I ever did.

It’s not easy. I was a pathetic smoker and only went through 10-12 a week, only smoked in the evenings but there’s a theory that people who smoked like I did actually increased their risk as they took deeper drags than more regular smokers.

I never even think about them now. Didn’t realise they were £8 a pack now, think of how much that added up would get you from CRC or Wiggle 😉

It’s partly cool because you are being told not to do it

Like drrunk driving? You’re told not to do it so it’s cool? I must have missed that.
And if you want to give up, it’s not about luck, it’s about having eough of a reason to want not to die a slow ugly death.

Choosing to smoke is Darwinism in action.

No it’s not.

Choosing to smoke is Darwinism in action.

Judging by the number of people being visited by their children, young and old, in the hospice my mum worked in, that’s not the case.

So glad I gave up. 5 years ago in March.

Never going back.

Like drrunk driving? You’re told not to do it so it’s cool?

If you’re at school and starting to smoke I would be surprised if the ‘rebellion’ aspect didn’t add to the enjoyment. I doubt very much if that is true for adults though.

And if you want to give up, it’s not about luck, it’s about having eough of a reason to want not to die a slow ugly death.

I’m not so sure about that. Whenever I read these threads and people say they are stopping it isn’t clear why some manage and some don’t although I’m sure everyone realises how serious it is. I’m happy to wish them luck with it

Smoking and fertility
Not to mention that, having watched a loving parent coughing their blood up whilst plugged in to tobes and masks, a child might not be inclined to inflicting that on their own children.

Lost both mum and dad to smoking related cancer
best thing to happen to me was nicking dads pipe when I was 9
was so sick for 2 days it was the first and last smoke for me.

sadly number 2 daughter smokes and is does make me sad to see all the school girls smoking

I smoked. I stopped. It wasn’t luck. It was trying diffferent things till i found the thing that worked.
If you wnat to stop enough you will, if you don’t, you won’t. It’s that simple. making it more complicated just gives excuses to fail. “I’m going to try to stop” or “I’m going to stop”

Nail on the head there ChubbyBloke. If you don’t WANT[/u] to then you won’t. I’m 9 years stopped this February. Looking back it just seems like a really bizarre thing to do. Sucking down toxic fumes that make you stink and cough your guts up every morning whilst paying a princely sum for the privilege. In retrospect it doesn’t even make you feel good, the addiction just makes you stop feeling bad.

Sorry to hear about your cousin OP.

Lost my dad to fags I genuine wish everyone that smoked could see the agony of watching my dad being unable to breath without pain. Life is very hard sometimes.

The trouble is that you generally start smoking when you’re about 14. There’s a good reason you’re not allowed to vote, drive cars or bum people when you’re 14. Because when you’re 14, you’re a complete cock! Not only that. You’re a complete cock who thinks they know everything.

You can do all kinds of stupid things when you’re a 14 year old cock. Sowing the seeds of a lifelong addiction which will probably kill you is one of the stupidest! Did everyone tell me this? Yes. Did I listen? No. Why? Because I was a complete cock! Still am. Though trying to be a bit less of one by packing in. But it’s bloody hard!

Eight quid??? I could get a bottle of Buckie AND a Jagermiester for less than that!!

Terrible news Rogerthecat. My heart goes out to you and your family. My step Dad died of Lung cancer in 2000 when I was 14. It was heart breaking. He smoked from a young age but also had a very poor diet (fatty foods etc) but looked healthy till he started.

From 14 years old till 25 I was massively against smoking and turned down all offers of cigs from mates etc. I did drink however quite a lot. Then from 25 to now I stopped drinking and started smoking. Can’t even explain why I did. I will hopefully stop before my 30th birthday in two years. I have hypertension so I’m more at risk of strokes which took all my grandparents from me.

Well, she’s as practical and stoic as ever, immediately family going to pieces and she’s in the middle of it all sorting them out. Still got a voice like Barbara from League of Gentlemen and no fuss wanted. Brain scan to come, decisions made afterwards. Practical as ever.