Why did you start smoking?

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drhowarddrfine

Spinning off from the other thread.

I never smoked but was enticed in my younger years. Not any peer pressure but some other kids were pretend smoking, ie, not inhaling. I liked sucking on it and blowing the smoke. I wondered if I looked cool but never went beyond sucking in a mouthful of smoke and blowing it out.

I once found a cigar and gave that a few puffs. Made me sick.

When I was 19, I went out with some co-workers who all smoked. I told them how the smoke always made me cough. They said you had to start with small, short drags and breathe it in. I did so and my lungs felt so stuffed up I vowed never to do that again. And I haven't.

As a side note: I know 10 smokers I worked with who died from lung cancer or throat cancer.
 
I never smoked. But — amusingly — I can somehow precisely identify the moments I would smoke, if I did (for example at the bus station).

This shows me that I am highly susceptible to smoking, although I don't do it (luckily).
 
Don't really remember, probably some in-group thing. But what I do remember is an important lesson: when I was doing military service - that was basically spending nights just waiting - waiting for the cruise missile dispatch order, to finally kill the Russians - but it never came. It was very boring, obviousely, and having nothing else to do, I finally figured that one could not only smoke, but actually inhale the smoke!

That was a very important lesson, because now I could also smoke ganja and have an effect. :)
And that was again very important, because that habit then brought me into contact with people who would tell me about the really interesting drugs - those which alter reality, and give us a clue about a lot of things being wrong with what we think is supposed to be reality...
And only then I started to get some idea, about mysticism, the allegory of the cave, relativity, religions (all of them) or quantum physics.

Nicotine addiction is probably a side effect of such endeavour, just like damaged eyesight is a side effect of understanding computers. These are trade-offs, caused by the fact that our temporary mortal incarnation in space-time is basically a throw-away unit.

Question then is, do you want to actually understand something about why we're here, and pay the price accordingly, or do you prefer to just strive for the contemporary ideal of clean sterility of the obedient consumer NPC?
 
Never smoked myself, but I did discover that sometimes people smoke to cover the stench of something else - like poorly ventilated bathrooms or formaldehyde in biology labs - or even both offensive BO plus formaldehyde (plus a few other chemicals) in a clinical setting... And I have to admit, I sometimes found smell of secondhand smoke preferable to offensive BO or formaldehyde.

Sometimes a fresh coat of paint would smell so strongly that a bit of cigarette smoke brought a bit of a relief...

My personal experience was opposite of drhowarddrfine : I once tried a cigarette, tried to puff it, but my lungs could not take it, I started coughing, and I realized that it's something I just can't get used to... But then I tried a cigar my freshman year in college (fall of 2000), and was surprised that it was not bad. That experience ended up being a one-off thing, it did NOT motivate me to try more, though - I was discovering a bewildering variety of beer and other booze at the time. ? And booze smells better without presence of secondhand smoke...
 
LkderS4KGc2bFd63rM said:
Because it helps with malaria?
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That's what smoky campfires are for... people researched burning stuff like wet/young wood, different species of trees (like cedar vs. pine) or something else that humans can tolerate but mosquitoes hate... these days, you can buy special candles for camping to help with mosquitoes... And maybe live somewhere drier...
 
I was tried smoking when i was a kid because of my circle of friends but thought inhaling it is bad and never attempt smoking after.
 
I found that a nice la-flora-dominicana ligera goes well with a couple fingers of neat 1792 small batch bourbon. then I noticed how much I was spending on cigars and bourbon but still occasionally want/need the nicotine so I keep a pack of marlboro menthols around to puff on when the mood strikes me.

The cigar and bouron are much less frequent than they were during the COVID lockdown. There was also some anecdotal evidence from europe that tobacco smoke use lessened the likelihood of becoming infected with COVID, but no need to go down that rabbit hole in this discussion.
 
I was a light to moderate smoker in my late teen years up until I was 25 years old. I'm glad I quit that habit(40+ years ago). I quit drinking May 23, 2015. I do eat too much though. Heh. You can get addicted to anything.
 
According to what I experienced most of the male smokers I know started smoking in military service - smokers got a cigarette break while the others had to keep on.
The girls seem to start on partys of reasons to fit in, appear more mature, emancipated, look cool, show to be one's own women, or to rebell against education (better ask some women.)

I personally forced me to start smoking at age 19.
I suffer of depression since my youth (by now I cope with it pretty well.)
At that age I forced me to start smoking by will to shorten my life span, committing kind of a 'legal suicide over time'.

It took me less than half a package of cigarettes to get addicted,
and become a full smoker with >25 to 35 cigarettes per day.
It took me over fifteen years to get rid off this shit.
And it took me another ten years to get rid off the last effects I felt in my body.

Bottom line is:
All reasons to start smoking are bullshit.
Smoking cigarettes is pure idiocy,
completely useless, has no benefit at all what-so-ever, except to enrich the drug dealers ['tabacco corporations']

You're paying (a lot of) money for ruining your life.
You waste signifcant parts of your power to earn money for drug dealers, without getting anything in return, except to look immature while sucking on something.
That's total bogus.
That sucks.
Better use an actual pacifier.
No, honestly.
It looks just as stupid, since you obviously need something to suck on. But it cost less, and you don't get poison into you.

I cannot pass a smoker having a cigarette break in wind and rain at a dirty corner
not grinning I have no need anymore to suck on that ape flute - that includes electronic cigarettes as well.

The only smart way is:
DON'T START in the first place!
 
I started when I was 14, this was in the 60's, all the cool kids smoked and I desperately wanted to be a cool kid. Don't think I ever made it though.
I didn't quit till I was 59, and it was my dentist, who prescribed Chantrix. I'd read of some of the side effects, but figured I was already suicidal, so I should be OK. (I wasn't that glib of course, but it was the joke I would always make, though suicide is no joke).

So, any pressure I got was indirect. Both parents smoked, no one died of lung cancer in my family though, save my non-smoking uncle. My brother, who was involved in medical research, said that it may have been because at one point, he was a cancer researcher and in those days, probably the 50's, they were very careless about carcinogens. (Neither brother ever smoked, one was an athlete, nor do any of my nieces or nephews)

It's easy to say don't start--probably easier now when so few people smoke and taxes, here in NYC, have made cigarettes so expensive, though vaping seems to be getting popular. But to an insecure 14 year old, back in 1968, it seemed one way to be cool. And all the intelligent reasons to not do it--we were aware of the potential health problems back then too--didn't make a difference. %pupil -sceptical all I can say is Good for you for getting off it. As other threads on the forum have said, it can be REALLY hard to stop, like so many bad habits, easy to start, hard to quit. (Though smoking, while you're getting the hang of it in the beginning, isn't that easy to start).
 
I don't smoke,I don't drink,I don't bet,I don't eat too much,I don't spend my money going to whores,but I like very much the pussy. It's impossible to have zero addictions.
 
scottro said:
I desperately wanted to be a cool kid. Don't think I ever made it though.
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You never become cool if you depend on others to get this judgement. Teenager's mistake.
Simply declare youself as cool, and give a f4kk about what others say.
Then you are. :cool:

Don ZioMario said:
It's impossible to have zero addictions.
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Nearly impossible.
Don't confuse really like something very much with addiction.
Addiction always is a lack of discipline, and self-control.
And addiction itself is some kind of sicknees, but if you're addicted to stuff that also makes you sick, like smoking, drinking,... then the problem is multiplied.
 
%pupil -sceptical said:
You never become cool if you depend on others to get this judgement. Teenager's mistake.
Simply declare youself as cool, and give a f4kk about what others say.
Then you are.
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Not to take in consideration what other say is impossible. We don't live in a desert island. Both are important. What I think about myself and what other think about me influence my lifestyle. The human being is a bio-psycho-social being. The error is to think that we can do everything without take in consideration the others. It is not possible. Our life has a meaning because we are part of a social network that could not fail to determine who / how we are. And still today,it cannot.
 
%pupil -sceptical said:
Nearly impossible.
Don't confuse really like something very much with addiction.
Addiction always is a lack of discipline, and self-control.
And addiction itself is some kind of sicknees, but if you're addicted to stuff that also makes you sick, like smoking, drinking,... then the problem is multiplied.
Click to expand...

Yeah,I didn't want to introduce the topic of the psychopathology. But I only wanted to mention what I see every day, that is, people who have at least one addiction to something. Maybe not pathological, but almost everyone has it.
 
vape.png

Say no more...
 
I don't know about y'all, but I am strongly addicted to oxygen, and water (at a somewhat lesser extend). Being deprived of any of them makes me very twitchy.

Yes, I know that this is not what you all refer to as "addiction", but there is a line between addiction, life dependency and habbit. I know of two drugs where withdrawl can kill you (benzos and alcohol). Yet, alcohol can be a habbit, it depends on the person. But how do you know?

The only smart way is:
DON'T START in the first place!
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This! Some stuff is more addictive than other, and nicotine is among them. But the most addictive thing seems to be validation by your peers. Learn to be without that, and you will be better off.
 
Don ZioMario said:
We don't live in a desert island.
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You're right.
But there is something between listen to everything all people say (I once was this way),
or to ignore everything all people say (It's also wrong, but better for oneself :cool:.)
I needed to learn to carefully distinct what to hear by whom (e.g. my wife is a very important person to me).

All I was trying to say with that post was:
Being cool is nothing but another word for self-esteem.
 
I started smoking at 12, but there wasn't a reason, I and my friends started smoking, perhaps to "prove that we are real men". Idiots, but more or less all childrens are. However I like smoking, but I have never smoked in the presence of children or people who do not smoke indoors, even before the bans in public places. At military service (I was 21) I start rolling tobacco up to present days (58).
 
Because I like smoking, even though it's bad and all that we know, I started at 9 with blond cigarettes, then I moved on to short black cigarettes. I also smoked a pipe with Dutch tobacco for quite a few years.
Tobacco poisons... I know very well what it poisons...
 
Yes it's poison, but... that's it. I have a great will for everything I do, but not to quit smoking. From this I deduce that my will to quit smoking is very low (since I like to smoke) in addition to the fact that nicotine is highly addictive. However, it would have been much better if I had never started.
 
I smoked Marlboro from age 14 until age 31(1996) which is when they pulled a "mass" out of my sinus. Benign but just seeing pictures of the slices from dissection was enough to make me quit cold turkey. I smoked a cigar or two afterward at events but that was it.

I dealt wth Hexavalent Chromium early in my career in a chrome plating shop and it had serious consequences for my sinus.
My last mass was near the brain and I had warnings about breaching the cellebrial fluid during surgery.
That gets real fast when the super-sinus surgeon says a different doctor might have to come in to repair the cellebrial sack if breached.

A friends Mom is hooked and has her Oxygen bottle next to her recliner but sneaks onto the patio to smoke.
Dangerous combination.
 
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