Seven years..

[Adam4868]

Nine and a half for 20 B&H.

I smoke ten a day tops, but then I don't drink. How much does a regular pub goer spend per week?

If they could make them that were good for you and were double the price id be tempted.
Even though a pint in the pub is 4/5 times the price of at home I still go.
It's a bastard of a habit to kick,I was helped by having my tonsils out in my 30s and being really I'll with it.Who knows I might have been still smoking now.

 

[Moodyman]

There's a social aspect to smoking that never-been-smokers don't get. The friendships developed at the smoking shelter, or the random conversations with strangers on a station platform after borrowing a light.

Over the years I've seen several coworkers become couples after getting to know each other on fag breaks.

 

[Fab Foodie]

There's a social aspect to smoking that never-been-smokers don't get. The friendships developed at the smoking shelter, or the random conversations with strangers on a station platform after borrowing a light.

Over the years I've seen several coworkers become couples after getting to know each other on fag breaks.

As illustrated in this underrated sitcom....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smoking_Room

 

[Mtbsensa]

Congratulations brother, going clean on he smokes as well. Only hitting the J every other full moon

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Excellent stuff all those who have quit.

I tried it as a schoolboy. It just made me feel sh!t so I never got hooked thankfully. I hate the smell of cig smoke these days. Nice summer evening out in the pub garden and some silly person lights up . Ban it in all public places say I.

 

[tyred]

There's a social aspect to smoking that never-been-smokers don't get. The friendships developed at the smoking shelter, or the random conversations with strangers on a station platform after borrowing a light.

Over the years I've seen several coworkers become couples after getting to know each other on fag breaks.

That's definitely true and one of the few parts of smoking I do miss in some ways but I also realise I don't need to spend a fortune and legally gunge my lungs up to socialise.

No doubt about it though, putting a fag in your mouth and asking for a light was an easy ice-breaker. The reality is that a dwindling percentage of the population smoke and as we age, more and more of our peers will have quit.

If you are the only smoker in a group of non-smokers you feel stupid being the one leaving the restaurant table between courses to smoke... been there, got the t-shirt.

 

[Drago]

Both my parents smoked, at least 30/ day each, often many more. All my childhood photos which have my parents in them show a cigarette in their hands.
The smell, I nearly said stink, and mess always put me off, and neither I nor my sister have ever smoked.
I have asthma and blame my constant, for 18 childhood years, exposure for causing it.
Even going out meant returning with hair and clothes impregnated with that stink, until the ban on smoking in pubs, shops and restaurants came into force.
We'd stopped going anywhere where we'd get exposed to smoke, but after the ban we returned to theatres, cinemas and restaurants, and it's so nice to go home not stinking of someone else's 'pleasure'.
I like a drink but don't litter the countryside with empties, nor do I piss on other people.

While I myself successfully quit cigarettes I don't really feel I should be up on a high horse making too much noise about smokers.

After all, you are still happy to drive a car and produce thousands of cubic metres of air pollution each year, pollution responsible for 40,000 deaths annually in the UK (considered en mass, not just you personally). Compare that to 3800 deaths a year linked to passive smoking.

So as a car owner myself, even as one who drives exceedingly sparingly, I am a sinner and therefore do not feel it appropriate to cast the first stone at the smokers.

 

[Archie_tect]

I'm not 100% certain of the date but I do believe it was seven years ago today since I last smoked a cigarette. As pretty dedicated thirty a day smoker that started very young I never thought I would ever be able to do it. I thought I enjoyed smoking and couldn't ever imagine life without them. I didn't even plan on stopping as such, I had bought an E-cigarette (just as they were beginning to get popular) to play with as I thought it might be useful for times when I wasn't allowed to smoke and over a period of a few weeks I used the E-cigarette more and smoked less until I just stopped smoking tobacco completely. I ran out and never bothered buying any more. Then somewhere along the line I got bored with the Ecig and binned it too.

Today I can't even imagine smoking, the very concept seems alien and the smell of stale smoke almost makes me vomit. I definitely do feel better, I'm not sure where all the money I'm supposed to have saved has gone but the best thing is the freedom. On hindsight, being a smoker is just so inconvenient - always making sure you have tobacco, papers, filters and lighter on you at all times (plus the emergency stash in the office drawer, the car glovebox, and sad to admit, the sidepocket of my Carradice saddle bag just incase I run out), having to go outside to stand in the rain just to smoke, having to prepare for a long drive by pre-rolling adequate cigarettes and having them all lined up on the dashboard, going on a bus/train/plane and spending the whole journey just looking forward to getting off the thing so I can do my impression of The Flying Scotsman. I used to think not smoking would spoil socialising as I always seemed to talk to people in the smoking area - I then realised if you stay inside the pub with the non-smokers you actually have more people to talk to as only a minority smoke.

I think back to the bad old days of my youth of smokey nicotine stained pubs, going to the pictures to watch a film through a blue haze, people smoking between or even during courses in restaurants. I remember in my first works Christmas party in 1999, someone came around the tables with a box of cigars after the dessert. How quaint! I'm just about old enough to remember billboard advertisements for cigarettes, the Hamlet cigar ads on telly, the sporting fixtures - The Embassy World Snooker championship or the Benson and Hedges Masters. The days when McLaren, Lotus and Ferrari F1 cars were basically high-speed cigarette packets! I had a picture of a Porsche 911 in Rothmans colours on my bedroom wall once. Thank God those days are gone and we can all breathe nice clean air diesel fumes.

View attachment 575439

Fantastic tyred 👍 - a good friend, who had smoked 40+ a day all his adult life, stopped when he was 65... he complained endlessly for months as he said he felt no different , food tasted the same, he didn't notice any improvements... until the day we walked past an empty smokers' shelter at the hospital and he maoned about the stale smoke smell. I just looked at him [he can now laugh without coughing!]

 

[Milkfloat]

My father died in his mid 40s from throat and lung cancer, the last few years of his life were not good. His smoking in the car with windows closed on journeys to school (30 mins each way) put me off ever starting. I hope my kids never try.

 

[PaulB]

The second hand effects of smoking could still be felt by non-smokers not that long ago. One particular night, I'd gone to see Reggae superstar Lee 'Scratch' Perry at the Academy in Liverpool. It's fair to say you could not prevent getting stoned on the weed being smoked on an industrial scale that night!

 

[Smokin Joe]

Giving up smoking is easy. I've done it hundreds of times.

 

[12boy]

I began at 16 and quit at forty although for the last 10 yrs or so it was only in bars or while drinking. Don't miss it either. My grandad who smoked until his death at 94 had a poem:
Tabacco is filthy weed
It satisfies no normal need
I like it
It stains your teeth
And soils your breath
Leads you to an early death
I like it.

 

[Dave7]

A (serious) question.
Having never smoked, I assume pipe tobacco is the same as cigarette tobacco?
If so, why can you inhale one but not the other ?
Oh, also, if pipe tobacco is not inhaled how does it become addictive ?

Any answers ??

 

[slowmotion]

Any answers ??

Pipe tobacco is a lot denser than cigarette tobacco. I believe it would actually be quite painful to inhale it into your lungs, although similar dense smoke has been known to go there.
It's possible to absorb nicotine from pipe tobacco through the soft tissues in your mouth and tongue.

 

[gavroche]

While I myself successfully quit cigarettes I don't really feel I should be up on a high horse making too much noise about smokers.

After all, you are still happy to drive a car and produce thousands of cubic metres of air pollution each year, pollution responsible for 40,000 deaths annually in the UK (considered en mass, not just you personally). Compare that to 3800 deaths a year linked to passive smoking.

So as a car owner myself, even as one who drives exceedingly sparingly, I am a sinner and therefore do not feel it appropriate to cast the first stone at the smokers.

I don't think this is a fair comparison. Smoking is a choice, driving a car is often a necessity.