Why do people smoke ?

[Gromit]

My Mum's got cancer for the third time due to her smoking, this time its terminal.

She has had two major operations in 5 years, quit smoking before the first.

Mouth cancer isn't pleasant, if she had teeth she would have lost them, they removed bones from her jaw as well as breaking it, making it impossible for her to wear false teeth. They removed skin and veins from her arm to replace the flesh they had to remove to clear the cancer. Skin was then taken from her belly to patch over what they had taken from her arm. She also had both linth glands removed from her neck. Not to mention how her voice has changed.

Now its back, it appeared in the form of an abscess on her chin, visible from the outside, it burst leaving an open wound. The cancer is eating her away, soon it will spread all over her chin causing more and more abscess's that will never heal. The open wounds are hidden by a dressing.

She has taken to self medication, the drink always went with a fag, brandy in tea. Cans of beer at night.

We weren't well off as a family, my dad and mum always smoked, my memory's are all full of them buying drink and smoking. Doing everything fags in their mouths, the haze of smoke in the house and the acrid taste if you ever licked anything.

Not pleasant really.

 

[Fran143]

Never ever smoked but do have a few friends who do it as it stops them eating and putting on weight. Personaly I'd rather have a clean-ish set of lungs and a wee bit of padding round my derriere than be a skinny smoker, but thats just my opinion!

 

[Firestorm]

I did the usual few fags as a youngster, but never really took it up, then at 18 went to uni, had a torrid time with stress and "recalled" the sensation the fags had given me a few years earlier, bought a pack and that was that .
7 years later and on maybe 15 a day, My wife was expecting our first so I quit, took up running and , never had another (a year or so later as the running became serious the booze got kicked as well)

I gave up for 16 years then the wife suddenly walked out, leaving me with the kids. Within a couple of weeks the running had stopped (couldn't leave the kids alone for too long) and the fags and booze were back with a vengance.

10 years on I still smoking 10-15 a day, not drinking and trying to get my fitness back, stress and depression makes you do all sorts of things as you struggle to come to terms with it and look for the "quick fix" to try and alleviate it.

Its a habit in more ways than one , One fag as I leave the house in the morning, light up as soon as i leave the station at the other end , 11 oc 3 and 4 then one as I leave the office , as soon as I leave the station at home and as soon as the wife gets in regular as clockwork.



I have recently acquired one of those electric fags , nicotine without the tar, just got to use it as a substitute rather than a supplement and i will be on my way to cutting down.

Strangey my asthma has been considerably better since I went back on the fags, probably as it allergic asthma and the smoking has de-sensitised my lungs (killed off bits)

 

[Norm]

... stress and depression makes you do all sorts of things as you struggle to come to terms with it and look for the "quick fix" to try and alleviate it.

There has been a lot of very emotive words written on this thread, but the bit above is one of the most poignant and accurate things I've seen written for a long time.

Those who struggle to understand the actions of others, on any subject, would do well to remember them when trying to rationalise from their comfortable position in a warm office.

 

[numbnuts]

I smoked and now I have emphysema

 

[byegad]

I drink. I like a drink. I sometimes really need a drink if life is stressing me out.

I don't drink all of the time and can and have gone months between drinks.

BUT When I have a drink I don't drive my car. Because I'm a danger to others, as well as myself.

Now if smokers had the same attitude, they'd protect me from the side effects of their smoking.

But they don't. They stand at the door of buildings blowing their smoke at me as I pass. How would they feel if I treated them to the side effects of my drinking as they passed me? Wet shoes would cause offence!

 

[rodgy-dodge]

MMmmmmMMM.....Cigarette smoke I don't like it, but would never judge anyone who did smoke.

My hubby packed in 15 years ago but still fancies the odd one. He won't have one because he knows even now he could get hooked again because he used to enjoy it. His reason for packing in was that the amount of money he spent on fags paid for an annual summer holiday abroad.

My dad smoked but packed in like a shot when diagnosed with Asbestosis he did live twenty years longer than his collegues who where diagnosed with the same percentage!

My mam still smokes...rolls her own, she'll be 81 next month. She keeps saying the fags will probably get her in the end, but she enjoys them and to be fair at that age why should she give up her only vice? Shes been smoking since she was 15 (66 yrs) still does all her own decorating climbing step ladders etc. she recons she must have a gene whereby smoking doesn't affect her, but she does keep herself active danceing is her bag, she doesn't drive and walks everywhere and I would say sometimes I think she's fitter than me. she rarely ails anything.

 

[gavintc]

This might sound a little patronising. But, if I was to have commented on this discussion at the start of page 1, I would have been quite condemnatory, stating that it is a ridiculous habit etc etc. However, I have found much of the comment quite revealing and interesting. Obviously, I do not smoke and never have and just do not 'get it'. The comments made here have allowed a little bit of an insight into the life of a smoker; both the contended and the less contended. The addictive element seems much stronger than I had predicted. The other element I find interesting is the strength of enjoyment factor of having a smoke; calming settling etc. I am quite glad that I have not succumbed to the habit and generally at work am quite condemnatory of colleagues needing their 10-15 min smoke breaks continually throughout the working day.

 

[Keith Oates]

I'm an ex smoker and gave it up a long time ago now, but I now find that being near people when they are smoking, especially in restaurants (you can still do that out here) makes me agitated and I move away if possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[goo_mason]

I smoked for 18 years, finally giving up on the 4th January 2004. I don't know why I started, and it was a mad thing to do as I was 18 at the time and had seen the effects that smoking had on three of my relatives, and had always vowed never to do it. Initially I like it because it made my head buzz, and then by the time that no longer happened I was hooked. In the 18 years I smoked (almost exclusively roll-ups made with Samson tobacco), I enjoyed it. Or so I thought - it was only when I quit that I realised he enjoyment was actually coming from the addiction and satisfying the cravings when they hit.

I quite because of my health, the cost, a fear of cancer but mainly for my daughter. I didn't want her growing up with a Dad who was a smoker. My ex is pretty ill with chronic pancreatitis and her life will definitely be shortened because of it, so I wanted my daughter to have the possibility of still having a parent alive as she got into her 20s or 30s.

I decided I was going to quit 6 months before I did, and I spent those 6 months telling people when I was stopping and reminding myself of the benefits of kicking the habit. I managed to do it, the withdrawal symptoms were minimal and I've not had (or wanted) a cigarette since. I now find the smell of smoke on people really vile - which is ironic given how much I stank in the same way for all those years!

It's a terrible addiction, but I wouldn't try and ban smoking. A person chooses to smoke, just like others choose to drink or eat junk food and slob around.

 

[PaulB]

My father's always been as mad as a box of frogs but the one thing I'll always be grateful to him for was his open contempt for anyone stupid enough to take up smoking. Even in his early life when the damage it caused wasn't as well known as it is now, he, like his own father, just never took it up. The feeling he had about smoking, smokers and the waste of money spent on making yourself ill was also inherited by me although my sister, in a fit of rebellion, did smoke for a few years herself but gave up while still a teenager. So the only cigarettes I've ever smoked are passively, without having a ciggie in my grifter.

 

[Over The Hill]

My dad gave up around 1968 when I was 8 and my uncle and a few others he knew died of lung cancer and I think that stayed with me and made me not want to start.

I have worked for many years in offices full of smokers so the present situation where the worst you can get is the smell of a smokers clothes is really nothing to complain about.

The big problem it seems is that a 15 year old cannot conceve of the problems they may be buying into 30 years down the line.

I think I have always felt a bit of an outsider for not smoking - not one of the cool ones. That is now more the case with these little areas outside pubs where smokers gather in a union of put upon rebels.

 

[Archie_tect]

Bob Newhart.... Bringing Tobacco Home from America.... You get some leaves and you shred them up -roll them into a paper tube, set fire to it, and inhale the smoke.... it's nutty Wal again!

 

[Fab Foodie]

And it came to pass... two rollies a day and I enjoy every puff... just dribble a bit but I'm getting better at it

Man, what a good life!

 

[Maz]

Bob Newhart.... Bringing Tobacco Home from America.... You get some leaves and you shred them up -roll them into a paper tube, set fire to it, and inhale the smoke.... it's nutty Wal again!

I love those Bob Newhart monologues! I must search for them on Youtube or something...

(paraphrasing):
"So Wal, what're you bringing back from The New World this time, huh?...what's that you're saying, Wal? Leaves? Leaves! You bought 80 tonnes of leaves!
Wal, this may come as kind of a surprise to you, but come Fall here in England...., we're kinda up to our eyeballs in leaves!"