smoking

I liked to smoke American Spirits and then Camels

Camel Lights and Camel Turkish Golds were my cigarette of choice, occasionally Lucky Strikes (for the package), and the new Marlboros that look like Camels aren't bad.

I'm tempted to take it back up for the flavored Camels.

can you tell that i'm trying to destroy brand loyalty in the hope that it'll be easier to quit?

also if you don't smoke and get into a car where someone smokes, or walk into a smokers apt. . GAG!! it smells so foul.

I chain-smoke of an evening sometimes (I never smoke during the day) and even then I'd never get thru more than 1 1/2 pax. Mind you this is pax of 30.

Anyway, in answer to how I smoked that much: You are in school. You don't sleep much. You take lots of breaks at work (I was very close to a quite exit.) Everyone you know smokes and you chain-smoke all the time. Then laws pass and suddenly you can't smoke ANYWHERE near a building or in a bar or in a club or in most cafes and suddenly everyone cuts way down.

Smokers themselves can be obnoxious. Nonsmokers can be obnoxious too. I smoke sometimes but I'm not obnoxious about it.

I don't smoke, but occasionally am tempted to buy a lump ov h4sh, and stick it up my bum*

*(I'm not really)

I'm a little (okay, A LOT) ashamed of this, but earlier this summer I attempted to start smoking cigs semi-regularly because I wanted to raspy-ize my singing voice. I think it may have worked...only now, if I want to hold a note out for more than like 5 measures, I'm fucked.

Hey ho. Right now I'm all over rollups of the Drum Light variety, with rolled rizla card filters, of which I smoke 5 a day normally, though this shoots through the stratosphere on nights out and weekends. I walk the path of the tramp for various corpor-ideological reasons, among them the fact that the smoke lasts longer (so theoretically I smoke less), they’re less convenient to smoke (so theoretically I smoke less), and they rip a hole in my throat of I over indulge (so theoretically I smoke less). I got well into menthol filters a month or so back but realised that they made smoking too easy so I junked them again. I do mix it up with straights every now and then, and go for Gauloises Blondes Reds first, or Lucky Lights and at a push Silk Sluts but I only do straights for like a week before reverting back to the finger-stainers. I want to give up badly but I seem to only be able to manage two months and then my brain starts pulling all sorts of dirty tricks on me, convincing me that I’ve beaten the habit; "so have a cigarette to celebrate" it whispers like a fucko. The best bit is that I always listen.

haha jess stop being me already.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/media/photos/tobacco_labelling/jpgversion/tob-ads-en-08.jpg

put one in....

Yeah I do that too.

And yeah, I think they are right about the mouth thing, my mouth has been hurting lately.

I tried to quit for the first time a couple of months ago, because my then-girlfriend was quitting. It was an act of solidarity that ultimately lead to us breaking up. The tipping point was the severe crankiness.

I like smoking, but imagine I'll stop when I move away from Kentucky into an area where it's not socially mandatory.

Category: Health > Support Groups > Smoking Cessation

Category: Health > Support Groups > Smoking Cessation

Category: Shopping > Health > Substance Abuse > Smoking Cessation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7845771.stm

It's really not that bad -- he only smokes when he's drinking

i want to quit. i'm ready to quit.

Unless you're smoking a cigarette as you read, you've quit! You're not smoking, therefore you are no longer a smoker. All you have to do is not buy any cigarettes and not smoke any cigarettes.

I have faith in you.

Run your current cigarettes under water, throw them away, and say, "Fudge off, you fucks."

baptize those fuckin' smokes

just smoke them

w/ your mouth

So I've been curious about these "fire-safe" cigarettes which are going to replace the normal ones in 2011. Do they really taste any different?

GODDAMN I miss smoking. Yeah, it was a filthy habit, and I was lucky to be able to quit without angst, and it was a part of clubs where these days I can't smoke, but....

Unless I drink, I can only smoke two a day: one before work and one in the early evening, after dinner and wine. Boy, I love those two fags.

this weekend I'd friends in town so to hell with that schedule alas.

Smoking and drinking, such a lovely concept....

i smoke 3 packs a day, love it

Are you still able to smoke inside where you are?

rip buzza

Cigarettes are great. If they didn't make my body feel like shit, I'd spend every day smoking in a plastic bubble suit, happily secure from the clumsy masses in my world of smoke.

I poop too much.

― Labia, Tuesday, November 18, 2003 11:17 AM (7 years ago)

* MotherWhimsey

So I had to poop this afternoon and sat down and when I started to push I felt a lot of pressure in my labia and vagina. So I touched and they were totally swollen and hard. Is that normal? Is that okay or does it mean anything. It just kind of freaked me out cause it made it feel a lot like labor pushing to poop (minus the contractions and all that). But it resolved right after I was finished. Thanks, and sorry for the waaaaaaay TMI.

(ㅅ)

i fucking hate that people smoke

cities should buy out of business storefronts and turn them into smoking lounges and ban smoking outdoors imo, shit is poisoning the air

smoking cigarettes may be the least sensible thing that you can do as a human being

one thing people always forget to mention about spring is that it means that smoke is fucking EVERYWHERE

i just spent 30 mins walking downtown and i feel like i switched lungs with don draper

otm

jordan ur really getting upset

people who smoke should have to pay the rest of us money every time anyone around them has to deal with it

whoa

you guys seem tense

here, have a cigarette: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Mini_E-Cigarette_%28ecis%29.jpg

i imagine jordan being the type who feigns a "cough cough" whenever a smoker passes by

as i blow it into his face

j0rdan, do you drive?

that's an electronic cigarette!

my solution also goes for people who drive

no i don't drive

i'm surprised tbh seems like u wd one of those people who carries a lighter for your friends that smoke

kinda blew my mind when i was in nashville last wk that they still allow smoking in bars

god i love nashville smokers

I reeeeeeeally do not understand electronic cigarettes

i still smoke but i also hate myself

I have smoked around sarge at least a dozen times and never got a stank look

I carry a lighter to try and light smokers shirts on fire when their back is turned

i don't hate people that smoke, i'll smoke a cig when i'm drinking with alfred

it's more the cumulative effect of someone standing outside of every door in every building in a downtown that makes me fucking crazy

really? I thought you used it to set SUVs on fire by lighting their fumes.

xpost

there are lots of useful things to do w/ lighters really, just not smoking

ugh i got a electronic cig and tbh the taste is fine but they are SO HEAVY, there is like no way to look graceful

i imagine jordan being the type who feigns a "cough cough" whenever a smoker passes by

not everybody is feigning

basically my thought is that if I was still smoking, I wouldn't need for my cigarettes to have a USB port

then again, my favorite brand when I smoked was Lucky Strike so me being suspicious of high tech smoking technology is pretty in-character

the other night we ran out of papers for our tobacco and we were like all upset

and then i was like WAIT! we can put it in a PIPE!

it was truly something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqDhiPxqVQY

So I was doing sort of good at giving up but then I went to visit my parents and my stubborn as a mule mom still smokes at 73 so I wound up bumming some off her. Ooops. I'm not stressing it though. I'm pretty OK with having gone from a pack a day smoker to a couple cigs a week (if that) smoker.

i was just gonna say i have never witnessed j0rdan so livid as on this thread and then

i don't hate people that smoke, i'll smoke a cig when i'm drinking with alfred

...YOU smoke as well? even casually?

It is unfathomable to think that until not too long ago nobody minded smoking indoors – as in your office or home. I'm not a heavy smoker but when I started about thirteen years ago part of the attraction was taking a few minutes away from your chores.

i largely agree with you anyway. aside from anything else it's ridiculously expensive, the first time i bought fags (for a friend) my jaw dropped at the price in the newsagent's.

it's like the one thing i don't do so it's where i get to have and enjoy my moral high ground

that was an xp agreeing w/j0rdan's rant

the smoking ban is the best thing to have happened to england in the past decade

just not getting people who can't give concession to a smoker standing outside the front doorway. you have contact with them for, what, .023 seconds? this is a huge improvement over having them immediately outside to wherever you work

not even a huge smoker myself - 1 pack every 2 weeks, mostly for socializing - but the pompousness of non-smokers is the fucking worst

i don't smoke... i've maybe smoked like... five cigarettes in the past year or something

and idk i think there's something especially shitty about smoking on the sidewalk where hundreds of people have no choice but to pass you by

yeah i don't really get the moral highground thing. this wknd i was talking to my sister in law who has never smoked a cigarette in her life, and even she was like "banning them in parks is so stupid"

it was really refreshing to hear

lol so wait where are people supposed to smoke?

you have contact with them for, what, .023 seconds? this is a huge improvement over having them immediately outside to wherever you work

this is fair enough but there's really an undeniable cumulative effect if you walk 8 blocks or something and there's one or two people standing outside every doorway, plus a few people walking down the sidewalk as well, that's really nauseating

lol so wait where are people supposed to smoke?

― surm, Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:33 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark

cities should buy out of business storefronts and turn them into smoking lounges and ban smoking outdoors imo, shit is poisoning the air

― 3hunn O))) (J0rdan S.), Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:05 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

see i think smoking in a park is okay because at least a park is theoretically expansive, like if someone is smoking next to you you can just get up and move 10 ft away, or ask them to do the same -- it's different in a dense, urban environment

I don't mind most smoking restrictions either – I don't miss smoking in a bar – but my university approved a total smoking ban without putting it to a student referendum (like UF did two years ago). No smoking areas at all; you can't even smoke in your car. We're using it as a marketing angle apparently – great, as if parents actually said, "Look, honey, not only is it affordable but you're not allowed to smoke!" But since university public safety isn't enforcing it we're relying on what administration helpfully calls "social enforcement." People are still smoking.

xp yeah i saw that jordan but ... i didn't think you were serious

Nice smokers (me!) stand very far away from the doorway. There's a bit of an outdoor hallway at the entrance to my building and even I get pissed off when people (my coworkers!) stand there and smoke. Not nice.

E, I will probably be trouble for you. Sorry!

or in a park you can make designated smoking areas or something

might I suggest

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_miIj52Df0WE/TJF57SLRwRI/AAAAAAAACq0/zEtl3bhv-V8/s1600/bubble+boy.jpg

xp yeah i saw that jordan but ... i didn't think you were serious

― surm, Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:36 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark

(p.s. i'm not serious)

truthfully there is a lot of other shit poisoning the air. i live in nyc and i have never once walked down the street and thought 'o god all the cigarette smoke, i'm suffocating'

fuck that smoke-free campus bullshit - if I have back to back exams, I'd like a fucking cigarette in between

really, I guess if you're getting black lung from people smoking outdoors in a city, this is probably a better point of comparison

http://www.stargatecinema.com/images/magictoolbox_cache/489-04_t_400.jpg

i'm totally cool w/ banning smoking on college campuses, lot of foot traffic there too

tho i do think that even in that situation you could make a smoking area of shame

"banning them in parks is so stupid"

As much as I agree for the most part, there is always this:

http://www.keeppbcbeautiful.org/P1010895sm.jpg

this is fair enough but there's really an undeniable cumulative effect if you walk 8 blocks or something and there's one or two people standing outside every doorway, plus a few people walking down the sidewalk as well, that's really nauseating

― 3hunn O))) (J0rdan S.), Thursday, March 22, 2012 11:33 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i get it. i guess i'm just not receptive to 2nd-hand smoke as some... unless somebody is sitting directly on the seat next to me on a bench will i not notice the smell nor worry about the smell transposing itself onto my clothing. actually, rarely do i notice the smell of somebody actually in process of smoking - it's that lingering when you have to work with someone that clearly just smoked a whole pack before meeting with you. the smell is twice as bad indoors b/c of the lack of airflow - outdoors i can deal with it as a byproduct of living with other people.

to be real i actually like it when i see ppl smoking on the sidewalk these days, bc it's so fucking taboo now, i appreciate it when someone doesn't feel so damn self conscious about it

x-post - FFM no you won't. I have already thought ahead and made peace with the fact that I will most definitely be smoking that night. So much so that I've already planned on buying a pack here because there's no goddamn way I'm paying $12 in NYC. I pretty much only smoke when socializing (read: drinking) which I intend to do plenty of that night so it's all good.

I will say that seeing as how I don't smoke most days anymore I really do notice it when people stand outside and smoke during the day. It doesn't bother me but I can understand why people think it's gross. I've also been in the elvator with someone who just smoked and been taken aback by how bad it can smell.

truthfully there is a lot of other shit poisoning the air. i live in nyc and i have never once walked down the street and thought 'o god all the cigarette smoke, i'm suffocating'

welllll maybe you don't notice cause you smoke anyway 'there's other shit poisoning the air' doesn't excuse more shit poisoning the air

OTM

I was watching home movies from the 90s not too long ago, and yeah, could not get over just how casual it was to sit in someone's living room and light up.

to be real i actually like it when i see ppl smoking on the sidewalk these days, bc it's so fucking taboo now, i appreciate it when someone doesn't feel so damn self conscious about it

i actually think this in itself is a mark of shame, like they've been exiled from the building to smoke.

the day i understood what addiction is was when i'd just come out of the theatre near earl's court in the middle of grim grim winter and it was FREEZING and also PISSING DOWN with rain and me & my friend were running to the tube station and we passed this really nice, well-heeled but also quite cosy-looking restaurant - it just looked like the most ideal haven from the weather. and outside it - there wasn't even a canopy for shelter - were two guys in suits hunched miserably over, getting drenched, and smoking. like what the actual fuck!

In Florida it's already illegal to smoke less than 20 feet from a public building, so you eliminate the problem of student smoking by entrances by moving ashtrays twenty feet away or creating smoking areas like you see in Disney World or Disneyland.

There was this rockabilly dude smoking at the playground recently. While some were waving their hands in the air, a former smoker and I stood there and went *sniff, sniff*.

i don't smoke during the day, so i don't think that is the reason i don't notice it. i just ... live and let live. doesn't bother me if people need to step outside for a smoke. only 7 years ago or so ppl were smoking in my office.

no i guess it doesn't excuse the pollution thing, but there are plenty of worse pollutants is all i'm sayin.

lex i'm just talking about people walking and smoking, not people camped outside the office building door. it is not a mark of shame to take a walk and have a smoke.

the day i understood what addiction is was when i'd just come out of the theatre near earl's court in the middle of grim grim winter and it was FREEZING and also PISSING DOWN with rain and me & my friend were running to the tube station and we passed this really nice, well-heeled but also quite cosy-looking restaurant - it just looked like the most ideal haven from the weather. and outside it - there wasn't even a canopy for shelter - were two guys in suits hunched miserably over, getting drenched, and smoking. like what the actual fuck!

― lex pretend, Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:44 PM (46 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah, it's crazy that ppl will go stand outside to smoke in body-numbing weather

but on the other hand i feel that same way about walking a dog, so

There was this rockabilly dude smoking at the playground recently. While some were waving their hands in the air, a former smoker and I stood there and went *sniff, sniff*.

― pplains, Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:45 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

One of my professors in college once called me out for just having smoked before going ot her office hours. I thought she was going to yell at me but instead he was like mMMMMMMM let me smell you, I miss it so!

Smug assholes walking by and coughing or waving their hands deserve death though.

otm

I did manage to bring a couple of my mom's back from FL with me (cigs not packs) and now have one. Will I smoke it tonight? You bet. Hi, I'm ENBB. I'm a pescetarian and a flexismoker. I only smoke if I don't want cigarettes to go to waste. Or am drunk.

yeah i mean having this conversation on ilx is fine, but dredging it up in front of people who are like about to have a cigarette is not OK unless you are that person's mother. and that's just the way it is folks!

xxpost irl lol's

er, xxxpost i meant

Smug assholes walking by and coughing or waving their hands deserve death though.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yeah i wouldn't do that cuz i know most smokers hate themselves for smoking, so it's pretty shitty to berate them over it

plus my favorite method of showing displeasure is derisive eye rolling anyway

The weather here has been all muggy and humid lately. Been having flashbacks of cranking up the defroster, cracking a window and lighting a Lucky Light.

people need to smoke more j's in public is the real truth here

was it the late nineties when private businesses started banning smoking in offices? Somebody help me.

what drives me nuts about abstaining from cigs, tho, is that feeling of "loss" when you just have to walk from Point A to Point B. it's like...the fuck do i do with my hands now?

so the first weeks after cutting some heavy smoking was i carrying around a water bottle all the time and just swigging from it continually until i knew there'd be a point where i thought "this is just ridiculous", but no, now i just piss a lot and finger the buttons on my shirt

lol. the worst for me is telephone conversations or drunken social interactions. like, there's just no way. something's getting smoked.

a new entry into BAD SHOW ETIQUETTE @ d'angelo last night

every so often this group of cunts in front of me would, like, light up a surreptitious fag and pass it round between them? crouching down to hide it? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU CAN'T YOU GO TWO GODDAMN HOURS WITHOUT NICOTINE YOU DISGUSTING ADDICTS.

in line with my new ZERO TOLERANCE attitude to bullshit of all stripes i asked them to put it out the second time, and was backed up by the tiny fierce woman next to me AND the woman next to her. they tried to ignore us but one of the women said she WOULD get security if they didn't stub it out.

later on one of the boys got another fag out - with lightning speed my neighbour jabbed him in the ribs and said menacingly "i hope you're not thinking of lighting that"

i hope that at some point in their lives they get cigarettes stubbed out on their eyeballs

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Saturday, February 4, 2012 10:23 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what if they smoked and had relationship drama?

lol. the worst for me is telephone conversations or drunken social interactions. like, there's just no way. something's getting smoked.

― surm, Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:56 PM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, yeah. I don't really talk on the phone much anymore but the latter is an issue. I thought driving without smoking would be bad but I got used to that pretty quickly.

acting like an angry middle-aged mom at a show is even worse etiquette

I've never worked in an office where they allowed smoking. I've worked in places where there was a break room with a huge vacuum fan in the ceiling, but never where you could hang out at your desk and have a heater.

xp lol

when i lived in nyc i essentially stopped smoking in winter because fuck going outside in 10-degree weather for any reason

in CA tho cigs are cheap and the weather is usually nice so there went that :/

acting like an angry middle-aged mom at a show is even worse etiquette

lol the two women next to me WERE angry middle-aged mothers. d'angelo fanbase is grown now!

Saw one of the new salesguys standing in the alley the other day, smoking a cigarette and looking at his iPhone. Made me just smdh and think, what's the fucking point of having a smoke break?

It's so so weird to think about standing around smoking at shows but that was such a big part of it at one time. lol I was so hell bent on smoking at shows that I even did so once at an Earth Crisis show in Syracuse. Sure I hid in the corner way in the back but did I go outside? Hell no! lol. rmde @ my 18 yr old self.

what if they smoked and had relationship drama?

i would point out that the smoking was obviously not having its desired effect of relaxing them so they may as well give one of them up

I like the smell of some cigarettes but the smell of cheap cigarettes is really awful

you should move here and walk in front of me all day, you can be my smoke-inhaler

realized on my last trip that I'd quit smoking (or cut way the hell down) if I lived in NY or SF - walking and smoking is something I never mastered (particularly w/ SF's hills) and smoking while driving is the killer for me.

lex man u really angry these days it seems like

I&I hope that jah blesses u with peace

i went to a small community college up in aspen, colo. and fondly remember a literal "smoking box" for smokers to sequester themselves within, a place where they all communally reek and probably get twice the buzz based off enclosed proximity alone. i've never seen that anywhere else - going now to a denver university and smokers are just rampant, pretty much every 8th person has a cig between middle and forefinger.

thing is, tho, the guys who were boxed up in that little box always came to class smelling *the worst* whereas i rarely can smell somebody who had just smoked in my classes today. might attribute that to the larger class size, but i really don't think that stupid glass box did much for the environment nor the community

it brought lols

I visited San Francisco for the first time in 2001, and honest to God, my first thought was "How am I going to deal with that indoor smoking ban out there?"

lex man u really angry these days it seems like

i'm happy and relaxed today! also super excited cuz i'm going to see HUNGER GAMES in a couple of hours

I can see a Starbucks near you offer one of these:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3453/3716600349_99c81bdfbc.jpg

btw Starbucks is one of the last places on earth where people puff away happily outside

I worked in a restaurant that had a wide open smoking section, with smoking tables no more than three feet from non-smoking in parts. I did not get it.

lol when i first visited SF i was like "man, doesn't seem like there's a lot of smokers here, weird"

then i walked up eighty thousand hills and was like OH I GET IT

I don't understand why more airports don't have at least one smoking lounge - if you've got two hours pre-boarding and four or five hours in the air, it seems like good policy to let smokers get their fix just so they're less stressed for the entire experience.

We have a smoking cage here at my work. It's a fenced in area outside that really looks and feels like a cage. I almost feel bad when I walk by it now, like I've let down my woke smoke buddies and have defected or something. I swear to God part of what keeps me an occasional smoker is that it still seems like an act of defiance somehow. Also, telling me that I shouldn't do something makes me want to do it 100x more about 80% of the time.

the only american airport where i've seen a smoking section is mccarran airport in vegas

lol yes, the box looked just like one of those

those are embarrassing. it makes you everyone inside look like some sort of bygone era sychiatric exhibit.

you can smoke and play slots at the same time!

it makes you everyone inside look like some sort of bygone era sychiatric exhibit.

which is what you WILL BE in the future

it seems like all east asian airports have smoking rooms xp

just wanna point out that i knew there was a "p" in "sychiatric"

just sayin

i havent had a cigarette in 82 days!!!!

i have also gained like 15lbs :(

One of my professors in college once called me out for just having smoked before going ot her office hours. I thought she was going to yell at me but instead he was like mMMMMMMM let me smell you, I miss it so!

I was on a patio last weekend (yay!!) and I was trying my best to keep my cigarette and its smoke from hitting the waitress who walked over to serve us.. she did the same thing! Said "when I can't go for a cigarette, this is the next best thing!" haha.

Smoking in NYC! E, will you buy me a pack of reasonably priced Marlboro's? I pay $8 here for my cigarettes, $12 would make me so sad.

people need to smoke more j's in public is the real truth here

― surm, Thursday, March 22, 2012 5:53 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was just walking around in the sun in my lunch break and a dude rolled by in his car, blazing away. WAY TO TEASE THE OFFICE WORKERS, jerk. :(

lol sure I will :)

the cheapest brand of cigarettes in china costs $1 a pack :o

Yay!

In Cuba, everyone smokes everywhere. It was so neat (as a smoker) to be back in that zone - ashtrays on the bar counter, hotel lobbies, etc. They had an airport smoking room too. It was disgusting, but we still went in :P

o god that sounds so nice

It was amazing. The hotel we were at did not have walls, it was all open, so there was a constant breeze getting rid of the smoke. Ashtrays in the bathroom!

Hilariously (but not at the time) a group sat down at a group of couches we were on - we had already lit cigars when it was just us - and this last-minute addition bitch sits right across from me and starts glaring and coughing at me! They were French so I started insulting her under the breath to my husband in broken Frenglish, and then he and I ended up in an argument because he's impossibly polite and I can be a real asshole when wronged. So don't give smokers cuteye when you intrude on THEIR smoking bubble, because that ruined my night and I will forever hate that lady!

NOUS SOMMES DANS CUBA, MADEMOISELLE CHIEN. NOUS FUMIONS LES CIGARS ICI!!! My French is truly atrocious.

whats even worse than non-smoker pomp is french entitlement. i don't get it.

it's like the most clandestine form of European Purity there is.

Miami Int'l Airport boasts what it calls a "smoking terrarium," which is an area outside about the size of your terrace with palm trees surrounded on every side by concourse.

I saw a gen-u-wine smoking lounge in Atlanta as recently as 2008.

Male and female cig use around the world.

The areas where ppl smoke the most are not surprising to me because I already sort of knew that. The gender difference sort of is even though I suppose it shouldn't be. I've just never personally thought of smoking as a gendered thing even though I guess it obviously is.

Marlboro man marketing, ideas of it not being ladylike etc.

i gotta stop this.

maybe i will finally for this thread's ten year anniversary.

which would give me a year. to get hit by a truck before i had to quit.

Your president did it. Where's your Michelle?

presumably married to a decent non-smoking man.

22 years of this shit. good lord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AKRqDtzOlQ

Anyone else trying to give up as part of a new year health kick? I've even got one of those snazzy lil' apps that tell you how much money you're saving/what percentage of your taste/smell has returned.

I am off cigrettes and caffeine.

The universe is a miserable place without a continuous mild buzz :'(

it's even worse when you're literally sucking smoke into your lungs on a daily basis

smoking is fucking intense when you think about, just physically what is going on is.. insane

also trying not to drink for a while at least (both decisions are, sadly, financially motivated)...dreading the moment I have to meet friends in the pub and I've really got to test my will power. Do I just become a hermit for a bit? Or is it more important to tackle it head on and make the whole thing seem more 'real'?

"hi, just going outside to pour some hot wax into my ears, back in a sec"

tackle it head on. no apologies, no turning back

"both decisions are, sadly, financially motivated"

that's a perfectly legit reason but you're not going to win if that's the only one. the other reason you should think about is that smoking makes you feel like shit

i mean yes there is a brief moment when the nicotine is going into your body but it's over after a minute or two. it barely lasts longer than a fucking popper.

i admire your "real talk" approach here Tracer but think there's room to accept that for some of us smoking is a v. real pleasure even as we acknowledge it's potential lethalness. if you want to deny the pleasure thing fine but you can't convince everybody by going that route.

dammit there was a time when i thought poppers was a ton of fun too

NV is right; I find smoking incredibly pleasurable. I enjoy the procedure of rolling them, the literal temporal escape they offer me from work/life. I only took it up a few years back when I lived in a house of smokers. I started by smoking weed daily with those housemates, then having the occasional post-dinner cigarette, then had a moment when I was walking home from uni one day and had a physical compulsion to smoke. That was when I knew I was a smoker.

Would agree that the physical effects of smoking are not very nice, often get 2/3 through a fag and just feel kinda rotten. Problem is that this in no way measures up to the intensity of the cravings if I don't have a smoke. Been trying to quit with an e-lite but they're so so rubbish

Last March I told myself, "As soon as I get my next cold, I'm dropping one cigarette," and, of course, two days later the sniffles began. The effect was galvanic: I'm down to one a day, usually at night after wine, which means I can longer smoke unless I've got any kind of buzz but the catch is I only feel like smoking the one.

i smoke 2 or 3 roll-ups at most on any given work day, sometimes none. i am drinking perhaps once a month and when i drink i will smoke all night, but that's it.

nv i applaud yr ability to take or leave them; i didn't ever smoke a tremendous amount but i could never go without unless i was around my parents, in which case i found it surprisingly easy

i think what made it easy-ish was stopping smoking in my own home once kids came along, that gradually breaks the chain-smoking routine that i had in my early 20s. i get the occasional real craving but mostly now i like the excuse of stepping away from my desk for five minutes and like Windsor said the ritual of rolling one up is part of that pleasure for sure

i think of it as an adult pastime tho, never ever been comfortable doing it anywhere within sight of my own kids or anybody else's really

shout out those nights in a wetherspoons beer garden when you and your buddies are smoking two rollies per pint

i didn't ever smoke a tremendous amount but i could never go without unless i was around my parents, in which case i found it surprisingly easy

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, January 8, 2014 8:14 AM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ditto. in the spirit of FULL DISCLOSURE, I actually smoked more in the last 2 years of medical school than I had in the maybe 8 or so years of very casual smoking prior (which started with a one or two at parties, then cadging them more frequently from a smoker i lived with, then buying them out of guilt (which would last weeks), then laying off for a while, then STRESS-->daily evening smokes). going without when visiting parents was never an ish for me, either.

context is so important, though, right? when i moved out here for residency, i no longer had a backyard, nor did i have any friends that smoked. i spent a couple weeks having a nightly smoke, singular, out by my car, but i felt really conspicuous doing that since this is a small town and all my neighbors know my job title (and did before i ever moved in, which was....weird). there were a few desperate times where I went on a drive simply to have a smoke, and that's when I was like "this is moronic. this is a terrible thing that I'm doing that, in this setting/context/stage of my life, has no redeeming qualities at all." being forced to taper down made quitting-quitting easier. i've been without since august 1st. well, except for a visit from a friend in October, and we caroused and i probably had nearly 10 over the course of three days, and i felt oh god did i feel it afterwards.

anyway, good luck quitters. ppl that still smoke: i understand the pleasures, believe, but....well, you know the deal

watching people going out for a cigarette when its 10 degrees outside is pretty sad

oh man smokes in the cold are like bonus smokes you have no idea

but what about your precious fingers

they feel great along with the rest of my body

getting in the smoke in the cold with a glass of red wine in your belly is the best.

it's not quite as good as having normal shits

smoking while shitting is pretty sweet

might get into smoking this year. maybe just weed, no tobacco

keep us updated

Even hangovers get better when you stop smoking. I used to have these deathly hangovers as a smoker that now are much more bearable. I could never moderate myself to even 10-20 a day so I had to stop, not smoked for 6 months now and tbh it's hard to read about the pleasures of smoking on this thread right now cos it is still tempting. Just need to remember I mostly only enjoyed the first one of the day and the rest just contributed to me feeling shitty most of the time and how fucking hard it was to get through that first 6 weeks of stopping.

everytime i've tried smoking tobacco i found inhaling extremely painful in my lungs, do other smokers feel that? i have asthma, so that could be why, but the pain always prevented me from being a smoker. i smoked cigarettes briefly in college b/c i liked the ritual of it but i didn't inhale, no joke. this doesn't happen w/ weed by the way, i might cough a little when i inhale but it doesn't physically hurt my lungs the way tobacco does.

might get into smoking this year. maybe just weed, no tobacco

― VENIET IMBER (imago), Wednesday, January 8, 2014 12:59 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

keep us updated

― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Wednesday, January 8, 2014 1:06 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

^^^

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnxl46c00g1qjvzxoo1_500.gif

My cat was trying to have a go on my fag earlier

Smoked with it in the room for about a week, then thought I'd better not so went outside to smoke. But could I have got the thing addicted to nicotine in that one week?

Sounds unlikely.

I'm always surprised by how completely unbothered cats are by tobacco smoke.

hi!

i'm having problems not smoking, especially after i smoke weed. it sucks. i'm a little stoned right now and the idea of not having a cigarette is almost more than i can handle.

i think i'll pour a scotch instead. Ryan watching Mad Men isn't making anything easier. commiseration welcome.

That was always my downfall. Hang in there!

being stoned w/o cigarettes is fucking wonderful once you get the hang of it

really?? how on earth did you get the hang of it??

every time i wanted a cigarette i'd just get more stoned

eventually your mouth gets so dry that a cigarette is like the furthest thing from your mind

that's where the scotch comes in obv

you guyssssssssssssss

first of lol Tracer at the last bit of advice you gave me. priceless.

Thinking of picking this up again

you knowwww

honestly? it has its moments

a few weeks ago, i was at a party for a friend, and another friend was really proud of himself for finally quitting smoking. he died in a fire Friday night.

oh jesus. i'm so sorry. that's fucking awful.

ugh yeah ... gonna go have a cigarette now.

i mean. the weird thing is, i know it's this awful thing now. i get it. but i also know that i have other things that are awful to deal with. and sometimes it's nice to deal with them knowing that i can have a smoke in contemplating. i'm not perfect...

as a regular smoker for 25 years, you will get no negative judgment from me <3

<3

Treesh, that warm golden light that suffuses your memory of smoking is a trick. It needs to be corrected by the memory of when you had a severe cold and yet could not resist the urge to bathe your raw, inflamed and painful throat with hot tar fumes.

no judgement on anybody but I smoked from 1981-2008 and am so glad to be free. nine years next year. never would have thought it possible and feel so grateful.

dyou miss it more or less than burgers for instance

I don't miss either, but I see the point of burgers: I remember really enjoying my trademark burger at a grill I used to work at. (Beef patty medium-well, bacon, sprouts, jalapenos, cheddar cheese, sour cream, mustard + ketchup, tomato, occasional onions. basically the heart attack special.) Because of how I feel about food now, it's hard to imagine enjoying a burger, but if the way I think about that stuff changed, I'd fry up a burger real quick. Cigarettes it's like remembering my time in a religious cult. I can see the use of a cult from inside the cult, but once you get free, it's like "lol why on earth would I do that, only a person who's been brainwashed would enjoy that"

...................

sorry i'll try that again

no fuckit the only word i can see there is sprouts

like and the thing is I say this as a person who's had multiple addictions. heroin, meth, cocaine. I totally get why people go back to those: they feel awesome! cigarettes to me are like an addiction with none of the pleasure-center rewards, it's kind of hilarious to me that I spent SO much money over so many years on an addiction that gave me basically nothing

the sprouts are fuckin excellent on that burger, you gotta trust me here

like, I was a cook. take it from the cook, the sprouts are the pathway to new burger enjoyment

np alfalfa sprouts not bean we're not animals here

i have no option but to trust you because the only sure thing about the next 60 years is that i'm getting through them without sprouts on any of my burgers irl

hahahaha

fuckin hell. cress?

you call cress sprouts hahaha oh man you guys you kill me

this is a sprout man

http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article6990748.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/Brussel-sprouts.jpg

I should confess my diet was so poor in those days that the sprouts may have been my body conspiring with my brain to feed me something green afore I deed

xp no cress is a leafy green! these are sprouts. there's bean sprouts (thick stems) and alfalfa (v. thin)

now back to yr normal smoking thread pleasure sorry

these are sprouts. they are a delightful, mildly crunch-adding addition to the burger I detail above. this burger could not but be embraced by the true burger lover, among whose numbers I counted myself for many years

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8UsJ7u-sFSM/maxresdefault.jpg

don't worry we all call those sprouts too

because that's what they are

nobody doubts your burger once it has been clarified that you aren't advocating for small noxious cabbages in it, stand down

I must defend my burger. it is a fond memory

Brussell sprouts have gotten sort of trendy recently. I'm having none of it.

Those wispy crunch sprouts are chill though

JCLC's burger sounds fucking amazing

I'd probably want a cigarette after that burger and a couple beers
Then I'd want a nap

medium well?????

award-winning brussels sprout burger

http://media2.abc15.com//photo/2013/08/28/Brussels_sprouts_burger_from_RnR_Scottsd_871560000_20130828095147_640_480.JPG

http://www.abc15.com/lifestyle/sonoran-living/recipe-brussels-sprouts-burger-from-rnr-scottsdale

I had a really bad, persistent hacking cough this winter that still hasn't really gone away. But I'm sure it would have been much worse, if not unbearable if I was still a smoker.

having a touch of asthma has been a tremendous boon in that it makes smoking more than 4-5 cigarettes a day a living hell, and also makes it v easy to remember that awful feeling and then not smoke again at all for 3-6 months

xp - i definitely noticed a major difference in health when i stopped smoking in my apartment. i haven't had a cold/flu in 2 years.

I'd probably want a cigarette after that burger and a couple beers

this burger was during my sober years but be assured I smoked two Winstons before I ate it and two more after, every time

i was a "only smoke when drinking" person for years and just recently knocked that off. it's been weeks but every time i have more than one beer my skin basically starts crawling for a cigarette. it can get intense. i assume it can't be chemical as i go all week w/out and don't even think about it. just this deeply rooted pavlovian thing.

one of my favourite things about ilx is that any thread, at any time, can bubble over into a free and frank exchange of views on whether enjoying a given type of food makes someone a disgusting savage or not

I want to eat that burger now for sure.

It needs to be corrected by the memory of when you had a severe cold and yet could not resist the urge to bathe your raw, inflamed and painful throat with hot tar fumes.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, December 8, 2016 7:09 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think about this every time I'm sick now. Like, yeah I may be shambling around with the flu, but at least I'm not prolonging it by two weeks by refusing to compromise my hourly smoke breaks.

After 3 years off the cigs I’ve been smoking again for the last 4 months. Started again as I got a new job and various life circumstances were stressing me. Any advice on quitting again?

Lame as they are, my e-cig has been a huge help. I only use it at home, still smoke when I drink but that’s barely twice a month now and I figure I’m ready for the next step of eliminating that.

If it helps then down for it, thanks

Smoked outside merge at the hospital and a robot intercom voice said “smoking is not permitted in hospital grounds. If you need help quitting dial 811”

using the nicorette inhaler 4mg to quit smoking. used previously and it worked, basically i get nicotine fixes w/out smoke exhalation, better than the patch - doesn't offend anybody outside, win win

looks like i'm smoking the ocarina of time tho

French inhale to nostril exhale is my SOP

it's so French isn't it?

I don't get it. I can go without smoking for like a whole day.. Even sometimes two days, and I don't even realise it sometimes. Three days, I can suddenly realise I've not smoked.
If I have a drink, I want to smoke. But yesterday I went on a date with a non-smoker and didn't even think to go outside and light up until the very end of the date. Then I realised I'd forgotten my rolling papers and figured it wasn't too much of a problem as I'd be home in a bit anyway.
And yet I do smoke; I am a smoker. I have been since my early 20s.
I don't like smoking in front of my family, who I'll be visiting in a few days for a week. Until recently they didn't really know I smoked. My colleagues too, are sometimes surprised on the rare occasion I go out for a midday cig break.
And yet, as I say, I am a smoker and I am addicted to cigarettes and always have been.
On an ordinary weekend night out, I'll be going out for breaks maybe once or twice an hour or more. Part of it is ritual, habit. A big part of it is an excuse to get a change of atmosphere, like if the indoors gets too crowded or noisy, it's an excuse to leave.

Yeah smoking outside of pubs just created its own enjoyable rituals.

I don't smoke now except when I'm drinking but I think the massive nicotine spike is a big part of the dying element in my hangovers and I'm going to have to, unwillingly, try and cut it out

yes definitely worse for hangovers.

a friend of mine blames the public smoking ban on his brother's death. He suffered from schizophrenia and in the secure housing building he lived, the communal smoking room was his main social hub. Without it they all just smoked in their own rooms and he started drinking much more heavily on his own, till it took him.

https://media.giphy.com/media/641arBi22PAty/giphy.gif

(Sorry. So sorry.)

I have like 10 packs of cigarettes at home from the times over the years when I've bought a pack, smoked a couple, then just forgot about it for awhile

The kids don't smoke anymore! They vape or smoke weed.

my gf and i both started vaping to stop smoking habits which were mainly connected to drinking, with the odd cigarette here or there at other times. kind of a mistake because of course it's way more tempting, in the vancouver winter, to have a pull on your vaporizer while nice and cozy indoors, than it ever was to go out the front of the building for a dart. there's also something about the feeling of smoking that vaping doesn't really replace. oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yeah I'm not making the switch to juul specifically because I know I would consume more nicotine simply by being able to juul inside. feel good about smoking 4-5 analogs a day as is.

Are people smoking more now? Less? I'm smoking more. More free time, more need for small-but-satisfying pick-me-ups throughout the day.

My tobacco tale is one of gateway drug in reverse, because I smoked weed my whole life and hated cigarettes, but after a few trips to Europe and the realization that spliffs are awesome (and a far more sensible and grown-ass way to get high), I gradually began putting less and less weed in a spliff until 3 out of every four 'spliffs' was basically just a cig. I've only ever smoked ryo because it keeps me from smoking more (I average about 4-5 a day, skipping days here and there if I feel my throat getting dry or scratchy) and I find the rolling ritual very meditative.

Peter Stokkebye tobacco has spoiled me for all others. I used to just buy Bugler because it was cheap, and the light blue American Spirits when I was feeling spendy, but now I can't bear anything but the best. I'm all about the Stockholm Blend and the Turkish Export. Not so into the Danish Export or Amsterdam Shag, both of which I find a bit too moist, and I don't have the patience to dry out rolling tobacco.

So...more? Less?

Initially, I found myself smoking more. Then I realised that the lack of many of the usual social triggers, coupled with the relative calmness of my particular lockdown life, made this an ideal time to stop. So I stopped. This is Day 8.

Less but only bc I'm at home more, I like smoking cigarettes and walking. I very much believe in the David Hockney theory of between 1 and 5 cigarettes per day is actually good against the virus, given that it settles in the bottom of the lungs.

if you can't trust David Hockney who can you trust

sayin

I have not heard this theory but I will look into it now, if only for an excuse to keep smoking

I only smoke when I’m out drinking with friends so the last time I had a cigarette was a couple of months ago. I’m hoping it’ll stay that way even post-lockdown.

No smoking, no vaping since this shit kicked off

Vaping more than ever. Working from home is the culprit.

There seems to be no indication that smokers are more susceptible- if you havent developed copd, emphysema etc. yet. Even anecdotal evidence that smokers are underrepresented in the figures

well, David Hockney knew from bottoms

It's probably dubious science but I did find something from last month that suggested smokers might actually be better protected against de-oxygenation because of higher levels of ACEs. And trying to find it, I stumbled over this newer source: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86144

A recently published study from France showed similar figures. Daily smokers accounted for 4.4% to 5.3% of all COVID-19 infections, which compares to 25.4% of the overall French population who smoke. That study also noted an increase in the proportion of smokers with severe illness. These authors did not mince words in their conclusion which "strongly suggests that daily smokers have a very much lower probability of developing symptomatic or severe SARS-CoV-2 infection as compared to the general population."

I'm still smoking, but less. I slowed myself down and I reduced the amt of time I spend in situations where I would normally smoke.

Me, I still one a day after dinner. I get disappointed when I crack and on my wine-with-lunch day (Friday usually) I light one. I like anticipatory vices.

This is the best news

Well, huge respect for Hockney's medical knowledge, but (a) the virus enters via the *upper* respiratory tract (pharynx) which is why it spreads asymptomatically, and (b) tobacco smoke increases the chance of a viral infection by inflaming tissue and making the surface more permeable.
https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-3-health-effects/3-9-increased-susceptibility-to-infection-in-smoke
(it's literally the same argument as Trump's "can we get disinfectant into the body or the lungs?" by the way)

It's true, there's a lot we don't know

French inhalin’
nose exhalin’

anybody else that moved mostly/entirely to working from home also inadvertently or otherwise quit smoking since March? a bonus I didn't even have to try for. Smoking without walking is not the same

I was smoking a couple a day and sometimes much more for months now and was finding myself unable to concentrate and irritable which I'd attribute to a burgeoning nicotine addiction that wasn't being fed enough. So I have took up vaping now and am fair enjoying it. I'm quite surprised at how fast I've taken to blueberry flavoured smoke.

The deep freeze last week made me happy that I gave up smokes. The last time I tried smoking in single-digit temperatures on a trip to NY, it was absolutely not worth it.

shit now I'm a slave to an electric device that gives me nicotine. It has completely nullified my fiending for cigarettes but it feels like a backwards step compared to when I properly kicked the habit. Vaping is quite pleasurable though, but i just wish I hadn't been foolish enough to start the habit again.

I’ve never smoked. Should I start? My partner would probably break up with me but people sure look cool when they do it.

i've been at it 30 years and my advice to you, silby, is no

That’s what everyone says and I’ve taken their advice so far

silby, plz don't, thx.

it's a lot easier to start than is to stop. I've stopped 3 times in the last 30 years and it gets harder each time!

I’ve been meaning to start for at least 20 years now

try it, it's cool

I still find it impossible to drink/party without lighting one up. It's not ideal by any means, but I haven't smoked on a daily basis since my mid-20s (a couple of brief summer vacations notwithstanding).

I don't understand how people can just have the odd leisure cigarette without the creeping addiction, but my partner has one cig a week or something and often docks it half smoked. For me it's always a slippery slope towards 20 a day.

And by 'drink' I mean 'have more than 2-3 pints', otherwise I can abstain just fine.

xp

What 'helps' is that it automatically makes feel like shit. I can't cope with that for more than a few days at a time anymore.

If I'm drinking with friends, it's an 'ah, fuck it'-type scenario where I figure I might as well go the extra sacrificial mile, since I'm already messing up my liver. But otherwise it's all downsides for me.

yeah when aren't a seasoned smoker it really does often make you feel like shit. But when addiction creeps in you are still counting the minutes till your next fix.

I weaned myself off cigarettes by vaping, then eventually quit

I had a hard time with cravings after I quit, but years later I don't think about it too much. there is an ongoing dull desire, but it's not very strong at this point

That's def what it was like when I was younger. I was sick all the time because my colds would linger for a full month, sometimes more, and I just don't see myself going back to that ever again.

xp

Do you get cravings when you're drinking, Dan?

I don't really get cravings anymore. I remember on a remote level how pleasurable it was, and have always thought that if I am ever diagnosed with a terminal disease and it doesn't matter anymore I will take it up again. I can go for the rest of my life without it though

Smoking is going to be my end of life treat. If I’m given six months to live or an Alzheimer’s diagnosis I’m going two packs a day.

I'd probably do the same tbh.

One of the things I like about vaping is when I'm drinking and doing the vape equivalent of smoking too much - you don't feel so deathly the next day. Like as if you have been huffing on an exhaust pipe with a massively enhanced sickly hangover,

One thing I don’t miss from my intermediate stage of smoking when I drink but not otherwise is going to bed with my heart pounding because I had a pack’s worth of nicotine in four hours.

Oh yeah, it makes a huge difference. Rolling tobacco also helps on that front ime.

xp

going to bed with my heart pounding because I had a pack’s worth of nicotine in four hours

The temptation is to assuage that with a few extra downers… which only makes it worse, of course.

Sometimes I like to alternate between a drink and a smoke outside the bar but I kind of have to make myself do it or ask the bartender

Fuck I miss bars.

having a pleasant afternoon sesh in a pub and nipping outside to smoke a rolly without any crowd paranoia .. that's another world!

I've never liked having a cig without a drink--the acrid-ness of the taste builds up too much. Extremely unenjoyable ime but I will sit outside and drink my drink in pretty much all weather. Like tonight.

Takes two ryes or vodka sodas for cigarettes to taste okay IME

Unfiltereds and black coffee, now yer talkin

I was working on a church once and found a 1930/40's ? empty unfiltered Woodbine cigarette packet in a void under some floorboards. It struck me how small the average size of ciggies must have been back in the day. You could have took a few hard drags ciggies this size and it's nearly burning your fingers,

Sitting outside with an espresso, a Topo Chico and a Parliament was pretty solid, yeah.

scuse the typing it's late here

me pre COVID: the occasional cigarette, the occasional drink

me during COVID: 2-3 cigs a day most days (with breaks of a few weeks at a time), drinks 1-2 nights a week, lots of weed vaping, and occasionally sampling the mushrooms my roommate told me to take possession of after they gave her a panic attack. (They're nice, tbh.)

Lush life

my day job is currently extremely low-maintenance

I have about 4 cigarettes a year now and they are glorious

I quit cold turkey in like 2009 or something? Shit I don’t even know lol

Didn’t smoke at for at least 5 years

At all*

Some mornings back when I smoked, I'd wake up with my mouth tasting like I licked an ashtray.

And then I quit smoking.

So now some mornings when I've drank too much, I'll wake up with mouth tasting like I licked an ashtray and go fuck, it wasn't the cigarettes doing this after all!

Dehydration is a bitch

I don't drink heavily any more, but I remember that first drink of water in the morning always being godlike, manna from heaven.

I was smoking a couple a day and sometimes much more for months now and was finding myself unable to concentrate and irritable which I'd attribute to a burgeoning nicotine addiction that wasn't being fed enough

wow this thought has somehow never occurred to me despite having been an on-and-off "casual" smoker for years.

i quit about 7 or 8 months ago when i got pneumonia on top of an infarction in my right lung that killed off a whole lobe, so basically i couldn't/can't smoke anymore. not the way i'd suggest quitting! I only miss it late at night or if I have a couple beers, and I often dream of people are offering me cigarettes and I have trouble refusing them.

anyways, if anything good came out of that terrible episode it's the quitting smoking, and then having to get in really good shape to counteract the lung thing. however, man, when you miss smoking you miss it hard and it sucks

"I have about 4 cigarettes a year now and they are glorious"

even when I was still managing to maintain a one-a-day habit, that one smoke was divine.

Ever since a bad cold in 2013 I've limited myself to one cig a day except on weekends if I have a beer or wine with lunch. I'm pretty iron-willed about this sort of thing. It helps that I can only smoke when my throat and mouth are booze-kissed.

"wow this thought has somehow never occurred to me despite having been an on-and-off "casual" smoker for years."

the first time I noticed how hardcore nicotine withdrawal can be, particularly if you were previously a heavy smoker. Was when I was withdrawing with patches and coping quite well. And then one day at work I felt really bad and got a bit panicky and thought am I dying or about to have a stroke or something. I couldn't even focus on simple tasks and was losing it. And then I realised to some relief that my nicotine patch had fallen off my arm.

"I have about 4 cigarettes a year now and they are glorious"

being an occasional/intermittent smoker rules tbh

I knew a lot of hardcore smokers in my kitchen worker days, for obvious reasons. I knew a guy who couldn't even sleep through the night - he had to get up and have a ciggie once or twice most nights. no thank you!!

Reminds me of a guy I knew who would light one up mid-soup.

i quit in august. been having these reoccurring dreams about breaking down and buying a pack. a little scared of the warm weather coming up. my neighbors sit on their porch and smoke and even though they're not super close, that smell comes wafting over and i get weak.

I knew a guy who couldn't even sleep through the night - he had to get up and have a ciggie once or twice most nights. no thank you!!

i went through a phase like this about 20 years ago when I was smoking about 2 packs a day, but taking anti-anxiety medication actually helped alleviate that.

Therapy helped me quit.

gl to all the quitters. not smoking is worth it. it's been over a year for me now and i haven't had any cravings in months, think i'm finally done for good.

Y’all are making me want to practice my French inhales to nose exhales and shit

It's not actually French, is it?

I was always a casual smoker, mainly smoking when boozing. I quit fully about 8 years ago and only really have minor cravings and mostly when I'm drinking. I had one relapse when I was pissed about four years ago. I nicked a roll-up off a mate and was violently sick in a pub car park, so that was worth it.

I had a few similar relapses during the period when I'd stopped for 10 years. But more in a fresh state than pissed and my experience was completely different - other than feeling bit iffy the odd time, probably quite a standard reaction because your body isn't used to the toxins in it. But it was mainly a case of savouring each drag and worrying that I'm enjoying it too much and need to not do this again.

i quit after i had kids and feel extremely #blessed that i just don’t ever think about it any more. even when i’m out with someone at a pub or whatever, and they light up - i have zero desire to join them.

what i do miss
- the little routines i.e. taking a stroll outside
- the natural camraderie of those who are consciously killing themselves
- you look cool, at least in your own mind

what i don’t miss
- bad poos
- feeling like shit
- not being in control of your own mind

I quit in September after realizing I needed all my lung strength to bike against heavy Dutch winds. Haven’t had a single drag since and I was a heavy social smoker.

I think the major factor against me quitting is that I smoke in such a managed way that I don't experience most of these cons. No cravings, no bad poos (whatever that means??!), no insomnia, no pneumonia or colds...it's all good until the throat cancer gets me, I guess.

oh in orbit... just wait and see. your poos will be magnificent

re: “feeling like shit” i don’t mean getting ill i just mean the accumulated effects of literally pouring smoke directly into your body several times a day

i also have no idea what "bad poos" are, and I just want to leave it at that and not know anything further about other ilxors' gut bacteria or fecal matter ...

🤝

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEsRKrCSF2I

the son of the old British Tobacco Advisory Committee guy (smoking a fag) in this late 50's pathe newsreel vid went on to be the CEO of the Phillip Morris empire in the 80's!

probably should have posted it to the pathe thread but I suppose tobacco dynasties is on topic

one thing I never knew until today was that they used to make ciggies with rose petal filters, or maybe they still do idk

i’m #BadPoosCrew

I quit about ten years ago when I stopped having a social life. I actually can’t stand the smell of burning cigarettes now, it takes me back to my shitty twenties. It feels like such a distant and unrecognizable part of my life.

Enjoying some menthol American spirits (bought by accident I think or maybe not, can’t remember)

French inhale to nose exhale leaves my nasal cavity feeling minty fresh

I wouldn’t get into menthols now, they might be banned in the US within a year

I only have this one box, wouldn’t consciously buy again

I will confess I tried a Dunhill International (red) the other day and really enjoyed it. Some time thereafter I tried one of their menthols (green) and it was good too. Still it’s hard to imagine getting into the cig habit, as even when I have 2 or 3 I wake up the next morning feeling unbelievably gross. In retrospect it’s amazing that 20 yrs ago I practically lived in smoke-filled bars and found it no more than a minor annoyance.

Even though I found it really hard to give up, and it took about 6 or 7 years of not smoking before I no longer wanted a cigarette, I just can't imagine smoking now. Even if the scientists turned around and said "Sorry we got it wrong, smoking is no more harmful than eating an apple", I still wouldn't start up again.

here we go

Just the idea of pouring smoke into my lungs now feels gross. But each to their own, obviously!

I am at a festival, and I am shocked by the number of people smoking cigarettes.

I was in Paris last month and I was surprised by the number of people you see walking down the street smoking, that doesn't seem to have changed in 20 years. Whereas in Sydney, where I currently live, you almost never see people smoking in the street. Vaping maybe, but smoking in public is now rare.

Its actively banned even in many outdoor places now depending on the state. Not sure about Sydney, but I think in Brisbane, and Canberra at least.

You cant smoke in outdoor venue areas anymore if food is being consumed too (some places are lax enforcing this though)

I kinda unintentionally quit about 18 months ago by swapping to vaping. Which tbrh is just as hard on ones lungs I reckon, but who knows.

I still smoke one a day, two or three if with friends drinking.

i quit two years ago and now i run ~4 miles every day that weather permits. still have crushing dreams in which i have a cigarette and wake up feeling terribly guilty for hours with the sense that i haven't "really" quit

Yep - in my experience it takes years to fully get rid of the desire. You'll get there though!

the couple of cigs a day method is either an iron discipline or grr! gtf outta my way before I kill you approach to nicotine addiction. I don't believe it is sustainable tbh.

xxxp

yeah I get vaping cough and am thinking of packing in vaping as well tbh. My lungs are already fucked enough from industrial shit I've breathed in.

I wish people would stop smoking pot on my street, that smell is more repulsive than cigarettes, but we’re all expected to be cool with that

A week ago I was sent for a chest x-ray which revealed a tumor on my lung. Following up with a CT today. Needless to say this has been one of the worst weeks of my life.

I started smoking at 14 or 15, heavily at 16 or 17, quit at 28 and relapsed at 30. Since my 34th birthday I've smoked only intermittently and never more than a few a day. I'm 39 years old now and this is surreal. It could still turn out to be a false alarm, but i don't actually believe this is happening.

Wow, that's scary stuff... sorry to hear about the diagnosis. Hopefully they caught it on the early side - the treatment tool chest has vastly improved over the last few years

Shit. I'm so sorry. Fucking hell.

I'm so sorry to hear that Deflatormouse. As a former smoker, that is one of my worst fears. Let us know how it goes.

I'm really sorry Deflatormouse. Hoping for good news for you and here for support as you navigate a scary time

my heart just dropped reading this. so sorry you're going through this. one of my biggest fears, esp being a dad now. i'm on chantix but still sputtering along unfortunately

i'm so sorry deflatormouse, wishing the best for you

Very sorry you are going through this. Wishing you strength and hoping you get the best news possible.

Thank you all for the empathetic, kind and thoughtful messages. I'm in denial rn and clinging to the possibility that it's benign. That's the only way I can cope. In a day or so it may no longer be possible to deny.

i'm so sorry, wishing you the absolute best.

Robust hugs for you, Deflatormouse. I wish I could be there in person.

thank you (((((♥️)))))

Aw, shit. Hoping for the best.

Hope it's benign and/or treatable, I know it's harrowing but try to be good to yourself <3

Hoping for the best for you, Deflatormouse

Yes, sending love and positive thoughts your way. Please keep us posted.

So sorry to hear and also hoping for the best for you.

I quit 5 years ago but it's often on my mind i have yet to see the consequences.

i'm on chantix but still sputtering along unfortunately

i used chantix (or champix as it is branded here) and even though it is horrible to be on it worked for me.

Keep us posted D

oh man. hoping for the best. good luck Deflator.

The waiting is the worst. I hope you will have no need but the “fuck cancer” thread stands ready to support!

Thinking about you every day, Deflatormouse.

quincie otm about waiting. until you have a diagnosis every idea about your future is drifting in circles. hoping the best for you.

What everyone here said. All the very best to you, Deflatormouse.

Thank you all so much for your kind words and thoughts. I didn't post to the fuck cancer thread because i don't have a diagnosis yet, and also because i'm a relatively young smoker- well, on the young side to have lung cancer. Especially since i've hardly smoked in the last 5 years, just the occasional cigarette or two post-COVID. Got 17+ "pack years" under my belt plus a whole lotta weed (which, again, I've hardly touched in years). I wanted to throw this up here for other smokers to be like, hey, you don't have to be pushing 70 for this to catch up with you. Because I was blindsided. I knew this could happen to me, but i didn't think it could happen now.

My doctor still hasn't called with the ct scan results. He's had 'em since Wed morning, so we're hoping the silence means good news. Maybe if it was really bad, he would've prioritized the call. I've been his patient for 15 years, he's a really good & compassionate doctor who used to treat people with no insurance for $30 and give them the meds free. But he recently lost his private practice and joined a Mount Sinai clinic, which makes communicating with him much more difficult. It's never taken more than 24 hours for him to call me with a test result before.

My mom and brother are saying let's have the scan sent to a pulmonologist if we don't hear from him tomorrow AM. We're obviously real anxious. Even though we realize they'll probably need to do more scans or tests before we know anything for sure. My mom seemed certain this would be a false alarm a week ago, but i can tell she's getting scared now.

Hoping for the best. Was worried we didn’t hear from you for a while.

Get those results yo

xp sorry about that, i'm keeping the phone at a distance to stop myself from googling symptoms and statistics. when i hear anything, good or bad, i'll post it here. i gotta, after making everyone so concerned.

my attitude shifted thurs evening. up until then i was mostly in denial and feeling unusually giddy and manic, with the mania punctuated by full on anxiety attack moments. since thurs night the fear has been mixed with anger and frustration at having to put my life and plans on hold- getting very impatient. i was expecting a call by then, which may have something to do with it or not.

It looks benign, but i have to keep getting scans every so many months for a couple of years to monitor the growth rate. Of the possible outcomes, this is the best case scenario that was never going to happen because it's basically a childish fantasy. If it's cancer, we caught it very early.

My own doctor still hasn't called. My brother very cleverly tried to book me for surgery, telling the receptionist the x-ray result and where to find my ct scan (and could you please try to squeeze him in sooner than the 25th). Within an hour, the surgeon's team called back and gave us the ct scan report.

My brother, who is the most decisive person in the world, says "fuck that" to watchful waiting. By the time of my next ct scan, a malignant tumor would likely more than double in size. He's pushing me to get a biopsy done now, and get the thing cut out of me right away if need be, before it has a chance to grow and spread. He offered to pay for the biopsy if my insurance won't cover it.

I think he's right, so I'm gonna try and get an appointment with a pulmonologist to ask about all this. We also need to figure out why i've been struggling to breathe and coughing up blood for 5 weeks. I've tested negative for everything and antibiotics didn't work.

Do you have a patient portal/MyChart through your clinic/provider?

wishing you the best - glad you have a brother that is so willing to go to the mat for you. hoping it's benign as it appears, but if cutting it out is a possibility, might be a good idea. however I'm no expert on these things.

5 weeks! omg :(

Being proactive is always good. Highly recommend getting a second opinion from a specialist. Ime (close secondhand) is that lung cancer is usually asymptomatic until it's already stage 3 or 4 and the things that can be done before and after that point are drastically different so early is good.

Good luck figuring out the source of your breathing/coughing issues.

no patient portal, i'm gonna need to set that up i guess. fwiw everyone was telling me not to try to obtain the radiology reports myself because they're written in medical language with lots of room for misinterpretation.

yeah, my bro is a rock star, almost literally. i'm the fuck up :) he has a stressful job but what he lacks in availability he more than makes up for in devotion, for sure.

Ime (close secondhand) is that lung cancer is usually asymptomatic until it's already stage 3 or 4

That's why this is such a surprising result, we were prepared for very bad news. I'm sorry to hear someone close to you went through that.

Yeah, i think it would be reckless not to get a second opinion, eager as i am to forget about this for 6 months. I need my doctor to call to facilitate this, ugh.

I'm feeling for you, DM, and wising you the best.

Yeah if it's through Mount Sinai you should be able to access the patient portal, and see the lab results yourself.

My PCP is newly affiliated with Mount Sinai but the scans were done at Weill/Cornell. I'm sure they have an app too, of course.

TY xp

Yep, they also have a patient portal, I highly recommend signing up.

Thanks for the heads up, i signed up with both. my legal name was already taken on one of these platforms, so i had to register as Deflatormouse.

The test results are available on both portals, but the language of the reports is not straightforward.

Np, I'm involved in this stuff for work (and use it a ton personally). At least you won't have to wait for a call to get lab results, that would drive me insane.

now that i've read the written reports myself, i think the ct one would have relieved some anxiety if i'd read it sooner, but the x-ray one would have been even more panic-inducing than having my doctor explain it to me. both of them use a lot of words i don't understand.

there is only one other person in the country with the same name as me, and he lives near my aunt in long island. i guess i know where he goes for medical care now.

he beat me to the gmail, too

had a virtual appointment with a pulmonologist yesterday morning. he said it's "most likely" benign but that "39 is old enough to have lung cancer" and he regards me a very high risk patient given my symptoms and history of smoking. he suggested we follow up with another ct much sooner than the radiologist advised. without me saying i'm interested in a more proactive approach, he added that he "wouldn't oppose" ordering a biopsy now if i want because it's a "borderline" case. he said the biopsy could give a false negative (though we'd continue to monitor) and there's a substantial risk of causing a collapsed lung. i'm not sure what to do now. had some summer plans that i'm not sure whether to cancel or keep and hope for the best. i think this is going to be hanging over my head for a very long time whatever the outcome. but i wish that i'd waited until i knew more before posting about it here.

Well, fuck. Hang in there, DM.

I'm oddly glad you didn't. I've been a pack-a-day smoker for the past eight years and basically live in a constant state of fear/wonder/acceptance/worry about the inevitable re: the habit. Helps me to read your processing through it all. Sending you all the positive energy in the world that the tumour is benign and the process that follows is seamless

Amen to that

Deflatormouse, without knowing what the plans are, I would keep your plans and hope for the best, while taking the advice of the pulmonologist and being proactive on the testing.

it's not inevitable, fgti. you can quit smoking and make it very unlikely! i remember what a pack a day is like, and how quitting feels absolutely impossible. but it really isn't that hard, especially if you reduce the amount you smoke first ime. relapsing for me was down to my cavalier attitude, not irrepressible cravings. there's no reason why i couldn't have kept it up if i'd taken it more seriously. for me the motivation to stop was largely financial. i couldn't afford it. i had a bad weed habit, too, and there were many months when i spent more on weed than rent.
i know that for me, a pack a day was much more burdensome than enjoyable. some of my best memories involve smoking, but not habitually if that makes any sense. my nostalgia for those moments is deceptive.
i hope you do find the motivation to stop. i'd hate to see you go down this road.

tbc, the pulmonologist's advice was to wait until the next scan, which is scheduled for July. But he volunteered that he wouldn't oppose a biopsy now if i want it before i had a chance to ask. i know it's statistically less likely, but my instinct is that i have cancer. i just don't feel well. and tbh the aggressive treatments scare me a lot more than dying.

i have debilitating mental health problems as it is, one of the few things i still really enjoy is open water swimming, going out so far it's probably dangerous. auspices for continuing that uncertain, at this point.

DM, yeah, feeling for you, having gone through the whole cancer thing a few years ago. i had quit a few months prior to my diagnosis, and had smoked intermittently in the 6-7 years prior. i admit that i still will smoke a cig if i’m especially stressed or outrageously drunk, both of which are rare occasions at this point. i don’t crave or think about them at all.

fgti, you can definitely quit!

relapsing for me was... not irrepressible cravings. some of my best memories involve smoking... my nostalgia for those moments is deceptive.

For me, these three brief statements quickly sum up the real difficulty with quitting. The nicotine cravings are only one stage of the battle. They usually taper down to nothing much within a month or so. The rest of the war is untangling all the nostalgic feelings that the frequent daily addiction cycle of craving>satisfaction burned into your brain. It's not the same as craving nicotine; it's craving the satisfaction peak of that cycle that came multiple times a day.

^that's exactly right. at least, that's the real difficulty of staying off them in the long term.

table, i've been vaguely aware that you went through a cancer battle a few years ago :( though i don't know the details as it was before my time on here. sincerely hope you're ok now. in my imagination there's no back to normal or ever really getting over something like this?

i hear you about smoking when stressed and drinking. that's how i started up again during the covid lockdown. i was getting drunk almost every night for a period of about 6 months. not gonna say i never drank to excess before or since, but only on occasion.

always think about how weed dependency from age 15 to almost 30 altered my brain chemistry or w/e. i can tell you that quitting made absolutely no difference to my mental clarity or acuity. even after several years of total abstinence i was still a space cadet.

tbf some of my earliest memories consist of parents and teachers waving their hand in front of my face and going, "earth to Deflatormouse"

yeah, there is no going back. despite my ornery nature on here at times, i am happy and lucky to be alive— facing mortality changed me for the better, i think. i’m more in touch with my body and my own headspace, which probably explains why i don’t drink as much or smoke any longer. i do use weed on a daily basis but i remain a relative lightweight, have never liked being “too high to move” so to speak so my habit can be discarded at any time, i’ve found.

(i am, fwiw, NED at the moment, clean scans and blood work done recently)

also Aimless otm, particularly about the first year or so of quitting cigs.

I always smoked one or two cigarettes a day as an adult, but rarely more than three. There was a time, a long time, when the very idea of having a cigarette while the sun was up was repulsive to me. (These days I burn through four over my first and second cups of coffee.)

My habit spiked enormously with the breakdown of my long-term relationship, starting in 2015, and with an uptick in my suicidal ideation. For me, smoking and suicidality (and/or depression) kind of go hand-in-hand. Smoking is itself a form of procrastination to me, that I feel tired of living, that I feel tired of whatever it is I am doing, and I have a cigarette both to take a break from the tiresome activity and also to shorten a life that I desire shortened

I read The Easy Way and it worked for about two weeks, when a frustrating personal-life moment drove me to a self-destructive "night on the tiles" and I had several pints and a few cigarettes again. For a couple years after, The Easy Way had this sinister grip on my psychology. I felt like every cigarette was "my last", I'd stub the end out proudly and think "that's the end of that!" only to light up again an hour later. There was a rather desperate phase around 2017 where I was so committed to the idea that I was "done" that I'd wash half-smoked packs under the tap and throw them out. I'd then go and buy a new pack a couple hours later.

In 2018/2019, I remember cutting down significantly. I had a phase where I was a "pretend" non-smoker, where I would not buy packs of cigarettes but I would find myself casting about as I walked anywhere for half-smoked butts, which I was pick up and light. This was not a one-time thing, this was a habit that persisted for several months, until my therapist convinced me to just start buying packs again instead of smoking other people's bullshit.

Early stage pandemic, I think it probably happened a hundred times that I'd throw out an unfinished pack, tell myself 'that's the end of that, finally' and then return to my apartment. A hundred times I would return to the dumpster/trashcan that I'd thrown my cigarettes into and retrieve the pack.

My ideation has largely been quashed, with time to recover, good therapy, medications that work, and so forth. I'm not a "drink to numb the pain" drinker anymore, either, I still drink but very moderately, if at all. I've never regularly used any other drugs (most of them, not ever) except the occasional joint. I don't even game anymore, I broke my lockdown habit in this regard. But: smoking still persists. I'm not doing any fucking insane psycho stuff any more, but I am smoking a lot. 10-15 a day on average, right now.

I want to quit very badly. I hate it. I enjoy nice cologne, it's my one ridiculous luxury, and it makes no sense that I also smoke. I can't kiss my boyfriend without brushing my teeth first, because I myself am so averse to kissing smokers and getting that ashtray taste. Smoking has absolutely reduced my circulation, which has in turn made my feet hurt in the winter and causes my chest to hurt from time to time. My sex drive is very low. I have absolutely no romantic feelings about the act of smoking, zero enjoyment, zero "positive memories" about smoking. It's a gross awful shitty expensive habit.

I've tried Zyban (aka bupropion), which is supposed to work, but because all it does is reduce nicotine absorption, it just made me smoke twice as much. I've had friends tell me that if I get over the hump, I'll find that the shift in my depressive-mood will make me not want to smoke at all-- that the smoking feeds the ideation, not the other way around; I believe them. I know that there is the magical Day Four of not-smoking-- I've experienced it, I remember feeling light-as-air and feeling horny-as-hell and feeling like I had all the energy in the world. I just can't even make it to Day Two.

That was a tough post to read, fgti. This is all gonna sound corny as hell, but I think you've already taken significant steps toward quitting smoking. Your ideation has largely been quashed, thank goodness, and you want to quit very badly. Your reasons for wanting to quit are all things i've experienced, and all good reasons imo. Look, I'm totally unqualified to give advice about how to quit smoking. I've heard that complete cessation is the only way, but that's unthinkable to me. For years i used to say if i could only make it to Day Two, i'd never smoke again. I get it.

What I'm fairly sure you *can* do, if you're smoking 10-15 a day, is limit yourself strictly to 10. And later, 8 or 9, but maybe don't even concern yourself with that now.

My experience has been, once you get it below 5 a day, getting to Day Two is a lot more manageable.

In one sense, I have a totally different relationship with smoking. I started smoking (both tobacco and pot) right around the first time i fell in love. It was a pivotal time for me artistically and creatively as well as socially. I used to stop what I was doing to smoke because i wanted to imbue the moment with romantic energy, or some absolute nonsense like that. Of course i was just procrastinating! But it was always intertwined with the feeling of invincibility that young people feel, and the memories of that first crush.

I haven't had romantic feelings for anyone, or desired sex, in almost 10 years now. I seek out alone time constantly, but rarely agree to social engagements of any kind. I think i turned to occasional smoking during the pandemic as a link to the time when i was most connected with other people, and desired intimacy.

table, granted there are political threads i never even glance at here. but i've never thought of you as ornery at all. passionate, definitely. you come across as someone who feels a lot and is grateful & happy to be alive, for sure.

on one hand, it's great to hear that you're cancer free now. but damn, it's gotta suck to keep monitoring it for years, maybe forever, to go through life with the worry that it could come back anytime. and i guess that's the new reality i'm adjusting to.

i smoked from age 17 until age 39, usually about a half+ pack a day. the way that story ended was in the summer of 2020 i got very ill and did not want to visit a doctor because covid was still very mysterious and also "i'll probably start getting better tomorrow." after a month of that, with the recognition that i was definitely dying, i had a friend take me to an urgent care where i was sent directly to a hospital where i remained for 3 weeks. i'd stopped smoking early in the illness because inhaling hurt too much and as time went on my body had broken down to where even walking outside was too onerous.

anyways at the hospital they did a CT scan and discovered my right lung was full of blood clots and i'd had an infarction in my pulmonary artery. the lung was partly dead but they couldn't see it too well as i also had a pneumonia infection so bad that the imaging of the tissue was essentially useless. none of the doctors could figure out why i was even alive and they didn't think i'd make it for the first 5 days or so, but i did. they sent me home eventually and i've never smoked again. i eventually became a runner and ran a 5K every day for months until i started coughing up blood in the fall of 2021, which led to many more CTs and an eventual diagnosis of a really awful fungal infection stemming from how my fucked up lung couldn't take care of itself any longer.

about 9 weeks ago i had surgery to have the lung removed, which has obviously been an ordeal! recovering from the first hospitalization was the hardest thing i've ever done and now i'm having to do it again. but i haven't had a cigarette in over 1000 days now, and i'm walking good distances again (weather permitting, it's been a crap spring in the PNW), and if i'm lucky i'll get enough lung function back to run someday. but i'm getting old enough that running may become a stupid idea regardless.

my understanding is there is not a pulmonologist on the west coast who has not heard of my situation, which is not what you want! so take care of yourselves, lung friends. every time i see this thread i'm like "folks if i could not only quit but learn to run on one good lung you can do whatever it is you need to do when you need to do it" but everyone is different and i also cheated, in a way, by nearly dying. i wish everyone, and especially deflatormouse, the best of luck in all things bronchial.

thank you for sharing that Clay. this thread is mind blowing.

Damn clay did they publish a case report about you?

Hugs out to everyone going through lung shit.

Clay, I knew about the recent surgery from some of your posts, but that is a lot to deal with. Thanks for sharing this. Hope you get to run again and can show your remaining lung who is boss as soon as you can!

I smoked casually but steadily from age 17 to 40, probably averaging about a pack a week and (a pack a day at my highest). I loved it and also wanted to quit for so long, but it was me and my wife and it was so tied up with our other activities (drinking mostly) and my self-conception it had seemed daunting. When we finally quit all the things I thought were going to be hard and the changes I thought I was going to have to make ended up not really mattering in a way. I quit, life went on, and the mental space of smoking became available and taken up by other (better) things. I know it is really hard for some people, especially if you smoked more/longer than I did. I just want to say though, the difficulties of quitting are sometimes not as bad/drastic as you might imagine. It is possible and I wish everyone luck with the struggle.

I started at 17, quit shortly (through a miracle cessation program called "chemotherapy") before I turned 34. Told myself I could enjoy a cigarette in 2024, which was light years away.

Yesterday, I cleared out a 25-ft pressure washer hose by blowing into one end, expelling the water out of the other. It's those little things I don't think about when I start thinking cute about smoking again.

OH MY GOD

it's been 4 years now i think? also glad i can still blow hard

damn, Clay. this is some of the craziest scary medical shit i've ever heard ♥️

was all of that caused by smoking??

a pneumonectomy is a terrifying thing go through, how are you feeling physically and emotionally?

what was recovering from the first hospitalization like? and what motivated you to start running?

sorry, that's a lot of questions. i'm astonished. hope for the fastest and easiest possible recovery for you, and pray that you'll be able to get back into running (though i don't doubt that you will).

a miracle cessation program called "chemotherapy"

😬

I no longer smoke, but I've been told by bed partners that I have sleep apnea... So I recently bought this device on eBay that's supposed to give your lungs a workout. You set the resistance for inhale & exhale - easy at first, then gradually raising it. If used for a few weeks, t's supposed to literally reduce your systolic blood pressure, even maybe helping with cognitive function according to one study. Anyway, a cheap little device that may do a lot of good, we'll see.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/aQYAAOSwgH1kP8CX/s-l500.jpg

thanks for the wishes and support everyone! fwiw the surgery went as well as these things can go and recovery has been pleasantly without event. i've had one phone call with the surgery guys and they were like "yeah you're fine, no follow ups! keep up the great work!" it's weird after all this to just be, like, free of upcoming doctor visits and imaging appointments.

did they publish a case report about you?

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby)

i don't know! the surgery was done at a teaching hospital (oregon health & science university) so i signed waiver after waiver about my case being taught, surgery being observed, surgery being captured on video for teaching purposes, etc. so i guess it's plausible? if anything was published it was without my knowledge, though.

was all of that caused by smoking??

they don't know, tbh. i'd experienced blood clots in my legs (DVT) before all this, one from there likely broke off and ended up in my lung where it grew and splintered. but every test i've ever taken (all of them) to find why i clot has turned up negative and there's no family history of clotting. smoking can turn you into a clot machine if you're prone to them, of course, but it's still a total mystery why i clot in the first place. doesn't really matter now, i'm on blood-thinners 'til i croak

a pneumonectomy is a terrifying thing go through, how are you feeling physically and emotionally?

i'm doing pretty good now! i had about 4-5 months to sit around and think about the surgery after I'd been told it was my only choice (hardest thing honestly was making the call to schedule it, i put that off for weeks and weeks), so just stewing on the horror of what it could mean was awful. they give you all the % chances you'll die or have a stroke or heart attack and it's just numbers but man did i fixate on those numbers!

i was quite proud of myself that when the day for the surgery came and i was dropped off outside the hospital that i just marched right in and didn't have anything close to a panic attack. i was in a good mood! it was nice to know it would be over with soon and that i was in the best hands i could be in, quite literally. the worst part was the waiting, once they checked me in the procedure before mine went long and so i was just sitting in the prep room from about 9am until 3pm. but they give you drugs to calm you down and make you forget everything, very sweet of them.

now i'm mostly fine. i have some latent back pain because they cut through all the muscles you use to hold yourself up, and some weird numbness/pins & needles stuff in my chest due to nerve regeneration. this is all expected and you just wait it out. emotionally, idk, that's pretty broad. i hesitate to say i've learned much but i'm certainly more patient with others, more empathetic about what people may be going through, slower to anger etc. these days i find myself really appreciating comfortable chairs, if that can be a metaphor for smelling the roses or what have you.

what was recovering from the first hospitalization like? and what motivated you to start running?

this is a really long story but due to the pneumonia and lung death my recovery was really complicated. I lost like a quarter of my body weight, and i'm already very very thin. so i had to rebuild most of my muscles and walking was very hard. so that recovery was mostly just learning to walk, then walking a little, then walking a little more the next day. after a few months i was walking a couple miles every day and eventually my legs picked up and i was running here and there and this became a daily practice. then i got into the apps and the stats and so forth. maybe i'll get back there, maybe not! It's okay either way, happy i can stand up, frankly.

<3

Man.

Incredible. Medicine is amazing. Our bodies are a mystery and miracle wrapped up together.

thanks so much for your generous a swers to my questions, Clay. There's a lot in your post that i relate to but it's hard to reconcile what you've been through and are going through with how you seem to be taking it all in your stride. it's impressive to the point of being a little intimidating. i feel for you rn.

no change on my latest ct scan. i'm told this is good news and should probably feel more relieved than i do. somehow, i'm a little spooked. i gotta keep getting scanned every so many months and if there's no change after 2 years it's presumed benign aiui.

wanna apologize for my constant shitposting on ilx these last few months. not that i think having a little health scare is any excuse, just not sure what thread to bump for that purpose and i'm here already so

i don't feel like you're shitposting. and glad for any good news you're getting :)

Thanks, man. I appreciate the post.

That's good news! Pretty sure this is more than a 'little health scare' but I don't recall any overt shit posting

Glad for your good news Deflatormouse.

I aspire to someday ascend to the level of your shitposts if that is what they are.

you’re doing great, dfm! if they say it’s good news it’s good news, keep livin’

happy to hear good news DM!

thank you all. i wish i was sassy enough to do proper shitposting. i haven't intentionally been disruptive or anything but made a lot of tangential posts of little value and lame jokes lately. i'll try to knock it off.

Clay, you hero, how are you doing???

a lot of tangential posts of little value and lame jokes

new board description?

can i just say, i wouldn't and i couldn't but DAMN i want a cigarette soooooo bad rn

I’m doing pretty well, thank you! My mile time is down to about a minute slower than my pre-surgery peak and it’s only bee, what, like three months of working at it. 14:30/mile is slow for anyone who’s training but faster than most everyone I know and I have one lung so I’ll take it. Haven’t seen a doctor or a tech or had a scan since February, that’s the real accomplishment

Whoa congrats Clay, that's awesome. And here I feel good about working up a sweat on the elliptical. Best wishes and good hopes, dfm!

deflatormouse i always look forward to reading your posts and i'm very glad to hear your good news

glad to hear some good news deflatormouse.

holy shit, Clay. that's incredible! says a lot both about your strength of character and what the human body is capable of. i'm really happy to hear it.

map there's so much in your posts that i relate to and so much that i admire and i've wanted to respond to many more of them really openly than i have. i haven't had the focus or the patience to do that lately.

thanks! idk about strength of character, you should see the grimness in me as i lace up my running shoes, but i push through because nobody can do it for me. i skipped a couple days recently because it was too hot even at night and the air quality was kinda crap around the 4th, and i felt actually guilty! who have i become, etc.

can i just say, i wouldn't and i couldn't but DAMN i want a cigarette soooooo bad rn

i just hit my 3 year quitting anniversary (it's really my 3 year getting sick anniversary lol) a month ago and i can say this really does pass. i thought for a long time i'd be preoccupied with constant invasive thoughts about needing a smoke, but i never think about it unless i walk by someone smoking outside (it smells so bad to me now!), and even then i'm like whoa people still smoke how wild is that. it really does just sneak off after awhile.

you should see the grimness in me as i lace up my running shoes, but i push through because nobody can do it for me.

that's just it tho, that is serious willpower, i'll bet quitting smoking is a cakewalk compared to that. but are you also enjoying it? how are you feeling just in general?

who have i become, etc.

haha🦸

i bought a pack on new years eve and there were a few left when i threw it in the trash in april, i was down to a very light habit so cravings like the one i had yesterday are rare.

it smells so bad to me now!), and even then i'm like whoa people still smoke how wild is that.

definitely!

6 years nicotine free today. about two or three times a year i am tempted to have a smoke but i know i won't and i find smoke filled environments, on the rare occassions it is still possible to encounter one, repulsive.

i do think had vaping been a bit more developed when i quit i might have gone down that route and still be a user that way, but when i quit it was still a pain and messy to vape (ie having to decant liquid into some primitive vaping contraption). i feel lucky i quit when i did in that regard.

Well done Stirmonster. I still have a few temptations a year but not slipped for 4 years now.

It gets harder by the day to comprehend how I was ever able to smoke two packs of Parliaments (later American Spirits) over 4-6 hours of drinking and still breathe the next day.

Daily?!

Nah, half or 2/3 of a pack/day and then once a week the two pack (and some extras) binge.

Trying a Parliament after smoking American Spirits for 3 years was a bigger taste shock than trying an American Spirit after not smoking for a year. Absolutely rancid, like I imagine smoking a cigarette dipped in embalming fluid would taste.

I quit over Christmas and backslid in Feb. Between my uncle dying of throat cancer last week and visiting my very-infirm father this weekend, I am utterly done with them. (It’s been 36 hours only but that’s great for me.)

4 years clean in june, and over a year now since they took out the lung. doing pretty good!

That's awesome Clay.

This July will be 12 years for me.

The best thing is my friend who I never thought would quit has for 6 months now and seems happy with the decision.

I quit when GWB was president, have probably had 6 cigarettes since? but the last time I smoked was a Marlboro Red after a particular intense group therapy session about 10 years ago. These days the smell of nonmenthol cigarette smoke is rather triggering for me, it makes me think how dumb and irresponsible I was as a young adult.

I don’t keep them around but I will still have one on occasion. I think of them like cupcakes— I don’t buy myself a cupcake or like gooey muffin treat more than a few times a year, but when I do it is because I want that particular indulgence

26 years for me in August. Which makes me feel quite old!

I currently have an older client for whom I am trying to find senior housing that accepts smokers. They appear to be nonexistent. Anyone still smoking, try to quit before you are 80 something and in need of assisted living.

the problem I've got is I only smoke when I'm drinking so even the doctor is surprised about how much I don't smoke and I assume they double or triple what I tell them like they do with booze. they were like oh really? that's probably not significant and I wasn't lying.

so smoking doesn't actually really cost me any significant amount of money or give me any health problems.

I should quit anyway because it seems like my family has two options - you die in your 50s or your 90s.

on the other hand I am beset by nihilism and often don't care if I die because what's the fucking point anyway so maybe I should just keep smoking, especially because I don't really spend that much money on it and if it does give me cancer, tbh I'd probably be ok with it. there's fuck all point being alive anyway. I've seen my wife go through it. Probably better than getting old and getting dementia or something tbh.

the problem I've got is I only smoke when I'm drinking so even the doctor is surprised about how much I don't smoke and I assume they double or triple what I tell them like they do with booze. they were like oh really? that's probably not significant and I wasn't lying.

so smoking doesn't actually really cost me any significant amount of money or give me any health problems.

This is me exactly.

oh i shd stop doing everything i enjoy

I’m on chantix again

don't know how people can maintain this kind of iron discipline one-cig-a-day regime. When I'm fiending for nicotine it's impossible to concentrate on anything, my vision goes all fucked up and I become extremely heightened and irritable. I feel like quitting vaping now. I bought some 25mg nicotine patches, but am struggling to get myself in a serious and intentful fucking off nicotine altogether frame of mind.

Until 2013 I smoked two a day, with the morning cigarette the only one not dependent on booze. I vowed to cut it the moment I got a cold -- which I promptly did a week later.

I smoked two last night because I drank and smoked a bit of pot.

I had a one cigarette a day phase last year, but it doesn't really count because I was additionally vaping.

the ability to be able to enjoy one glass of wine or maybe a bit more, but a moderate and sensible snifter of booze, one cigarette - then savour the moment until you do it again the next day. I'll never have it.

do you do this daily?

ugh sorry for being edgy

xp

I wish I could, but I tend to finish off a bottle of wine if I open it and vape quite heavily throughout the day. But I have managed to possess the discipline to not drink until after 8 pm. That's a slight improvement.

Everyone is smoking

why thank you

crack is wack

Everyone’s smoking again

I guess I can tolerate it with the scenario that it’s 1974 and little feat just rolled into to the bar

I'm tired of lecturing my still smoker friends about it.. fuck, if you got 'em, light 'em up

I probably quit (Jan 2006) out of vanity as much as anything... I didn't wanna get the ciggie wrinkles

It's not like anyone who smokes cigarettes is unaware of the health issues these days. They can feel it in their lungs, their mouths, their sinuses, so it isn't something just theoretical to them. So it's no surprise if lecturing just bounces off 'em. Better to let them know that if they ever try to quit you'll be there to help out because seeing them succeed would make you happy.

I'm on day one of quitting smoking/vaping. Yes, smoking makes you feel like shit. Vaping becomes an expensive pain in the arse, and I spend enough of my time washing up dishes - washing vape tanks is an extra chore. The nicotine patch wasn't cutting it this morning and is already falling off my arm. I have some nordic spirit nicotine pouches that were sent as a free gift with a Morrisons shopping order. It seems kind of fucked up that they are allowed to send freebie nicotine products to customers but I'm glad they did, because after sitting it under my lip for 1 hr it has delivered a bigtime nicotine hit. Not really dealing with the chemical addiction issue here but at least I have no cravings for vapes or cigarettes, so it's a start.

Nice one. Into my 5th week of vape only, they are a pain in the arse but marginally cheaper and presumably a bit healthier than baccy. I never insist to myself that I've actually stopped cos I'd just jib against it, but I'm hoping eventually I'll go the full no cigs/no vapes route.

breaking nicotine addiction is rough. I think this is my third time now (might even be the 4th, lol) - so I know I can do it. It's been a recurring cycle of enjoying the initial honeymoon period of starting smoking again and then after a few months realising why I stopped.

Two camel blue in two days

I had a dream last night that I was still smoking, and I had a pack of Camels.. but I didn't actually smoke one

I’ve had this pack for a year

I've done over three weeks now without smoking or vaping. Had only been smoking about 6 weeks. I'd grown so sick of vaping that it was an easy habit to give up. Now managing my nicotine addiction with patches. The last straw with vaping was another tank failing on me. I think the rubber seal was fucked and it was leaking into the coil and sending disgusting hot lava into my mouth. Just got sick of having to buy new tanks and washing them and the stench of vape juice all over my desk. And even when you've done a thorough wash of them, just a slight residual trace of what you've previously used can spoil a different flavour next in the tank. No regrets about throwing all my vaping paraphernalia in't fucking bin.

i've vaped for two years now. i went from spending a fortune on juul to a compact pod device with low nicotine menthol liquid - but i found myself huffing it 24/7, so something had to change. the pods would always leak for me too. i bought another juul on a night out last week, but i forgot how high in nic they are, so it's knocking me dizzy and sick. a good motivator to finally quit the thing that helped me quit tobacco. i've liked vaping much more than smoking, and any time i've had a drag on a cigarette it's felt rancid. now's the time to stop, though. i feel like my body is rejecting nicotine outright. i'm just going to be so cranky going cold turkey...

only took one Juul pod spilling into my mouth to never ever go near one again.

3 for 3

The flu I got hit with last Thursday was my trigger to finally quit vaping (Juul). It was too easy to "just one more day" for whatever stress related reason but with a sore throat from coughing

here's a vape thread for everyone to talk about vapitos shit because nobody else cares

i quit 8 years ago this month and i've been pretty depressed/very depressed ever since but my new medicine seems to be helping me. there were definitely more then a few days when i thought it ALMOST wasn't worth quitting given how i felt afterwards but then i remember how sick of smoking i was before i stopped and went on the patch/gum/lozenges for awhile. and how short of breath i was getting. can only imagine how my lungs would feel now if i hadn't stopped. so, there is that. but it has been really really hard.

Pretty hyped to turn 60 or so, give up on life completely and take up smoking again (unless packs are $30 each by then).

wait, no, i didn't do the patch 8 years ago. just gum and lozenges. and at one point i thought fuck it i'll just do this forever but then i did actually stop with those as well because i literally thought i was going to dislocate my jaw or grind my teeth into bits because i was chewing the gum so hard. (also i felt like if i kept one foot in nicotine land it would be too easy to start smoking again.)

Calzino, this is why I stopped vaping, too. So much money and frustration

passed 4 years off about two months ago. extremely rare I miss it, but when I do, damn it hits hard lol

xp

vaping ended up being so much more high maintenance and expensive than I expected it would be. And after overdoing it sometimes I'd wake up at 4am feeling like my lungs are drowning in gunk.

This is a thread about smoking. Take your vape shit elsewhere

Man, you’re so mellow today.

https://www.heraldnews.com/gcdn/authoring/2019/10/16/NHER/ghows-WL-9508d9f3-0512-1143-e053-0100007fa4eb-dc31b9ff.jpeg

Man, you’re so mellow today.

vaping or smoking are just different delivery systems for the same addiction and earlier this summer I was doing both. And I will post about it wherever I choose it is relevant to. I'm not getting thread policed by the resident asinine kids-in-bars-dad-bore.

Look at the title of the thread

yes I did

lol
Does it say “vaping?”

Are you going to post about the Grateful Dead in the Little Feat thread too?

calzinars

I don't really care about the distinction between how you suck in nicotine, it's like the difference between a heroin addict who shoots it or smokes it off tinfoil for me. There are distinctions, but the common theme is addiction. Stop being such a fucking wilful troglodyte. Are you saying you can't post about addiction on a smoking thread?

you tedious bore

I’m trying to sympathize with you cal, mainly because our tags share three letters, but this is not a thread about addiction or nicotine. It’s about setting tobacco or another substance on fire

you don't have the power to define the parameters the parameters of this thread, fortunately. suck it in

lol ok!

just to further outrage your sense of thread fidelity: Nicotine pouches seem a better solution than the chewing gum. You just place them under your top lip and the membranes in your gums absorb the nicotine. They've been invaluable to me on days when the patch falls off my arm and I start experiencing the anxious irritability and concentration collapse that withdrawal brings.

I was chastised in the “bar rescue” thread for thinking it was a a thread about rescuing drowning people at the bar but instead it was about some UK tv show?

xpost woah that's the vape version of Skoal Bandits

It’s like rebranded snus isn’t it?

no, they don't contain any tobacco derivatives at all just nicotine. For me it's just a short term solution, will be using them a couple of months max

Whatever you do, don’t let dogs get hold of them!

yeah, that would be deadly.

Tf @ the two cals going at it about nicotine 😱

I'm just posting about stopping smoking/vaping on a smoking thread. Apologies for being so contentious, actually no!

Business as usual

Every time I see calzone post I burst out laughing

wow keep it up, one of you will definitely win

I’m a little disappointed that the lurker community didn’t back me but hey

damn you guys need a cigarette.

Pretty hyped to turn 60 or so, give up on life completely and take up smoking again (unless packs are $30 each by then).

― papal hotwife (milo z), Saturday, August 24, 2024 2:02 PM bookmarkflaglink

I started at 17. When I quit around 34, I told myself I'd allow myself to consider it again when I was 51...

... which is coming up!

always remember that black tar you cough out of your lungs after the first few days of stopping (because your lung tissue is slowly becoming functional again). I have been through this a few times now so haven't forgot it. But still I think this is my 4th time stopping!

I'll just quit again when I'm 68.

Respect

Cicada cycles

Bartender gave me a parliament light and I’m in chill heaven lol

“I have to just stop”

Personally I feel I have been fortunate to avoid addiction to nicotine. I enjoy it once in a while but it’s never on mind like weed and beer are

*on my mind

Smoked P Funks for 6 or 7 years before switching to American Spirit Yellows - when I smoked a Parliament after a couple of years of Spirits it was rough. Marlboro Reds tasted better.

Make my funk the p funk

me when my psychiatrist asks me if i’m ready to quit smoking pic.twitter.com/iUVDbuLbix

— harm reduction hedonista🃏 (@suboxoneshawty) November 17, 2024

Smoking is a thing again lol

https://i.imgur.com/TTJR6kD.jpeg

Do they still make chesterfields

man the craft in those print ads. sumptuous.

i was just thinking about the old dudes i used to know who would smoke basically hands free. just leave the cigarettes in their mouth, not the whole time, but for a lot longer than anyone else would be comfortable with. one was my friends dad who had a GTO that he would drag race in Commerce, GA - known for having the biggest outlet mall in the area. the other was my uncle who lived in Henderson, NY on a farm and would always call me over to the grill so i could watch him pour beer on the chicken he was cooking. here's to some real ones

Do they still make chesterfields

They stopped making the classic non-filtered ones back in 2018, which I remember people noticed because it basically left only Pall Mall and Camel as non-filtered options in the US market. Not sure whether the brand continues in a filtered variety.

xp yeah i mean i've seen dudes hang sheetrock while smoking. how the smoke doesn't get into and burn their noses i'll never know, or maybe after a while you just stop being irritated by it

I used to smoke without using my hands all the time when I worked as a landscaper, and also in my party years while deejaying.

dudes i used to know who would smoke basically hands free.

Unfortunately I do find this very hot and once dated someone for 10 years that I was initially attracted to because they did this.

My predilection may have been party formed by seeing Rhett Miller (the hottest man in the world ever imo) let the guitar smoke the cigarette during shows. I die. I saw him a few years ago in a weird covid-era one-off show and I died all over again. Hottest. Man.

* partly
* He did not smoke during the 2020-21 show, just to be clear. Still so hot though.

I recently have been thinking that if the social stigma attached to vaping ever wears off, shitloads of people are going to start doing it because jesus christ nicotine really is a delightful drug sometimes. Good thing schools and public health authorities etc are doing the work to remind kids it’s weird and dumb and bad.

I have a buddy that's been chewing nicotine gum for literally like a decade or more

he still sneaks the odd smoke now and then

all drugs are delightful, that’s why they call them drugs

my first experience with chewing tobacco was anything but delightful... head-spins!

all drugs are delightful, that’s why they call them drugs

This is absolutely not true, as a person who has had to go through the wringer trying to find the right cocktail to treat my brain shit.

I miss smoking as much as any relationship I've ever had, and as much as just about any relative or friend who has passed. Besides my mom, but I almost miss smoking as much as I miss my deceased mother.

i rarely smoke, never have other than a 2 month stint in high school where i was actively trying to get addicted to cigarettes. i tried the ‘smoke without ever taking it out of your mouth’ move a couple times and it made my nose burn and eyes tear up so badly. very clear “you’re not the kind of person who does this” indicators

It has been tough to not head out with a couple of smokers at work. It’s the same mechanism that kept me smoking on college art class days, go out to the patio with the cool people or stay inside with the nerds.