I so desperately want to quit social smoking and it's really hard. Any suggestions?

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Okay, so I can go forever without cigarettes, but when I walk into a bar it's like, immediately I'm smoking my fucking head off. Why is this? Should I just give up on quitting smoking lest I stop going out? Do I need to completely change my lifestyle in order to drop the cancer sticks?

I thought it was the drinking, but I was in another country for a while and I did no smoking whatsoever, but I was drinking...

Am I doomed? Do I need to move away from Montreal to quit smoking?

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:34 (twenty years ago)

Sorry--my computer sucks. I don't know why this appeared twice. The other one can be ganked.

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Can you accept that you might smoke a little when you go out?

this doesn't apply if you go out very often.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:37 (twenty years ago)

I just answered your other thread, Cybele. Withdrawal jitters?

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:42 (twenty years ago)

But isn't that bad enough? Shouldn't I be trying to completely eliminate the whole smoking thing?

I guess maybe one might ask what the difference is between standing in a smoky place and actually smoking in a smoky place. I'd imagine that as much as the former is bad, the latter is really bad.

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:43 (twenty years ago)

From the other thread:
My social smoking has decreased drastically since the Toronto smoking ban, it's funny how you don't even think of it when it's not around you.
Why didn't you smoke when you went away?

-- mark p (mark.p****...), December 2nd, 2004.

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xpost Goodness, no. You're not doomed. You're clearly not even that addicted. If you can go without smoking "forever," I wouldn't worry about it too much. Eventually you'll get old enough that hanging out in bars no longer has much appeal, and then you won't smoke at all.
-- Pears can just fuck right off. (fluxion2...), December 2nd, 2004.

I wish we had a smoking ban here...but I doubt that's going to happen.
But what if I never get tired of seeing shows or attending other sorts of events that take place underneath clouds of noxious fumes?

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:44 (twenty years ago)

Then you'll be the weird "older" person at these events, and you'll give everybody the willies.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:46 (twenty years ago)

If you're only having two or three cigarettes once or twice a week, I wouldn't get too stressed out about it. But if you're going to the bar and smoking a pack in one night, you've got a problem.

Do you go to bars that put out popcorn or peanuts? You could use those as substitute. Or toothpicks! Or smoke those cigarillos or something that burns a long time and really stinks so that you'll just feel like an ass.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:49 (twenty years ago)

Point taken.

I guess the reason why I didn't smoke when I was away was because I was in a place where the altitude was crazy and smoking felt like it was destroying my lungs. Beer started to taste really good...maybe it was just the Bedele Special brand, I don't know.

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:51 (twenty years ago)

So I'll be standing in a bar, shoving my face full of popcorn, picking my teeth and smoking a cigar. I should try that one night.

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:52 (twenty years ago)

The Montreal boys won't be able to resist you!

― The boobs previously known as Thermo Thinwall (Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, 2 December 2004 21:18 (twenty years ago)

Convince yourself that it's killing you. Worked for me.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 2 December 2004 21:29 (twenty years ago)

Of course, that can also be part of the appeal.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Thursday, 2 December 2004 21:34 (twenty years ago)

I tried that...my recent attempt is trying to appeal to my vanity by convincing myself that I'm going to make myself look old and hideous. It works, I'm embarrassed to say, better than appealing to my desire for health.

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:45 (twenty years ago)

don't eat anything for 24 hours, then smoke a whole pack in an hour. you'll never want to see a cigarette again.

― oops (Oops), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:48 (twenty years ago)

why doesn't it surprise me that you'd say that, pears?

― kelsey (kelstarry), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:49 (twenty years ago)

I gotta say that if you can go without having cigarettes when you are in bars and clubs and you are drinking and surrounded by people smoking and having fun doing it then you are a better ex-smoker than almost anyone I've ever met. It's damn hard and I am really really committed to being a non-smoker these days, but occassionally after I'
ve drunk a bunch and am around a bunch of smokers, I'll weaken and have one. It happens and really the only surefire why to stop it is to never put yourself in a situation where you are around smokers and that's basically impossible. So I wish you the best of luck, but I should say that if you've quit the rest of the time and are only having the occassional one when you are out and about then you are doing pretty well and shouldn't get to down on yourself.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:50 (twenty years ago)

why doesn't it surprise me that you'd say that, pears?

Because I'm SO FUCKING DARK! fear my deep black depths.

― Pears can just fuck right off. (kenan), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:54 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

My problem now is that I have been socially smoking so much lately that I fear a physiological addiction has started to set in for the first time in five years, which is the last time I smoked regularly. Like I never smoke in the daytime, and yet here it is, 3 PM, and I'm craving a cigarette, wtf.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:52 (nineteen years ago)

Fuck it, I'm going outside.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 27 February 2006 21:35 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't had a smoke since Jan 16th, wish me luck.

― andy --, Monday, 27 February 2006 21:48 (nineteen years ago)

who needs luck? you're quit. revel in it you bastard.

― yuengling participle (rotten03), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

OK, here's a topic that is of interest to me which has always been difficult to bring up! To what extent is the urge to smoke tied in for people with the sex urge? For me, I realized that they were essentially one and the same! I have no idea the extent to which this is true for other people because no one ever seems to talk about it. But I would think that it's significant to people for whom it is true to the extent that they might want to look at smoking as not being such a healthy manifestation of their sexuality.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:10 (nineteen years ago)

(and that this might be a helpful impetus for them to quit if they want to)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

don't eat anything for 24 hours, then smoke a whole pack in an hour. you'll never want to see a cigarette again.

I always figured that would make you really, really want one about a day later.

Anyway, can't remember if cybele was smoking last time I saw her, but the Great Montreal Smoking Ban of 2006 swoops into effect at the end of May so that trigger will be lessened.

― superultramega (superultramarinated), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

Good: it's after I visit.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:14 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, Tim, you might be on to something, although I'd never quite placed the correlation. In any case, both urges can be filed under "Things That Make Laurel Very, Very Irritable" so maybe past a certain point it's all the same.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

(Also, now I am singing "I'm going on a SEX DRIVE" in my head.)

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 27 February 2006 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

I've heard of studies that seem to show women who smoke are more amorous in the sack. I've found this to be true, somewhat, though my findings are anecdotal at best.

― andy --, Monday, 27 February 2006 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway, can't remember if cybele was smoking last time I saw her, but the Great Montreal Smoking Ban of 2006 swoops into effect at the end of May so that trigger will be lessened.

Oh fuck. They got Montreal? This was the place that I thought would hold out the longest.

― fields of salmon (fieldsofsalmon), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 06:08 (nineteen years ago)

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