starting smoking

when/under what circumstances did you start? junior high parking lot after school?

I wanted to make friends in college, so I picked up smoking. Sad, but true. It also worked wonders.

i got cigarettes out of a vending machine when i was 12

it was all kinda over after that

Started smoking around campfires/bonfires (for 1+ years before I bought a pack and got addicted).

Smoked cloves (yes) in college but not regular cigarettes. Lived in NY for a few years, got a job with smokers who took me with them on breaks. Didn't start in earnest tho until I was laid off from that job and drank coffee all day and vodka as many nights as I could find something to do. Luckily cigarettes were only $4.35 a pack in Jersey City in those days.

Also you could smoke in restaurants still.

started rather late: 22 in grad school. I've kept the same pace for seventeen years though: two a day unless I drink.

started in high school in Alabama, when you could get a pack plus a cheap zippo for a buck forty

quit in North Carolina in 1998, when a buck and quarter could get you maybe a quarter of a pack?

The summer before college when I was 17.

junior high parking lot after school?

junior high parking lot before school

I start smoking like every two weeks

He lit the cigarette and smoked it down to the filter in one breath. He silently thanked the cigarette company for being thoughtful enough about his health to include a filter to protect him. So he lit up another. This time he didn't exhale the squeaky-clean filtered smoke, but just let it nestle in his lungs, filing his body with that good menthol flavor. Some more smokers knocked on his door and they came in and all started smoking along with him. "How wonderful it is that we're all smoking," he thought. Everyone smoked and smoked and after they smoked they all talked about smoking and how nice it was that they were all smokers and then they smoked some more. Smoke, smoke, smoke. They all sang "Smoke That Cigarette" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." Then the smokers smoked one more cigarette and left him alone in his easy chair, about to relax and enjoy a nice quiet smoke. And then his lips fell off.

moved halfway across the country for college, began smoking cloves when visiting friends at home, tentatively smoked a few normal cigarettes here and there until I joined a men's choir sophomore year and made some great friends who smoked, which started a two-a-day habit + chain-smoking at parties that lasted until about 2 years after I graduated

have smoked maybe 5-10 cigarettes total in the last 15 years

starting smoking

― buzza, Wednesday, October 6, 2010 9:59 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be fair i didn't really smoke much at all between 12 and 18, and there was a time, especially since both of my parents smoked, my grandparents smoked, everyone i knew smoked, that i was rabidly anti-smoking, a period from about 15 to 18 that coincided with both a.) lol high school and b.) the only time in my life i was even nominally hard-line straight edge.

needless to say once i got to college the straight edge trapping fell away pretty quickly, and the ban on cigarettes was one of the first to go.

Yeah I used to harass my parents to quit.

worked at a pizza shop in high school and was pissed that the smokers got to take breaks whenever while the non-smokers held up the fort. started bumming cigs from the smokers and then became a regular smoker

starting smoking

― buzza, Wednesday, October 6, 2010 9:59 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― buzza, Wednesday, December 12, 2012 11:34 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

My dad smoked when I grew up and I spent a lot of time inhaling secondhand smoke. When I moved out to attend college I very soon started messing around with (of all things) a pipe. The stupidity of pipes soon wore out their novelty and I began smoking cigarettes. Looking back much later I realized that I'd been a secondhand smoker for 18 years and moved up to firsthand smoking only when I was forced to quit smoking-by-proxy.

My smoking pretty much directly coincided with my mom taking it up again so I wonder if part of me wasn't just like well shit, if she can then so can I. Also, they were around the house all of a sudden so you know.

P.S. I quit smoking twelve years later, when I got married. My wife made it a condition for marrying me.

Smoked cloves (yes) in college but not regular cigarettes.

yup.

I "quit" cigarettes after about a year or two of chain-smoking cloves (the worst idea, btw). Nowadays I'll smoke a (non-clove) cigarette very infrequently, as a social thing. Like less than once a month. Surprisingly easy to not get hooked again if I do it that way. Although now that I've typed all this out I kinda want one.

When did it become unacceptable to smoke in houses and apartments? I'm thinking it was the late eighties or early nineties?

Last apartment I lived in in which people smoked was '98

My roommates in 2001 and I smoked inside still.

i still know plenty of people who smoke inside. i think it probably becomes unacceptable with age/nicer apartments

when I lived in sf 4 years ago my israeli roommate smoked inside but israelis are a backwards people

the last time i lived with a roommate (moved out in mid 2011) we banned smoking in the house after summer of 2010. tbh i think he still did it sometimes and then blamed it on me when his gf would come over.

There was a time though when it was acceptable for all adults to smoke inside--my grandparents certainly did all their lives. Sometimes I meet people who still feel that allowing guests to smoke inside is part of being a polite host, my NJ ex's parents were like that. It seemed crazily wrong to me but they'd bring me an ashtray when I hadn't even asked.

Yeah, I know people like that. When I was in HS I went into the city with a friend to visit his awesome old Jewish grandmother in her apt in The Village. I can clearly remember her bringing us iced coffee and an ashtray as if this were the most normal thing to do even though we were 16. I remember thinking she was just about the coolest grandmother ever. For other reasons too but the coffe/smokes sure didn't hurt.

Oh and my mom smoked up to 2 packs a day inside until like 2 months ago.

so was everyone's first cigarette sublime? it seems like maybe an acquired taste

No it was fucking rank iirc.

my first clove was sublime until I tried inhaling it

I was kind of a late bloomer with regard to consumption of toxins. I got drunk for the first time shortly before I turned 19 and started smoking shortly after. That first year or two was the only time I was anywhere near a regular smoker, though, and even then I didn't have more than half dozen a day.

college, still smoking

i was 9 or 10 and had befriended some neighborhood 14 year olds that gave me my first smoke. i didn't like it and i sure do remember my sis smelling it and running to mom (pops is a Cardiologist so the repercussions were not fun)

never liked smoking. when I was in college but underage I would smoke at rock shows sometimes if I couldn't drink but I didn't really get any pleasure out of it so it never caught on with me, thankfully.

it was my ex, think my first ever was a 120

I had no problem with Florida's 2003 smoking bans; you can make a more than reasonable argument that you have no reason to expose non-smokers to your toxins, which is why smoking indoors baffles me (although in the late seventies and into the eighties this was done and I grew up around it). Also, I like the idea of rationing cigarettes by going outside to smoke one.

I started when my cousin and i used to drive around getting high and was paranoid of smelling like weed when we would go to hang out at burger king, so I'd smoke one of his cigarettes. I never smoked more than a pack every two weeks or so, and mostly it's months off with a couple over the course of a weekend when I'm drinking with out of town friends or whatever.

I know tons of people who smoke occasionally but only like three committed smokers. I honestly don't remember the last time I was inside any home or apartment where someone was smoking, feel like it's been at least ten years.

on the other hand weed is still okay to smoke indoors

I seem to be something of an anomaly bc I'm a committed smoker who treasures the experience and will do kinda dumb stuff to get a smoke when I want one, but I don't actually smoke very heavily or for most of the day. I'm okay with it so far.

naw smoking makes you look cool, smells nice and helps you eat less if it didnt kill you so thoroughly id still do it all the time

I seem to be something of an anomaly bc I'm a committed smoker who treasures the experience and will do kinda dumb stuff to get a smoke when I want one, but I don't actually smoke very heavily or for most of the day. I'm okay with it so far.

^^^ that's me

I may end up quitting sometime new, not sure when though. Some days i will go almost the entire day wo even picking up a smoke. When i leave town to visit my parents i usually leave the cigs at home and don't have any at all. Then i'll hang out w friends and smoke nearly a whole pack.

I love guys like you! You'll bum off me all night, then buy me a pack.

We went on a school trip to greece when I was 14 or 15 or something, some girls from my year and some girls from the year above. When we left the UK only one of us smoked (a girl in the year above, who was friends with my social group: she was a hippy, she smoked rollups); when we came back the whole cluster of my friends did. Two days before going home we'd all developed sore throats and lost our voices. I might have had a cigarette before that though, a b&h a girl I knew from choir who was working very hard on pretending to be a year older than she was so she could get this boy to go out with her. I remember being very determined to not be like those people in films who try to be cool but cough and embarrass themselves, because it was it was very important that I seem like I'd done this already.

I love smoking, too. Sigh. I went to lunch with coworkers and went on like, for a long time about how its meditative and relaxing and how much I'd miss it. And if I found out the world was ending anytime soon I'd take it up again, NO QUESTION ABOUT IT.

I didnt start til I was almost 30 (!! yes, I know). I was a w33d smoker before that, and always mulled my mix with tobacco... one day I ran outta w33d, thoght "fuckit I'll just have a cig instead" (i had smoked in the past but only bumsuck smoking which really doesnt count), hated it, but kind of occasionally kept at it at clubs while drinking.

Somehow a year or so later sharing a flat with a heavy smoker friend it just became a habit. I still only smoke when drinking, though (ie at night). None of this first thing or during the day smokes for me.

Really should stop - I keep getting mouth ulcers and cracked lips and i hate the stink.

^^ xp

because it was it was very important that I seem like I'd done this already.

^^^ adolescence in a nutshell

Started smoking on the amateur circuit in junior high, didn't become a professional until high school. Then I quit for like 2 years, and then picked it back up and have been smoking since, so like 10 years total... Coincidentally, I am picking 12/12/12 to be the last day I smoke EVAR. Hope it sticks.

I started (at about 22) with occasional cloves, while under the very mistaken impression that they didn't have tobacco in them and weren't addictive. Then the cloves became habitual rather than occasional. Then I switched to tobacco. Pack a day for years. Then (a couple of years ago) I switched to an e-cig, which has worked very well for me. I have the added motivation of a chronic sinus infection that is totally manageable if I don't smoke, but excruciating if I do smoke.
I tried to cut back on smoking at times, but I've never really wanted to quit nicotine.

i have some sort of black plague inside of my body right now, and i feel like hot ass, but i am still fiending to go downstairs for a smoke. this kind of madness is the biggest reason i need to quit.

wtf are cloves, i'm assuming they're not cloves

Clove cigarettes. Indonesian things, I think? Sickly sweet, smell a bit like maryjane.

Kretek (play /ˈkrɛtɛk/) are cigarettes made with a blend of tobacco, cloves and other flavors. The word "kretek" itself is an onomatopoetic term for the crackling sound of burning cloves. Haji Jamahri, a resident of Kudus, Java, created kreteks in the early 1880s as a means to deliver the eugenol of cloves to the lungs, as it was thought to help asthma.[1] Jamahri believed the eugenol cured his chest pains and he started to market his invention to the village, but he died of lung cancer before he could mass market it.

LOL :/

yeah i was hopin someone else would answer, cos now i got to ask you wtf a bumsuck is

I knew someone would. I know of no other word for it... when you puff on a ciggie with yr mouth but dont actually inhale any of the smoke into the lungs?

just had a lot of food won't somebody please give me a cigarette?

that's called pulling a bill clinton xp

i thought bumsuck was when you made the filter bit all soggy, but i might have pieced that together through vague contexts

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bumsuck

I used to basically toke clove cigarettes because I didn't know any better and the eugenol kept me from gagging on the smoke like I would with a regular cigarette. I'm probably going to die of lung cancer because of that.

nonsense. you'll die of lung cancer because of the shitty environment.

to be fair, you may also be sent to a nutrient-processing factory. but through you, the feral children of the 2050s might live.

if you really wanna smoke and feel guilt free about it my advice is to move to an industrial city in china where the air is actually improved by being drawn through a combusting mash of cured tobacco resin, accelerants, ammonia, and dog urine before entering your lungs

what kind of cigarettes can you afford where it's dog urine?

you need to get to know some party cadres man, they'll hook you up ; )

oh come on this is ILX, goth central of the world, and there are people on here who don't know what cloves are?! gtfo!

i thought bumsuck was when you made the filter bit all soggy,

Huh UD seems to agree with ye, but its the term Ive always had thrown at me by ppl mocking me for not actually like, smoking my smokes.

i was so eager to have a good excuse to start smoking that i took it up for a part i had in a play my freshman year of college. i went to the grocery store and bought a pack of lucky strike unfiltetereds because those seemed like the most rock n' roll option available. i stepped out in to the parking lot and lit it up and took one inhale and felt like i was going to fucking die.

a day or two later a friend handed me a marlboro light and instructed me to "suck in, then suck again" and i was hooked.

my boss 2004-2006 was a smoker and our office was in a kind of tucked-away part of the hotel so he'd let us smoke in there which seems insane now especially because half of us were non-smokers. but when i was working a shift that started at 6am and had an ashtray on my desk, I could get through half a pack by 9am.

jan 1st of this year was the start of my 2nd successful quitting streak, the first which lasted ~2.5 years and ended after a breakup. i've had two cigarettes in 2012.

stages:
1. menthols on ecstasy
2. couple of smokes the day after 1. but never more
3. a few while drinking, what the hell
4a. oh, I wait tables at a place where the employees gather out back to smoke during and before the shift?
4b. oh, we get a 20-minute break during studio art classes and all the cute girls go outside with the smokers?
4c. boy, I'm drinking a lot
^^^ start of being a regular smoker

quit for five years - also quit going out to bars
I'd buy a pack every June or July, start to smoke one and hated it. Never even finished a full cigarette

Hooked back up with my best friend I hadn't seen for six years, she worked at a bar, I started hanging out there and started smoking; then I started barbacking and dating the owner and I smoked a lot more
Quit attempts have been weak since then.

I've cut way back on going out to bars and drinking in general, the hard part for me now is that my job has shifted from being in one place building or tearing shit up to driving from job to job managing things, and that's where I do my day-smoking. I'm driving for what feels like 4-5 hours/day.

I need to quit and I want to do it soon. Weighing cold turkey vs. weaning with one of the good e-cigs. I don't even give a shit if I kept feeding the demon with the e-cigs at this point.

smoked my first with a friend by the train tracks when we were 11. (oddly prescient of later years, somehow).

later that year, became a straightedge hardcore kid until i was 15, started smoking weed occasionally.

at 17, was all into Hemingway and O'Hara and Carver and started smoking again.

quit for 6 months when i was 19.

have smoked ever since, to varying degrees. even now, sometimes i smoke a pack a day (work is stressful, i need a drink after work, the cycle of cancer and bloatedness), and sometimes i smoke two a day. on days when i don't smoke that much, i actually feel like i could quit.

i think 2013 will be the year i see more e-cigarettes irl than regular cigarettes

me and friends decided that if we were going to smoke weed we should learn how to smoke first. so someone got hold of a packet of of silk cut and we went off into the woods. it was horrible.

I kissed a girl at a party, she said "Do you want to go outside for a cigarette" so I did.

I tried those e-cigarettes. You have to smoke them over the internet.

and you need a fat pipe

the internet is a series of pipes

world w33d web

Started off smoking joints with tobacco in them, started craving weed when in the pub and nicking cigarettes off friends to keep craving at bay. Turned out it was the nicotine I'd been craving.

Just randomly started thinking about missing eating lunch at this dive bar that has shockingly good crawfish etouffee then smoking a couple of Parliaments while drinking a Mexican coke for dessert.

I quit a few years ago now, then I got cancer, but I still crave a cig every now and then.

I quit when DC banned smoking in bars. Every so often I miss it, but it's more about the ritual and paraphernalia (and the camaraderie of smokers, and the adolescent rulebreaker pose, and and and).