Quit smoking support group

Buck, how old were you when you started smoking? I doubt it was old enough to reasonably make the decision.

No doubt, smokers choose their fate and they have to take responsibility for their actions. But the tobacco companies have earned their share of the blame as well.

 

Sorry, OOP. I made the deciason to start smoking when I was 16, nobody forced me, no one handed me a cigarette and said "you must try this."

The tobacco companies did withhold information about the dangers of smoking but that does not make them responsible for my decision.
My choice, my responsibility. My habit/addiction.

 

I admire your willingness to take full responsibility for your actions. I disagree wth it. And honestly, I know a lot of people who started smoking much younger than that.

My father, as I mentioned before, was 12. My older brother was 12 or 13 when he started. At 16, maybe you had something of a clue. But a 12-year-old?

And once that starts, you are fighting an addiction rather than just making a decision.

One big problem is the lack of enforcement of existing laws. Minors aren't supposed to have cigarettes, but I don't know a single smoker who was legally old enough to buy a pack when they started.

 

I was pretty much an every-day smoker by 13.
You can say I was not old enough to make a reasoned choice, and that's true.
However, this is what I knew at the time, in 1983:
1. Smoking is bad for you and can kill you over time.
2. It was illegal for me to buy cigarettes.
3. I'd get in trouble from parents if they found out I was smoking.
4. Buying cigarettes meant less money I had for other things.

I knew all of that before age 13, actually, but I still wanted to smoke.
And if you count 18 as the age of reason, then I've had 19 years to make a rational choice.
I just don't like the evil-tobacco-companies line. That's all.
(This thread is making me want to smoke.)

 

My father started smoking when he was 13 ... in an age when there was no TV, no radio, no commercials.
He quit after a heart attack about 40 years later and lived to be 87.

But at the time he started, the toabcco companies didn't influence him.

And when I started, they didn't influence me, either. And in the 60s when I started, I don't think there were age limits on who could buy cigarettes. Parents routinely sent kids to the store to buy them smokes.

 

I'm not saying 13-year-olds don't know these things. I'm saying they aren't ready to make the choice to smoke anyway.

Bottom line is the entire tobacco industry survives on getting people hooked before they are even legally old enough to buy the product. No way they could survive only on people who tried cigarettes after they turned 18.

 

Time I should weigh in on this. I quit Jan. 14 of this year. Last one was around 9 p.m. Next afternoon I had a clump of shit cut out of my tongue. That's probably the best $3,000 ever spent, because I haven't smoke since. Not that I haven't wanted to. Jeebus, there are days when I would gnaw through a lead sewer pipe to get to a smoke. But, I just go outside, take a deep breath of fresh air, and perhaps walk around the block. That knocks the urge back.
I do miss the hell out of it, though. But what I don't miss are the bad breath, stinky clothes, dropping $5.41 per day, freezing my ass off smoking outside, the cough that never goes away, and the constant nagging by the holier-than-thou types who tell you to quit smoking. But, listen to them. They know of what they speak.
As for writing and beer drinking, I can drink beer without smoking. Writing without smoking is difficult. Used to be if I ran into a snag, I'd just go outside, have a smoke and do some creative thinking. Can't do that now.
I know tobacco will never again be a part of my life.
I quit cold turkey, and the publisher was quite astonished that my demeanor never changed.
Like Spnited stated, it is definitely a choice.
Choose to quit.

 

13? My word. I didn't smoke until I was in college. My first one was a Virginia Slim that seemed to be about a foot long. It was given to me by a girl named Leslie, who apparently enjoyed following the Rainbow People. She had a nice rack. I was just about to bury my head in it when her roommate walked in. I probably could have done both of them, but I was a bit naive back then. I probably would have creamed my undies long before any actual sex began. I never saw her again, but I think of her with each puff I take, or took.

I've made it nearly a week now. I'm feeling much better. Man, a lump of shit on your tongue? Like tongue cancer? That's pretty damned scary.

I think people make the choice to smoke, but I also think that they're too naive to understand just how powerful nicotine is. And the cigarette companies should be at fault for using the nicotine to hook us. And the government should have banned the use of nicotine a long time ago. I think it's far worse than alcohol because the addictive qualities of the drug aren't as obvious to most people, particularly young people.

 

I think the first time I had a cig in my mouth was at 10 with a few pals. Didn't touch it again until I was 16 and been off and on the wagon ever since. Right now, the taste is really gone from smoking. So is the thrill. However, I don't like the new laws that are being enacted. It's not fair.

 

Such as?

 

I'm against laws that prohibit smoking in bars and restrict smoking outdoors.

 

Let's see. Second-hand smoke harms the health of non-smokers, who in some cases cannot just get up and leave. You're going to fuck with my health and complain about fair? Sorry. No sale. Take your addicted ass outside to smoke.

The one sight I can never seem to forget was from a few years back as I waited in my car with my wife for her parents to come out of a movie theater. There was this woman and a little boy who I assume was her child, maybe six years old. She was kneeling down to zip up his coat, with the cigarette dangling a couple of inches from this poor kid's face.

I know it wasn't my child, but damn I desperately wanted a bucket of cold water to dump on that moron's head.

Some smokers can be trusted to be responsible about things like that. Unfortunately not all of them can.