Non-Smokers NOT Welcome!!
 

Don’t get me banned from Pixies. :mad:

If you are not a smoker, or were not a smoker for at least 20 years, stay the fuck out of this thread. :mad:

DON’T OPEN IT!

DON’T READ IT!

And DAMN SURE DON’T POST to it!!!

If you do, ……..I’ll be on you like a flying monkey with the screaming shits in banana harvest season, and then Lilith will get all pissed with me again and won’t believe I gave you warning. :hair:



Now for the societal lepers this thread IS intended for. I want a place where we can speak openly without having to dodge rocks of the righteous. I especially would like the Pixies that have posted their current wrestling with the beast, to be able to come here without fear of laughter or scorn. For us to talk before the Pharisees is like a dog talking to a fish, and not going to let us know what we each are finding in our personal dealings with the addiction.

Myself,……. It’s now almost a half century since I started puffing on the damn things. The first couple years was the typical smoke after school with the ‘cool’ guys and hiding my Luck Strike pack in the bushes. From about 15 on, I haven’t had a day without them except for one 30 day period that I took it serious and gave it the month I was told you needed to be cured. If there’s interest in this thread (FROM SMOKERS), I’ll be glad to openly share as we do with other parts of our personal life, here at Pixies.

I was so young when I started, I'm embarrassed to say when I first took a serious puff. Suffice it to say it's been many, many moons. I think I used to like it at one time but I can't remember when that was. There are times here and there now when I truely enjoy it for a moment...but that is fleeting and few and far between.

The longest I ever quit was 2 months and Mr. Lixy will never forget it! He's a smoker too...but when we quit together it just didn't work. He cheated BTW...and still had his chew.

I'm sure I'll have more to contribute to this thread...but it's so damn early right now I can't think straight!

Nice to have a place to hang out though PF!

It's a terrible thing smoking and you should quit and so should I ;)

Maybe we will one day........

I live in a city that disallows any smoking in any closed venue and even some open venues. I smoke in my home and in my car and outside. I am not anti social nor do I hamper the environment. Well at least not any more than the local industry, transportation pollution or air conditioners do....;)

I don't blow smoke in people's faces and I would never dream of smoking around a child unless outside. My family and social circle consists of mainly non smokers. Some have never smoked and some have quit. To those that have quit I admire and feel envious of, for I have quit so many times and failed that I have lost count.

I was born in the fifties and I grew up in a house with 4 smokers. My parents friends all smoked...it was the norm back then.

I started smoking at 16. It was so easy...not once did I cough or get a sore throat the first time I did it. I can only come up with one reason for this....I had been getting smoke all my life. Someone was always smoking in my house or a cigarette was burning in an ashtray. I was breathing it in right along with them and so it was natural for me physically and socially.

Neither of my kids smoke. I equate this to being educated on the bad affect it has on health, their father being a non smoking role model and the example I set time and time again not being able to quit. I also told them that one smoke is all it took for me to start and they have both told me that even though they wanted to try they were always afraid to start in case they couldn't stop.

That's enough for now! :)

I wonder if I'm an exception to the "rule" of starting young? I grew up (with my younger sister) in a house where my mum didn't work and smoked all day. (Still does, and she's 71 now). My sis and I always used to be on their backs about it, telling them it was bad for them, and for us, and the smell was horrible etc. etc. etc. Unlike most of my peers, I never even wanted to try smoking when I was at school, that's how much I hated it.

Then... I went to college. STILL didn't smoke, as such, only *ahem* 'herbal' ones. At nineteen, joined the army. THAT was it! Hooked. After I got my Medical Discharge (f*cked knee, no good for a paratrooper!!) I gave them up for the one and only time, nearly 2½ years. Started again when I worked in a golf club bar - SO quiet and boring at lunchtimes, I had to have something to do!!! STOOPID, or what?!?!?!

So, now I smoke a LOT (30+ a day :( ) and we have a smoking ban in ALL public places starting in March next year. Not just shops and such, but pubs and bars too, just like in Ireland a couple years ago. I work for the NHS here, and they part-fund my car - apparently, they will be banning smoking in all Health Board properties next year (understandable) INCLUDING lease cars when used for business, (okaaay, they pay part of it, so I can live with that - not!) BUT..... for those of my colleagues who use their own cars - bought, insured etc. by THEM, they're saying those people can't smoke in their cars either!! WTF?!?! Talk about erosion of civil liberties!

/me kicks soapbox outta the way.

Anyway, back to the topic (kinda). Do I want to quit? Yes! Can I? Nope. I read Lixy's reply in that other thread, about trying to quit. I've tried God knows how many times, never managed more'n a few days. My dad quit 5 years ago, just like that - mind you, he did have a Stroke and spent six weeks in hospital. Dr's told him any more cigs would kill him next time, and he's never lit another one. It'll probably take something like that to get ME to quit!!

DM


I just read all that back, and it seems to ramble a bit..... but WTF, huh? :)

DM

It was such a trivial little thing. All I had to do was refuse. And I knew full well just what I was doing. Yet, I did it anyway. So began the journey.

I started smoking around the age of eleven. Like PF, by the time I was fifteen, cigarettes were a daily fixture in my life. Camels by preference although when money was tight Pall Malls would do, because they were longer.

At one point in my life I became convinced that I should and could quit. Went to my doc, and plunked my money on the table. Came away with the strongest patches that you could get even with a prescription. Better living through chemistry, doncha know? By the time that I was through, I was wearing a patch on both shoulders simultaneously and smoking twice as much as I did before. I had to quit quitting, because it damned near killed me.

I smoked for 20 years, and gave it up because I'm CHEAP.

Smoke doesn't bother me socially and I feel that this anti-smoking movement is part of a bigger holier-than-thou plot.

The taxes a smoker pays for his/her indulgence would more than cover their social cost later.

I started at 16 with a girl friend because we thought we were so cool of course. That was 23 years ago and I smoked everyday until three weeks ago. I even smoked while pregnant. Lived with my parents at the time and would run in my room and take a drag or two and put it out real fast so no one would catch me. One of my shining memories. rolleyes2

I have an addictive personality. Cigarettes, drugs, food, have all been a monkey on my back that I have been trying to get off for years and years. Got the drug thing taken care of a long time ago. Working on the weight *down 40 lbs in almost 6 months* and am now becoming a non smoker.

It’s so damn hard! That first week I was so sick. I swear I had every withdrawal symptom there is. Having hubby still smoke and seeing them in ashtrays and the packs on the counter have been a huge temptation. Yeah I have picked them up, I have even lit them and taken a drag or two and then put them out real fast.

I worry everyday that I will fail and start back up again. I do have some really big motivation going on in my life that I pray keeps me from caving in. I have to be a non smoker now and I’m certainly going to give it all I got.

Thanks PF for this thread :x: It is almost impossible for non smokers to understand this struggle. I wish you would all lay them down and stop. But, I certainly am not going to throw stones if you don’t. I’m too damn busy keeping my hands off them myself to worry about anyone else at the moment. :hair:

My parents both smoked when I was young and one day my mom up and quit. I can't remember why she quit but she never went back. My dad on the other hand started when he was young I think 12 but can't rememeber. Back in "91" my father passed away from throat cancer, the smoking had caught up to him, he was 77.

As for me, well I tried a cig in high school once but did'nt care for it so never started at that time. It tool several years for me to start. I was managing a convenience store at age 27 and got stressed out so turned to those pretty colorfull foil packs. Somedays I think about it and can't beleive it's been 12 years already, don't seem like it. I did quit when I was pregnant, but could'nt wait until I could smoke again.

I have respect for non-smokers and someday I will quit. Congrats to those of you that have quit!! Yes I know smoking is bad for me.....but so are alot of other things. I may have not been smoking for 20 years or more but I posted to this thread anyway!!! /me sticks my tongue out at PF!!!

Hi...my name is sdls and I smoke.

Now if you are not proof in the pudding that smoking is an addiction and not just a "bad habit" I don't know what else would be convincing to the masses! :x:

BTW.... PF....you never can tell. This thread may just inspire some to try to quit and that would be a darn good thing! ;)

We are all behind you Tess...

Kudos to you. Only another smoker knows the hell you go through when you stop smoking......I admire the commitment that you have made to yourself! :)

I got my parents to quit smoking. I had a dream when I was 10 or so and in that dream I smoked. I woke up practically crying and said, "I ruined my perfect record!"

I was at a party when I was 13 and had my first puff. Somehow, I managed to swallow the smoke. I prevailed, though ( :rolleyes2) and have now smoked for almost 20 freaking years and I'm only 31.

I haven't tried to quit since I was 17 and that was for only a day or so. I tried to cut down a couple of years ago when I was broke but that didn't last, either.

I love smoking and am not ready to quit.

That's exactly why I started this thread. Our ramblings are not something that anybody but another smoker would understand. I’m not going to say who, …but I've already gotten a note from somebody that doesn't understand why, and thinks it’s frogshit, that I want to “segregate Pixies”. ;)
It’s not about debating any of the points that we already know TOO well. I have as much insight into having a baby as a non-smoker has about an addiction. I know that I can only listen to what it is to give birth and will never KNOW what that is about. I’m only hoping to find out how alone I may be in the world that the non-smokers have made plain we don’t have a place in.

My hat is off to anybody that is wanting to get the pack out of their life and my experience with the addiction is all I have to offer here. The closest thing I’ve been able to put into words that another person could equate to the craving is one of an underwater swimmer. Anybody that has done any skin diving or even just swam underwater often, knows the feeling of running out of air. Nobody thinks they can suddenly breath water, but after you have completely used all the oxygen in your system and are going for the surface, your body says “BREATH IN!”. You get that last few seconds while you are exhaling the exhausted breath because your body says that’s part of the process. Then you have the DEMAND to ‘breath in’ in spite of any intelligence you have about the fact water is not what you need or want. People do not drown and have their lungs full of water because they are weak or believe that can breath the water. I found it much the same for me when my nicotine alarm goes off. That’s about all I can share right now, as to what the addiction has been for me.

Remember what happened the last time someone told me I wasn't allowed somewhere?

click here

I'm sure PF didn't mean you WI. :x: