Cigarettes and Smoking

I "roll my own" so that they only cost me $8.00 a carton but I am in the process of quitting now after smoking for over 35 years. My mother has had three surgeries for cancer related illness and is having another one on the 7th of August. She has had to declare bankruptcy because of the medical bills.

My advice is to quit before you really start or it will kill you painfully, slowly and expensively. It is hard, (at least for me....) but it is worth it.

Moorcat (Apache Blade Works)
 
I smoked on and off for a couple years,and used snuff for 6 or 7 years,One day I relized how dumb and pointless it was.Just a waste of money and a threat to your health,I quit about a year ago,after a month or so I didn't even miss it.And with an extra $100 or so month, I started buying knives.;)
 
all this talk of cigarettes makes me want a cigarette. do what everybody else saidand quit NOW!
p.s. to all the ex-smokers: if u didnt already state it, how did you quit? cold turkey, patches, gum...?
 
The funny thing is, although I could never stand the smell of cigars, as I was smoking so few cigarets, I got into cigars, tried a few fairly good brands, but wasn't interested in tobacco anymore and that didn't last long. At the end, I was carrying little 5-pcaks of small cigars, smoking maybe 2 a day, then the last pack went stale on me and I tossed it out.

I still had a nice collection of pipes I'd smoked from time to time and a bit of tobacco for them, along with the pipe cleaners, etc. I gave them all away.

Whatever method you use to quit, it bears saying again and again: you have to want to. I don't believe in scaring people with the horrors of ill health, however true that is, statistically. Focus on the immediate: the improvement in your sense of smell and taste, the increase in stamina, easier breathing, especially in this hot, humid weather.

Damn, in the summer I used to have to cut back, I wheezed so bad ... and that was in New York City, where you could see the muddy gray air for miles down the avenues.
 
Not to go against what Esav said, and I do respect his opinion, but you don't mention if you have a family or not. My father got up to 3 packs a day and he would light one up in the kitchen while he still had one in the bathroom going. I think we furnished our house with Raleigh Coupons. He succumbed to Lung Cancer at 55 and left a wife and children. I won't bother you with details but it's not a pretty story.

If not for you, for your family, please quit.
 
enix said:
all this talk of cigarettes makes me want a cigarette. do what everybody else saidand quit NOW!
p.s. to all the ex-smokers: if u didnt already state it, how did you quit? cold turkey, patches, gum...?
Click to expand...

I smoke a pipe occationally (I have a number of Churchwardens and a couple of Sax pipes) and it helps me to occationally take the time to smoke that. Other things that have helped are the patches and having a wife quitting at the same time.

One thing of note, here... When you are quitting, avoid other smokers like the plague. I don't care how much willpower you have, if there are others smoking around you, it gets an order of magnitude harder. The first couple of times I tried to quit, my wife was still smoking and that simply didn't work. With her quitting now, I at least have a fighting chance.

Many places offer free help to quit, too. In Montana, the Montana Quit Line will send you free patches (enough for two weeks anyway) and they also give free advice over the phone. It helps and when quitting, anything is better than nothing.

Moorcat (Apache Blade Works)
 
They don't call cigarettes coffin nails for nothing. Please quit while you can.
 
Dunhill Lights or Fine Cut and a Zippo which is modelled after the 50s version, with a different shape. Zippos are a pain to refill to me. They should be subject to gas guzzler tax too :)

Smoking kills yet I smoke, Zippos are a pain yet I use them. So don't listen to people like me, unless they say, "Please quit while you can".

It's the one thing you can quit at that no one is going to give you a hard time for.
 
There isn't a disease in the world that smoking doesn't make worse, recovery longer, and the symptoms worse.

Smoking is willfully making you less effective physically, essentially pushing you to be the last person picked for dodge ball.
 
I see the effects smoking is right now having on my father. This is something very on topic in my family right now.

Losing him would be more than I think I could handle, but I have to wonder how long he has. I can hardly bare to even think of it. But his health has certainly suffered, and it's getting worse quickly...due to smoking ofcourse. He's not the type to quit, that's for sure.

I've only ever smoked a few here and there, mostly socially. I never got hooked at all, and I haven't had one for well over a year and don't ever intend to have one again.

Best is not to start. But it's your choice fully and I hope you make the one that best suits you.

edited to add:..wow, even writing about my father's health has left me reeling.
 
I smoked Marlboro reds for around 27 years - up to maybe 2 packs a day, more when I was drinking or playing cards. I also smoked a pipe, cigars, and used smokeless tobacco. I finally quit in August 2000. It was the best thing I have ever done for my health.

I finally quit when my doctor told me that as a diabetic I had 5 times the risk of developing heart disease as other smokers. He scoffed when I asked him about increased odds of lung cancer, telling me that I wouldn't live long enough to get lung cancer, but I would die gasping for breath of cardio-repiratory disease well before any lung cancer would get me. He then offered me a wager, my house against his house, if I continued to smoke and did not get diagnosed with advanced cardio-respiratory disease within 10 years. I was 45 years old with a 7 year old daughter. I walked out of his office and tossed my pack of Marlboro's in the trash. I have never since smoked even a single puff of a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, or a single pinch of smokeless.

Oh - I had a replica of the original Zippo - big square thing - that I used to carry. I could do all the lighter tricks with it. That's the only part of it that I miss.
 
"Just started smoking"..... Excuse the rant, but why, of all things one could possibly do, would one start smoking?
50 years ago, when I was a kid, smoking was standard. Everyone (it seemed) did it, including all the actors on TV and in the movies. Hardly a bad word about it. At worst, the football coach might advise his boys not to smoke "during the football season" because it would "cut your wind". (amazing...)

But that all went into the tubes, didn't it? Even then, I heard the first stirrings of warning. This rapidly escalated, of course, and within a few years we were not only getting indisputable scientific evidence of the deleterious health effects of smoking, but also the lurid (and completely true) tales of the tobacco companies' long-standing knowledge of these effects, and their efforts to hide this information.
Now of course, this information is common knowledge. Not only the effects on health (too many to list), but the deep, involved, long-standing parade of seamy practices on the part of Big Tobacco.

So, a young person at present should look at a pack of cigarettes with fear and loathing. Instead, many pick them up and say, "what a cool idea! I haven't got anything better to do, I think I'll become addicted to a poisonous substance, for which privilege I'm willing to pay hundreds of dollars a year!"

The tobacco executives love you.
 
back in 94 i smoked 2 packs a day until i had a collapsed lung. i went from 135 pounds down to 118 in 8 days. over the years i havent gained all my weight back or even come close. the most i have weighed was 122 pounds but lost it quickly. now i'm down to just around 110 pounds if that. take my word for it, they will screw up your life. like a dummy, i started up and quit a few times since then, my last time was last year until i quit at the beginning of this year. i hope my nerves dont get so bad i start up again.
 
Don't listen to all these guys man, they secretly want all of the cigarettes for themselves. Everybody knows that smoking is cool, and that it will get you chicks. Starting smoking at 34 just means that you're a rebel, a free thinker, and that you don't give a rat's ass about popular opinion. Make up your own mind, don't listen to all of this whiny doctor BS.

As for all of these quitters, just remember that a quitter never wins, and a winner never quits!

I smoke Parliament Lights, fire them up with a good ol' Bic (the childproof thingy removed with utmost disdain). Smoking rules.

Every time I light up, it's a big "F-U" to the nanny state losers that want to tell me what to do. Be an American. Be a man. Fire up a smoke, chug a beer, eat a steak, and hold your head up high.
 
Why? Well, that is one tall order of a question, I hear a lot of why not. But, I am not like most of you. I do not have my health. I likely will not live long enough to care about retirement. I have no family, my last caring relative recently died. I have not one friend who is real (not internet only). My wife left me. I don't have a job to meet anyone due to my health. I used to smoke for a long time, and I always missed it. At this point, I don't feel the risks matter. I have nothing to live for anyway, and even if I did, my health problems are chronic. Life sucks. So, if you have no friends, no job, no family, no options to change anything, you are going to die from your health problems already, why not? I am contributing more to humanity by buying smokes, giving the workers jobs at several levels, than not. I have been told I am crazy, they said they were serious. Maybe I am.
 
Normark said:
Hey Guys..

Ironman..

If you want to stay Ironman, quit that shit habit Now!!
don't wait 10-15-20 years like we have before you get the hint...

I've damaged my lungs over the last 20+ years, and they will never be the same, Ever again...

Trust us reformed smokers.. We're Nazis for a reason!!!

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
Click to expand...
-------------
VERY WISE WORDS....

PUT IT THIS WAY----

NO ONE ON THEIR DEATH BED WISHES THEY SMOKED "MORE"...
THEY WISH THEY NEVER STARTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SINCERELY

DR.BILL MARTIN
 
I would quit now, I could possibly see smoking at 34 and focusing on cigars or pipes, but cigarettes? Smoking all that crap filler with the little bit of tobacco in there. I'm a fat bastard, so I have no room to preach, but what would possess you to start smoking at 34? Every time I buy cigars for a buddy of mine, I love the smell when walking in to the humidor, but I don't want to start smoking.

I just read your last post in this thread, Ironman. Even if you are confined to a wheelchair, there is nothing preventing you from getting out and meeting people. Don't wallow in misery man, no one is going to come to you, you have to go out and have a good time. If you're smoking to end your life, I don't know what to say. It's easier said than done man, and while I haven't got anything terminal, I have gone through bouts of depression. You just have to grab yourself by the bootstraps and pull yourself up. After reading MW's post, medicine and counselling do help too.
 
Ironman said:
Why? Well, that is one tall order of a question, I hear a lot of why not. But, I am not like most of you. I do not have my health. I likely will not live long enough to care about retirement. I have no family, my last caring relative recently died. I have not one friend who is real (not internet only). My wife left me. I don't have a job to meet anyone due to my health. I used to smoke for a long time, and I always missed it. At this point, I don't feel the risks matter. I have nothing to live for anyway, and even if I did, my health problems are chronic. Life sucks. So, if you have no friends, no job, no family, no options to change anything, you are going to die from your health problems already, why not? I am contributing more to humanity by buying smokes, giving the workers jobs at several levels, than not. I have been told I am crazy, they said they were serious. Maybe I am.
Click to expand...

Man, you should get some help. Nobody should have to feel this way. My previous post was sarcastic, but your statement above is a clear cry for help. Cigarettes seem to be slow sort of suicide for you. I'm no doctor, but you seem to suffer from clinical depression, which is treatable. I have suffered with major depression for most of my adult life, and it is no joke. There is no "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". There is no "snapping out of it". Depression is a serious, potentially fatal disease. However, with proper treatment and medication, you can and will get better. I'm on medication now, and the difference is amazing. Your entire perspective on things change. Things don't bother you as much, you can function without feeling like sh*t all of the time.

Having depression does not mean that you are crazy. It is a chemical imbalance that can be corrected with modern medicine.
People that don't have depression cannot understand what it is like, and they think that you are just being mopey, that your negative outlook is due to a character defect. This is absolutely untrue. People with depression perceive things differently, hurt more deeply, feel things more intensely than is healthy.

Please talk to someone! Even with your health problems, your life can be so much better than it is now. You just have to be willing to reach out. Your post seems to indicate that you are fed up. Instead of smoking, what you really need is some really good treatment. If you get help, you'll feel like a new man, I promise!
 
My comments about pulling yourself up are only to convey that you must want to get better, use that in addition to medicine and counselling.
 
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