For the smokers.......

[Loosehead]

As I was walking to work past the smokers huddled like penguins in shop doorways etc, I started to reflect on this ever more shunned significant minority. I just wondered what do you get out of it? Are you just following an addiction? Are you doing it out of defiance? What does smoking do for you? Would you like to give up if you could? As a life long non smoker I suppose I can never really understand but it has always facinated! This is not intended as an anti smoking/health/taxation debate merely a quest to understand.

[CAJ1]

I used to smoke and it wasn't that I wanted to - it was that I was addicted. I had to go out and have that cigarette! I'm sure a lot of people would prefer not to have to go out and "huddle like penguins" especially when its raining but addiction makes you! I am proud to say I am now a non-smoker and looking back I wonder how something managed to have such a hold over me

[Mortartube]

My situation is the same as CAJ1. I also used to smoke. Sometimes you light a cigarette because the addiction tells you that you need it, sometimes you may light up as you are bored, in a similar way that some people eat when bored, to fill the time. I reckon that I used to ENJOY only ONE cigarette in about every 300. The rest was habit/boredom. I am so glad that I gave it up, now I can afford to drink to excess (only kidding).

[mccfluff]

i just enjoy smoking, i do tend to smoke more when i'm drinking though and this smoking ban has made me think about whether to go out or not, i've stayed in a few times when the weather was bad as i couldn't face standing outside the pub half the night.

[Bathsheba]

I'm a non-drinking smoker. I haven't been in a pub since the ban. I could just about manage to tolerate what the drinkers thought was witty conversation when I could have a smoke, but now I'm damned if I'm gonna stand outside in the cold drinking water when I can do it in comfort at home x

[rojash]

I've spent over 2000 quid trying to give up smoking. The American Surgeon General has declared that nicotine is more addictive than tobacco. I've managed to cut down from 60 to 40 a day.

Though one of the things that put me off giving up was when I was told that I could increase my life expectancy by 14 years. According to a lifestyle test I took on an American health site, I have 13 years left, and frankly, I figure that's enough :-)

[whiskeysheri]

I'm with you, Loosehead, but I'm more intrigued as to why smokers start smoking. :oS

[China Doll]

Because it helped my throat stop hurting after doing my first bong ma cheri.

[CAJ1]

Whiskeysheri I started smoking when I was 16 due to peer pressure and never stopped

[whiskeysheri]

Ah, gotcha, CD. ;)

[hau kola]

I smoke but not heavily,maybe 20-30 a week.I do smoke more when i go out to the pub and i must say that since the ban,ive smoked more because when i go outside to the pub garden,i get talking to people i normally wouldnt talk to.I have such a giggle that my non smoking friends tend to come out and join me.

[Mortartube]

I started smoking when I was 18 and in a pub and I had, had a few. I asked a friend what smoking was like. He replied that he couldn't tell me what it was like, the only way i could really know was to try it. That's how I started.

[whiskeysheri]

That's fair enough, I've just never really been able to understand it personally, as a lot of my friend's did it when I was at school and asked me if I wanted to try it numerous times, but never did as even then I was aware of what they do to you and how hard they are to give up. :)

[CAJ1]

I was just stupid and carried on, wish I had had the sense back then to say no.

[daffy654]

I smoked from the age of about 10...........yes I know that is very young but if any of you were brought up in care as I was you would understand.
I am now 40 years old and I have emphysema and have been told I have probably less than 10 years to live. My reason for having emphysema is not all because of my smoking,I have a genetic condition that can cause it(Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency) but of course smoking 20-40 a day has increased the damage to my lungs. My dad died aged 43 from the same condition.I have now stopped smoking after realising that I am slowly suffocating myself to death and I want to live as long as possible for the sake of my 10 year old son,my two daughters and my grandchild. I watched a documentary recently where a woman died of emphysema and her daughter said how awful it was that she smoked until the end,she said her mother loved the cigarettes more than her family.How sad is that???

[CAJ1]

I was brought up the same way Daffy and often think if someone had told me off I may not have carried on but like you I've given up now .I feel better for it although I don't blame my circumstances or others for me smoking - it was me that smoked them, no one forced me too.

[Bathsheba]

Ah Daffy - bless you. I'm so sorry to hear your story babe.x

[daffy654]

I'm not blaming anyone else CAJ1,I was just stating a fact............I thought it might help people understand why I started so young,the people who look after you in the kids homes don't care whether you smoke or not as long as you don't set fire to anything(or anyone).I have always tried to teach my kids that smoking is bad for you as nobody ever did that for me.I am an intelligent person and obviously as I got older I learned that smoking was bad for me but I still smoked.That is the nature of the addiction.

Thanks bathsheba,I hope this will serve as a warning to at least one smoker and will make them realise that life is precious,far more so than the cigarette they are smoking.x

[CAJ1]

I didn't mean it like that Daffy, I completley agree with you and how they don't care. I just meant it was me that put the cigarette to my mouth no one else x

[R1Geezer]

no great mystery mate, they are just sad innadequates who are not in control. Oh and they stink to high heaven, I pi55 myslf at work when they come back in sucking a mint thinking that will disguise the smell! WTF I can smell them 50 kin yards away!. Girls no amount of perfume will cover for the fact you smell like an ashtray so if you fancy a bit of the geezer give up this sh1t.

[weggiewabbit]

It is extremely addictive, but it�s one of my main pleasures so I have no intention of giving up.

There is no good reason for starting to smoke � so don�t do it!!!