To all smokers :)

anubis404 · Jan 1, 2009

I don't understand why people smoke. There's plenty of ways to relax yourself WITHOUT killing yourself. I view cigarettes like I view all other drugs. Just because they're legal, doesn't make them acceptable.

Dmitri · Jan 1, 2009

anubis404 said:
I don't understand why people smoke. There's plenty of ways to relax yourself WITHOUT killing yourself. I view cigarettes like I view all other drugs. Just because they're legal, doesn't make them acceptable.

Good, stay away from them. I started very young and just kept going. I quit almost a year ago (last February) and I still crave them, I even instinctively reached for one the other day. Luckily there was nothing there, but once they get ya, they try hard to keep ya.

mrodgers · Jan 1, 2009

anubis404 said:
I don't understand why people smoke. There's plenty of ways to relax yourself WITHOUT killing yourself. I view cigarettes like I view all other drugs. Just because they're legal, doesn't make them acceptable.

I think 99% of the time it starts when people are quite young and heavily influenced with peer pressure.

By the time a person is wise enough to think, "This is really stupid," it's far too late. Nicotine is by far the most addictive drug available. Once addicted, it is extremely difficult to give up because it replaces a chemical that the brain produces. With nicotine, the brain no longer produces that chemical and the addiction is set.

People don't start to smoke to relax themselves. They smoke after the addiction takes hold to relax themselves because it is physically needed with the lack of the natural chemical the brain would otherwise produce.

I don't smoke, but I chew tobacco. Like most all tobacco users, I started when I was 14 years old with my friends and peer pressure. I am now 36 and it's not as easy as waking up and saying, "I'm going to quit now." Not that easy at all.

anubis404 · Jan 2, 2009

Dmitri said:
Good, stay away from them. I started very young and just kept going. I quit almost a year ago (last February) and I still crave them, I even instinctively reached for one the other day. Luckily there was nothing there, but once they get ya, they try hard to keep ya.

Good for you. If I ever feel the need to smoke, I promised myself I would go skydiving instead.

anubis404 · Jan 2, 2009

mrodgers said:
I think 99% of the time it starts when people are quite young and heavily influenced with peer pressure.

By the time a person is wise enough to think, "This is really stupid," it's far too late. Nicotine is by far the most addictive drug available. Once addicted, it is extremely difficult to give up because it replaces a chemical that the brain produces. With nicotine, the brain no longer produces that chemical and the addiction is set.

People don't start to smoke to relax themselves. They smoke after the addiction takes hold to relax themselves because it is physically needed with the lack of the natural chemical the brain would otherwise produce.

I don't smoke, but I chew tobacco. Like most all tobacco users, I started when I was 14 years old with my friends and peer pressure. I am now 36 and it's not as easy as waking up and saying, "I'm going to quit now." Not that easy at all.

Good point, although I do believe heroine is the most addictive drug, much more so than nicotine. I am 15, and none of my friends have even thought about touching a cigarette. I know some people that do pot, but that's about it. Drugs aren't my thing.

ryan7783 · Jan 2, 2009

The man that lives behind us in our building smokes like a chimney. His smoke comes up from behind our sink since our kitchens back up to eachother and makes the whole apartment smell like an ash tray.

The landlord has had to paint his apartment a few times since he moved in 15 years ago because his walls always end up yellow.

The girls above us smoke too and I swear to God it sounds like their fighting for their lives whenever they cough and hack every morning. It's so disgusting it makes me sick sometimes.

*Smoking is a disgusting thing. I dated ONE girl that smoked when I was younger and after kissing that face for 2 months, I couldn't take it anymore. People would be downright stupid to want to put that crap in their bodies and I've developed a burning hatred for people that think it's their God given right to smoke around me or my family in really unnecessary places.

Thank God they've recently banned smoking from most restaurants here.

- Cigarette companies market to kids - plain and simple.
- You smell like crap
- Cancer
- People around you smell like crap
- Cancer
- It's expensive
- CANCER!

How can you put that crap in your body knowing everything we know now about what it does to you?

this topic makes me mad.

Dmitri · Jan 2, 2009

anubis404 said:
Good for you. If I ever feel the need to smoke, I promised myself I would go skydiving instead.

haha great idea! :thumbsup:

mrodgers · Jan 3, 2009

ryan7783 said:
How can you put that crap in your body knowing everything we know now about what it does to you?

Read my post above. It's because the majority who start are young and foolish doing it out of peer pressure. By the time they are smart enough to understand or care about the problems, it's too late. It's not quite a simple thing to just up and quit. It controls you and every part of your life.

Giving it up is like saying, "I'm not left handed, I don't use my left hand for anything, it is useless and I'm just going to wack it off." Giving up nicotine is giving up a drug that your body and brain NEEDS. It needs it, because the nicotine is replacing a chemical that your brain naturally produces and no longer produces. To give up nicotine, the brain must reverse its self and once again begin producing that chemical that the nicotine replaced. Until that happens, it is excruciatingly difficult to just "give it up."

this topic makes me mad.

What makes me mad is people who have no idea about what the nicotine addiction is or how it comes about lectures and preaches to those who do smoke (chew) tobacco. If it was that easy to quit, don't you think just about every person who smokes would wake up one day and say, "this is stupid" and never do it again from that point on?

monkeykoder · Jan 3, 2009

anubis404 said:
I don't understand why people smoke. There's plenty of ways to relax yourself WITHOUT killing yourself. I view cigarettes like I view all other drugs. Just because they're legal, doesn't make them acceptable.

Every action you take leads you some number of steps closer to death so pick the actions you enjoy. As a hint about smoking it is only enjoyable the first few times you do it.

ryan7783 · Jan 4, 2009

mrodgers said:
What makes me mad is people who have no idea about what the nicotine addiction is or how it comes about lectures and preaches to those who do smoke (chew) tobacco. If it was that easy to quit, don't you think just about every person who smokes would wake up one day and say, "this is stupid" and never do it again from that point on?

I don't give a rip what people do to their own bodies but if it effects me and my family(second hand smoke) that's when I start getting mad about it. What really makes me angry is when I see some jackass smoking in his/her car when they have a baby or young child in the backseat and their window is cracked an inch. If you want to kill yourself, be my guest but don't force your children to inhale your cancerous smoke.

Artograph · Jan 5, 2009

Canon Fan:

"7. Don't like it? Stay away! Like ferny said you don't have to go to a place where you know people will be smoking. At the same time while trying to be polite to non-smokers as it gets harder to find a place to smoke it gets harder to keep distance from the non-smokers. I will however go out of my way to be a nussiance to those who come up to me in a place that allows it, when I was there first, and start badgering me about it. I once had a woman tell me that she could smell my cigarette from 50 feet away, OUTDOORS in a parking lot and tried to read me the riot act. I;m sorry but I don't need strangers telling ME how to live MY life so THEY can feel like a better person."

Yeah? I can smell the smoke from the car in front of me....on the expressway....with ALL MY WINDOWS UP!

No smoker has any right to cause anyone else discomfort/an athsma attack/or even lung cancer due to 2nd hand smoke, because of their bad habbit. Why should *I* have to stay away from a bar or a restaurant, or any other place because *I* don't want my lungs polluted? Where are *my* rights in all that?? (Thank gawd Ontario is smoke-free!!!!!)

I can't begin to express how gross it is to be somewhere near (or even not 'that' near) a smoker who isn't smoking right then and there...but stinks so bad you have to get out of there....and into the fresh air. I always wonder if that person has any idea how bad they stink?

As an RPN who worked on a general medical floor years ago....I can't tell you how heart-breaking it is to watch some poor (dying) soul hooked up to oxygen...and still can't breathe...but looks deep into your eyes, searching, begging for some way that you can help him breathe somehow....and then begs you to take him out for a smoke.....

I hate smoke.

ryan7783 · Jan 5, 2009

I knew a couple who smoked for 15 years. They quit about 2 years ago and now they tell me that when they are around smokers that wreak of cigarettes, it repulses them. They said they never realized how bad it smelled until they quit.
My uncle smokes and he smells so horrible all the time. His washing machine even stinks of it. You can't wash that smell out.