I just quit smoking! — Page 3

The sound of things can be a little deceptive we are around the same age bracket, actually I'm wee bit younger than you.

There seems to be a bit more to things than just her smoking.

I don't mean to pry any more than I feel I already have but when I was child almost everyone smoked.

It was just a fact of life like everybody driving a car now.

I don't drive a car but it's very rare to find someone in the same position as myself.

Similarly finding a family member or a friend's parent who didn't smoke back then was just as rare.

I certainly wouldn't have dreamed that I would ever start smoking because my parents warned me how addictive it was.

They both started smoking when they were incredibly young.

I started at a very low period in my life which looking back now looks almost soap operatic, bordering on a Brian Rix farce but at the time was very dark water to wade through.

It might sound bizarre to you and anyone else reading but I'm as glad I did it as I am glad that I stopped.

It helped me understand how people come to rely on artificial fixes more and helped me moderate other things in my life a lot better than if I hadn't had that brief but informative period indulging the habit.

That said I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

My mother and stepdad (who I lived with) never smoked.  Well, I've caught my mom smoking on occasion, but only in "social" situations (at a wedding, or at a 4th of July party, et cetera).

My father and stepmother, on the other hand, did, and still do, quite often.  I used to go stay with them every other weekend, and my grandpa (father's father) always picked me up - he would always smoke in the car on the 45-minute drive there, with the window open maybe an inch.  When I was building a model train set as a kid, I had a model factory thing, and he would blow cigarette smoke in the smoke-stacks to make it look more "realistic" (yes, my grandpa, father, and stepmom smoked in the house all the time, and I think they still do).

My other grandpa (mother's father) smoked regularly, too, also indoors, and also when I was around, as did his wife (my stepgrandma?).  They, however, no longer smoke indoors, and don't usually smoke around us kids.

It always surprises me to hear people say that they don't smoke because their parents/grandparents/whatever smoked around them, because that was always one of the reasons I never had any problem with it.  I was used to the smell, the feeling of smoke in my lungs, all that stuff from a very young age.

The first time I smoked anything, it was pot, from a joint.  I smoked it like I imagined one would, from witnessing my family members smoking cigarettes for sixteen years.  I smoked that joint properly without anyone having to explain to me how it was done, I got super high, and I never coughed once.  Everyone that was with me was either very impressed, or didn't believe that I'd never smoked before.

The next year, when I started smoking cigarettes, I somehow just knew how to inhale tobacco smoke properly (as anyone who does both knows, hitting a joint and smoking a square require different types of inhalation) without being taught, and I never coughed from that, either.

Both of these things I attribute to my father, stepmom, and various grandparents smoking around me as often as they did.

(In case anyone was wondering from reading this post, pot is not included in my "quitting smoking" thing.  They're two entirely different things.  Besides, if I ever get up to smoking 20 joints a day, I'll quit that, too.)

God, 20 years ago was 1991, I feel so old.   : (

I was 2!  :-)

ChainsawAsh said:

I was 2!  :-)

*sigh*

She sounds like an average smoker of her day, my mum would only buy packs of ten and often not finish them but my dad would often get through 30+ Dunhill's or B&H, my great grandmother smoked Woodbines (rather rough and filterless) all her life and lived into her nineties, loved watching wrestling on television and practicing the moves she saw on other old ladies to get at the best bargains at the jumble sales.

This is a time when most offices had ash trays sitting next to the typewriters and the sorting trays and when the air around the left and right aisles of a cinema were like God writing the Ten Commandments.

The asbestos in the ceiling was probably more of a health risk to them than anything hanging out of their mouths.

Bingowings said:

She sounds like an average smoker of her day...

Wow, the Pontiff here isn't going to let this go until he's got Anchor convinced, is he?

CP3S said:

Bingowings said:

She sounds like an average smoker of her day...

 Wow, the Pontiff here isn't going to let this go until he's got Anchor convinced, is he?

Oh C3PX I'm reminded why I love you so much.

Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges. Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

:D

Yay! I've been absolved!

Stay in peace and may the Schwartz be with you.

Warbler said: God, 20 years ago was 1991, I feel so old.   : (

Tell me about it!

Today's made me feel old comment:

On another forum with even more youngsters than this one, some dude announced he had a new girlfriend unofficially.  However, it wouldn't be "facebook official" until next week or something.

One foot in the grave...

Ah, that is the best part of growing old! You just wait and see, you'll love it!

That and the bizarre long hairs sprouting in odd places seemingly instantaneously, especially when the Autumn moon is bright (or is that just me?).

So, Ash.  How are you holding up?

Bingowings said:

That and the bizarre long hairs sprouting in odd places seemingly instantaneously, especially when the Autumn moon is bright (or is that just me?).

I am not really very old at all, so I have not yet had the pleasure of experiencing such wonderful anomalies. I am still hoping I'll be long dead before that short of things starts to happen. I'd give myself another 15 years, then I'll be ready to check out... maybe...

I hope you stay a longer spell than that.

Hunting down rogue hairs is like nature's own bubblewrap (or is that popping blackheads?).

For as little and as non-offensively as you post, and as non-confrontational as you are, I find it kind of humorous how often you seem to find yourself unwittingly in these kinds of situations.

I think you are in the clear now though, this topic is now about peculiar body hair and my desires to die young...ish. Hmmm, maybe I should start taking smoking more seriously... I am kind of a pipe (or cigar) once every couple of months kind of guy. A pipe a day ought to do the trick in about 15 years, right? ;)

I certainly wouldn't joke about dying young, it's a horrible tragedy.

I was merely pointing out that for someone older than myself to place such emphasis on a common enough practice back then is unusual.

Perhaps the health issues were more loudly sung in other countries at an earlier time.

The past is said to be another country but other countries obviously are too.

Both make for a different mind set from whenever and wherever you find yourself.

In the future perhaps things that we see as normal activities or entitlements (and even rights of passage) will be looked on in horror while the people doing it will be doing similarly shocking things from the perspective of their offspring.