Never smoked tobacco in my life. Only exception is blunts, which I guess still have some tobacco residue or maybe the wrapper is even made of tobacco? I don’t really know, but those things are harsh.
I smoked a pack a day for 30 years and quit 4 years ago. To me, that’s not a long time ago but that’s how I answered the poll. I’m glad I no longer smoke, but not a day goes by that I don’t want to.
I grew up in a smoking family. Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, family friends, even the family car! I’ve always loved the smell of cigarette smoke, and started smoking myself when I got my first job and could afford to buy my own cigarettes.
I quit ~6 years ago (December 27, 2006) for health reasons. I still dream of smoking, and after a pleasant meal, I still instinctively reach for my purse to get a cigarette. I told my family doctor that if he ever tells me I have less than a year to live, I will start smoking again (he just laughed and said, “Fair enough, but lets get you those extra years first.”).
This describes my smoking history perfectly.
My father died of lung cancer at 58. His sister died of lung cancer, and my sister is dying of lung cancer at 56. So I’ve never smoked, and don’t imagine I will start.
I’m thinking I’ll take it up again if I get to be an old man, like sometime after 80, because by then, fuck it, long-term health consequences be damned. If I’m still spry I’ll be smoking, drinking, main-lining crack, freebasing paint thinner, I won’t give a fuck.
I keep some cigars around and occasionally fire one up, usually to hide the aroma of the non-tobacco product I’ve been burning. (a good friend is a cop and I do this mostly out of respect for him)
I’ve also smoked shisha from a hookah a few times.
I’ve never even considered smoking. I grew up around smokers while being quite sensitive to smoke; it amounted to years of Pavlovian conditioning against anything to do with smoking.
[QUOTE=Zyanthia]
I still dream of smoking…").
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Ha, I do too even though I quit 15 years ago.
Peter Jennings quit, then started again briefly right after 9/11. Then he died of lung cancer. That’s a powerful motivation to me to never start again.
January 14th I’ll be a five year quitter! 
These are me. I grew up in a smoking family. A brilliant, artistic, musical, political–but smoking–family. I have excellent friends who smoke.
But.
My stepfather died of throat cancer this past October 3rd. My aunt died of emphysema. My stepmother died of emphysema as well. My father was so weakened by smoking that it definitely hastened his death. (My sister died of liver cancer. That one was probably not smoking-related, but it was so inexplicable, even to the doctors, that I wonder.)
Furthermore, I have had to clean out two residences after their smoking inhabitants departed. The walls were stained by the smoke residue. Every object in the kitchen was sticky with the residue, and my mother’s beautiful white kitchen cabinets were stained irreparably beige by it. Electronics, curtains, blinds, and many other household items were basically ruined by the residue; no-one wanted them.
I am not feeling very kind towards smoking these days.
I will not date a smoker. Ever. Not only does smoking have gross and disgusting effects on the person, but I’ve lost enough people in my life because of it. I will not voluntarily put myself through that again.
There are ways for smokers to get their nicotine without actually smoking, right? What if it was supplied in chocolate-chip cookies? What about vaporizers?
Active smoker, less than a pack a day. Just under 20 years now.
I’m a two-time quitter. Later bloomer. Deep addict.
I never smoked in high school, though my sister did, and my dad was a chain smoker. Most of the kids in my school smoked, but I was pretty much a jock, so I never got into it.
I always gave my dad shit for smoking. Then when I was 20, I started smoking and he quit - just coincidentally at practically the same time. Look it was 1985, I was in a band, my hair was ridiculous … you smoke, it’s the law. So anyway, inside of the first month, I’d say I was at least a pack-and-a-halfer.
I kept it up until I was about 25 and I came down with a nasty cold or flu or something, that saw me running out of smokes and too ill to get out of bed to buy some more, so I figured, what the hell. Good a time to quit as any. Just stopped, cold turkey. I don’t remember that being all that horrible, as I went through most of the withdrawals while I was already gooned out anyway.
Then a few years later, I just started again. I was going through a stressful patch and one day on the way home from work I stopped off for a six-pack and I heard the words, “Pack of Marlboro Reds,” come out of my mouth and I didn’t argue. Pack-and-half again inside of a month.
Then later, during an even more stressful patch, I was bullshitting on here with Crunchy Frog about wanting to quit, so we both did at the same time. Threw the pack away and I haven’t had one since. That was back in California - shit, more than 10 years ago.
I took a drag off a friend’s smoke jokingly one afternoon lately and I thought I was going to die. It made me think one of two things: 1) how could I have stood putting myself through that horror show for so long or B) how hard-core was I to be sucking 40 of these fuckers down in a day sometimes.
So, yeah now I’m smoke-free … technically … but I don’t live in Colorado, so nuff said.
By the way, for those that are “social smokers”, please tell me you supply your own cigarettes or are prepared to offer me money when you want to “bum” one of mine.
no, and it’s one of the things I’m thankful for.
I smoked up to two packs a day for about eight years.
Quit in October 1977 cold turkey. It took three years before I could be sure it was going to stick. Hardest thing I ever did in my life. It wouldn’t have been possible but Ms Hook was never a smoker and the bulk of my friends weren’t.
As someone who has touched a cigarette in over 10 years, I consider myself a smoker who hasn’t had a cigarette in a long fucking time. I never lost the love man. The smell still takes me back…
*Hasn’t touched a cigarette in over 10 years.
My last cigarette was December 31, 1989
I picked “I’ve smoked a cigarette or two in my life” although the total is probably more like 20 or 30. Basically, some occasional experimental/social smoking in my youth, but never a habit.