Is there anything I can do or say to make my guy stop smoking?

In My Humble Opinion
81

[QUOTE=tsarina]
I guess I just don’t understand what having an addiction means, and don’t see why, if he said he’s trying to quit, he can’t just throw them away and be done with it.
[/QUOTE]

I can see where that would be hard to relate to. You can get some intellectual insight by reading about smoking and addiction, but understanding it emotionally is elusive. It wouldn’t surprise me if he has a similar difficulty in understanding how much it bothers you.

My mom smoked (still does at 89). My Dad [del]hated[/del] [del]despised[/del] [del]loathed[/del] [del]destested[/del] abhorred smoke and smoking. Her smoking bothered him and his griping about it bugged her. Still, they were married for 67 years, until his death a couple years ago. So in some cases an ongoing relationship is possible despite that area of unpleasantness.

My only additional thought is he could probably at least reduce the unpleasantness some - mints or gum, wet naps for face and hands, etc.

I wish you well.

82

[QUOTE=Frank]
Excalibre, you already have one warning in this thread. Tone it down, or take it to the Pit.

[…and then a couple posts later…]

How can you think there is any comparison? You are a drug addict. (So am I, for that matter, as I’m also a smoker.) The sampler of comments collected in post #59 are far too confrontational for IMHO. In my moderator’s opinion.
[/quote]

Once upon a time, moderators would have opted to move a thread that got this heated into the pit instead of ganging up on jerks from one side of the argument while leaving the jerks on the other side alone.

Oh, wait, it looks like it [post=7313451]wasn’t all that long ago[/post]. I’d always thought that it was standard procedure to move heated threads to the pit. This thread appears to show otherwise.

So let’s see, we have someone saying:

Seriously, mods; do you really think that rational discussion is going to follow something like this? How did this thread not get a one-way ticket to Pit-town?

And note that this above quote is a personal attack on a specific poster. He’s saying that Excalibre, personally, smells as bad as an unwashed, urine-soaked bum…that’s not grounds for a warning? Really? And the condescending bit about how he’s all deluded now, but if he quit smoking it would be obvious to him?

This thread to me looks like it’s open-season on personally insulting smokers, but if any smoker responds in kind then it’s warnings all around.

I’ve been told repeatedly that outside the Cafe, forums are not segregated based on subject, but rather on the type of conversation. This thread turned into a clusterfuck halfway through the title of the OP. From there, the content of the OP started it going downhill fast.

You’re doing a heck of a job, mods.

83

[QUOTE=nyctea scandiaca]

Nobody like a smelly person. This concept is not rocket science.
[/QUOTE]

It’s estimated 20-25% of Americans smoke. cite

Your position is that the other 75% all dislike them? Seriously?

All smokers smell bad, and nobody likes smelly folks, however in the world do most people politely get along in spite of this?

84

[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
Oh, wait, it looks like it [post=7313451]wasn’t all that long ago[/post]. I’d always thought that it was standard procedure to move heated threads to the pit. This thread appears to show otherwise.
[/quote]

That has never been standard procedure. Moving threads is on a case-by-case basis. This thread contains some good thoughts on the OP’s situation. Why put it in fire-and-brimstone territory if it can be kept here with a little work?

I didn’t read it as a specific attack on Excalibre, but as a comment on all smokers. I still read it that way.

Any further criticism of moderator actions you desire to make should go in the Pit, not in this thread.

85

[QUOTE=tsarina]
We’re doing the long-distance thing right now while I’m in grad school, and won’t see each other on a regular basis until October, and then I’m leaving for Peace Corps in January.
[/QUOTE]
tsarina, thanks for coming back into this thread to add some clarifications: in your absence, it looked as though it was either going to go into the Pit due to personal attacks, or to GD as a battlefield between smokers and rabid anti-smokers. Such things can happen without your input, but I’m more interested in the specifics of your situation than in generic “smoker / non-smoker” relationship arguments that inevitably paint with a broad brush.

As a female scientist Doper and future Peace Corps Volunteer, you start out with a number of “Get Out of Jail Free Cards” in my book, but it doesn’t totally absolve you of any relationship faux pas.

[Personal background: I’m a life-long non-smoker, both of whose parents died of smoking-related causes. I have, however, had a couple of relationships with women who smoked. The woman I ended up marrying had smoked in her teens but was a 5-year ex-smoker when we met; she took up smoking again towards the end of our marriage in response to tragic circumstances, and of course I would have loved it if she had given it up, but I never gave an ultimatum and there were times when her smoking was preferable to – and more beneficial to her health than – how it would have been if she had quit smoking at that time.]

Okay, back to your situation, tsarina. Your post #80 has largely confirmed the suspicions that I raised in my post #10, namely that it’s a long-distance relationship where your immediate future will involve being apart from “Your Guy” much more than you will be spending time together. If I understand it correctly, he’s in your home state of Michigan (where you spent time again recently as an orphan of Katrina), and you’re in grad school in New Orleans, with all of the excitement and mental stimulation that is implied. You are focused on your career, and have plans and goals. You’re joining the Peace Corps, ferchrissake! There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that – on the contrary, it’s all highly commendable – and most Dopers (myself included) will join in a chorus of “you go, girl!”. BUT, you have your “Home Town Honey” who is not part of any of those plans. How do you think he would feel if he saw this post of yours from just two weeks ago?

I don’t know the exact dynamics of your relationship with “your guy”. I can say that the choices that you’ve made for the next couple of years of your future don’t seem to involve him at all as a long-term prospect. That’s fine for you. However, IMHO, it puts you in a very poor position as regards a request for a major habit change for him, given that you’ll be out of his presence for at least 75% of the next three-year period.

[QUOTE=tsarina]
I guess I just don’t understand what having an addiction means, and don’t see why, if he said he’s trying to quit, he can’t just throw them away and be done with it.
[/QUOTE]
My understanding is that it’s many times worse for a smoker to be forced into giving up the habit, than it is for a squicked-out non-smoker to hold back the vomit-inducing reaction that you’re feeling while being intimate with him (I don’t respond to smokers on quite such a visceral level, but of course YMMV). You DO always have the choice to leave the relationship.

There may be some couples (committed relationship, perhaps including children, especially if the smoker wasn’t smoking when they initially got together) for whom I could see an ethical justification for one partner putting major pressure on the other to quit smoking. Sorry, tsarina, you don’t qualify IMHO. If you want to keep hanging out with this guy (when you’re in your hometown) until you’re ready to make a commitment to someone, that’s fine, but you don’t get to control his smoking habits, except at the “use breath mints when you’re with me” level.

I do, however, wish you well in your studies, your career, and your stint in the Peace Corps.

86

[QUOTE=Frank]

I didn’t read it as a specific attack on Excalibre, but as a comment on all smokers. I still read it that way.

[/QUOTE]

And that is exactly how I meant it.

87

[QUOTE=Queen Tonya]
It’s estimated 20-25% of Americans smoke. cite

Your position is that the other 75% all dislike them? Seriously?

All smokers smell bad, and nobody likes smelly folks, however in the world do most people politely get along in spite of this?
[/QUOTE]

No, I was not saying non-smokers dislike smokers as people; they dislike the smoke smell that eminates off of some of them. Otherwise I would dislike my mom… but in fact I love her very much.

88

[QUOTE=Frank]
That has never been standard procedure. Moving threads is on a case-by-case basis. This thread contains some good thoughts on the OP’s situation. Why put it in fire-and-brimstone territory if it can be kept here with a little work?
[/quote]

Well, once again, you seem to be acting arbitrarily, as moving threads is pretty much the norm when discussions get heated. It’s not like it’s entirely one-sided, though you and Czarcasm seem to be acting as though this thread was all puppies and marshmallows until a certain devilishly handsome young man came in and decided to play by his own rules. It wasn’t really like that, and it’s a mystery to me why being rude and provocative is encouraged while the more-or-less inevitable result is what gets punished.

So what’s the line? I’m allowed to say tremendously insulting things about a group that includes my interlocutor, but not if I’m naming him specifically? Because “you smell like a urine-drenched bum” is nerely as insulting as “your opinions have no merit because of who you are personally.” Both got used against me; one was targeted at me and one wasn’t. Where can we stop? How does this play with the hate-speech rules? I know I can’t say “All you black people smell like vomit-encrusted hobos” (last I heard, anyway). I (now) know I can say “All you smokers smell like vomit-encrusted hobos”. So we can say tremendously insulting things about groups of people, so long as they’re not a protected class, even when it’s a sneaky way to insult the person who disagrees with you.

This is the precedent you want to set, Frank? And where to fundamentalist Christians fit in? Liberal will be upset if they don’t get treated as a protected class as well.

You’re making up new rules here about which insults are bad enough to warrant warnings and which ones aren’t. And you’re going to make moderating threads more complicated and less effective as a result. Aren’t the rules designed to make this a worthwhile place to hang out? Because implicitly granting people carte blanche to behave like DrDeth is not going to promote useful discussion.

The bottom line here is that whatever imaginary rules you wanna make up, DrDeth was deliberately antagonistic and inflammatory towards me, and what I said to him was not much worse than what he said to me.

89

[QUOTE=Antonius Block]

There may be some couples (committed relationship, perhaps including children, especially if the smoker wasn’t smoking when they initially got together) for whom I could see an ethical justification for one partner putting major pressure on the other to quit smoking. Sorry, tsarina, you don’t qualify IMHO. If you want to keep hanging out with this guy (when you’re in your hometown) until you’re ready to make a commitment to someone, that’s fine, but you don’t get to control his smoking habits, except at the “use breath mints when you’re with me” level.
[/QUOTE]

You just hit the nail on the head (and did it with persuasive words, not insults - imagine that). I guess I feel like he’d be grateful to me if I helped him to quit, even if we didn’t end up together in the future. The only successful quitter I know of offhand is my dad, and I know that now that he’s getting to an age where he could have been diagnosed with lung cancer had he continued smoking, he’s glad he quit because of the extra years it’s given him with his family. That’s one argument I’ve tried to make with my dude, but “ten extra years with your grandkids” isn’t a very tangible benefit when you’re 24 and unmarried.

I will take your advice and keep my mouth shut about it unless he brings it up.

[QUOTE=Antonius Block]

I do, however, wish you well in your studies, your career, and your stint in the Peace Corps.
[/QUOTE]

Thank you for your kind words.

90

[QUOTE=tsarina]
You just hit the nail on the head (and did it with persuasive words, not insults - imagine that). I guess I feel like he’d be grateful to me if I helped him to quit, even if we didn’t end up together in the future. The only successful quitter I know of offhand is my dad, and I know that now that he’s getting to an age where he could have been diagnosed with lung cancer had he continued smoking, he’s glad he quit because of the extra years it’s given him with his family. That’s one argument I’ve tried to make with my dude, but “ten extra years with your grandkids” isn’t a very tangible benefit when you’re 24 and unmarried.

I will take your advice and keep my mouth shut about it unless he brings it up.
[/QUOTE]

I suspect this last sentence is going to be your best bet. If he really wants to quit, he will be grateful for your help, don’t worry. But if he doesn’t want to, it’s going to come across as nagging. (And most nagging is for the naggee’s own good; the fact that it’s motivated by love doesn’t make it more palatable to the person being nagged.)

Like I said, you’d be well within your rights to refuse to move in together or become more serious with him smoking. The trouble is you have to then be willing to leave, and you have to be careful not to use your presence as leverage to make him do what you want. It has to be because you simply aren’t willing to move in with a smoker, not because you want to change his behavior.

Non-smokers don’t seem to understand very well how much smoking becomes a part of you when you do it. Smokers have cigarettes with them all day long. We don’t go more than a few hours without one. When I wake up, my first thought is that I need to pee but number two is that I want a smoke. Yeah, it’s ridiculous, addictive, anti-social behavior, and becoming moreso as society grows less approving. But it also influences who you spend time with, where you hang out, and most other aspects of your life. It requires major changes for a smoker to quit, beyond the role of physical addiction (or rather, dependence). Asking him to make all those changes for you rather than for himself is risking his resentment. And I think it’s even more risky when you’re just sort of casually dating as you are now. If you really, really cannot abide the smell, you should leave him. But (what nyctea said above to the contrary) that’s apparently not really the case, so you’ll have to treat this like an annoying hobby or something. People resent it when others try to change them.

91

Smokers do stink. I say this as a former smoker who has many friends and relatives who still do. Smoking is an addiction and the thought and process of quitting makes people into assholes. Also true, and I speak from experience. tsarina is 100% right to wish her man was not a smoker and to want him to quite ASAP. It’s a killing addiction and a vile habit.

BUT.

Smoking becomes an integral part of a person’s life and is a potent addiction. It’s unfair and uncool try to change this about a person after you get involved with them knowing they smoke. Sure, they should know how you feel about it, but fighting about it and badering someone about it is manipulative and bound to lead to resentment.

Tell him how you feel about it. Decide if you can live with it if he says he can’t or won’t quit. Then stick to your decision, whichever it is. That’s all you can reasonably do.

92

I read this entire thread and was mentally forming a response until about 3/4 of the way down the 2nd page I realized it was a zombie!

93

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
In short, you might want to examine your sanctimonious broad brush and keep it applied where is applies: at you. And perhaps the OP. And take nyctea scandiaca with you. You know, the people who shouldn’t be dating smokers.

But please don’t speak for this non-smoker, mmm’kay?
[/QUOTE]

Smell is an incredibly personal thing so I really don’t get why people are arguing about it one way or another. Some people really like that gasoline smell at gas stations, seriously. I’ve known multiple people to say they really like that smell. Me, I think it smells bad. I’d be willing to bet the gas station attendant on the other hand probably doesn’t like or dislike the smell, but rather doesn’t even notice it anymore.

94

[QUOTE=lezlers]
I don’t smoke anymore, but those “you’re stinky!” arguments from avid non-smokers drove me nuts when I did, and they still do. I was never a heavy smoker and every time I smoked in front of someone for the first time they were shocked that I smoked. They didn’t know. And these people were around me all the time. If I truly smelled that bad, you’d think one of them would have suspected I was a smoker and not seemed so shocked when they saw me actually smoking.

I dated a guy who was a heavy smoker at a time I wasn’t smoking. I did notice the smell and at times it would be overpowering. However, it was usually only when he’d just had a cigarette and the smell would go away after about 20 minutes or so (which would explain why nobody suspected I smoked).

These are the experiences that make me roll my eyes whenever I see anyone go on a self-righteous tangent about how unbearably awful smokers smell, all the time and hear stories about people throwing out half their wardrobes. I never once, as a non-smoker, was able to smell cigarette smoke on a freshly laundered piece of clothing. At best, these stories are extreme exaggerations. At worst, they’re outright lies.
[/QUOTE]

There’s no reason they’re exaggerations or lies. There is an odor produced by cigarette smoke, that can be scientifically proven. What is also true is different people respond to different odors differently, some people have more sensitive smell than others, some people respond differently to different smells. This is all something I assumed most people realized was true, that it was “common sense.”

It’s also true that different habits can affect how much of the cigarette odor one has on them. My mother smoked until I was 30 years old, the whole time I was a kid. I saw her every single day of my life almost until I was 18. I didn’t know she smoked until I was 23. She intentionally kept it a secret from me and my siblings as well as my father. I’m not entirely sure her motivations for it, I think she considered it a bit of a “guilty pleasure” and just didn’t want anyone to know she did it. She smoked during the day when no one was around and was careful to conceal the smell.

My uncle on the other hand openly smoked all the time. There was a particular jacket he typically wore that definitely carried with it a smoke smell, his house smelled heavily of smoke as did his furniture. Personally, it didn’t really bother me very much, but I know some people who can’t stand to be in a house where a smoker lives.

95

[QUOTE=Cisco]
I read this entire thread and was mentally forming a response until about 3/4 of the way down the 2nd page I realized it was a zombie!
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t realize it was a zombie until after I posted!

96

[QUOTE=SHAKES]

Most guys will say one of two things:

“Nasty! That girl smokes, I want nothing to do with her”

Or

“Hey! She’s female and she has a pulse. I’m not complaining…”
[/QUOTE]

I think it is a needless, health-damaging action that makes you smell bad. I will say it right up front if it comes up, and not just to potencial girlfriends. I also don’t believe I can change anyone into quitting, and I’m aware it will probably go on forever. And frankly, I don’t think it’s a “deal breaker” when it comes to relationships. Just be honest about it… To the other person as well as to yourself (meaning: don’t pretend you’re ok with it if you’re not, but realise you’re not going to leave the other person if he doesn’t stop. If that’s the truth, of course).

97

I agree with the mob, you can’t make him do anything. He was a smoker when you started dating, so you knew what you were getting into.

However, I do sympathize, in a way. ** Mr. Carlyjay** was a smoker when we started dating, and smoked for a good long time after that. I am a militant anti-smoker. I grew up with two parents who smoked like chimneys, which made me a very sick puppy on more than one occasion, not to mention smelly. So smoking is a big, fat 10 on the ick-factor for me.

But I knew Mr. Carlyjay was a smoker long before I fell in love with him. So I figured it’s not my place to tell him how to live his life, and I never, ever told him to quit. When things would get particularly gross, I would ask him to brush his teeth to get rid of the smoker’s breath. He understood that it wasn’t pleasant for me, I understood that quitting was hard to do.

When he finally made the choice to quit, it was his decision entirely, based on several factors. I supported him 100% through the difficult quitting process. I firmly believe that the reason he was successful this time around is that it was his decision; nobody nagged him to do it.

Nagging = stress = resentment = more smoking. Stop being a nag and be his supportive partner.

98

:smack: Stupid zombies.

99

[QUOTE=buns3000]
Buy him Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking. It worked for me. I can’t recommend this book too highly. It changed my life 7 years ago and I’ve been happily smoke-free ever since.

Yes, I’m aware “easy” and “way” are two separate words. Apparently, nobody told Allen Carr.
[/QUOTE]

I just wanted to say that I bought this book for my husband and it did not work- perhaps he wasn’t ready at the time, but he did read it cover to cover and try the methods in it, but he did not quit. He didn’t get rid of the book, though, so possibly he’ll try it later. I bought it after seeing the glowing reviews here about it. Just another point of view.

100

Since this is an old thread, and the OP appears to have not joined up, I’ll kill this one.

Anyone may feel free to start a new thread addressing the issues newly brought up.