Jesus Christ

The BBQ Pit
21

Jesus Christ didn’t die of lung cancer, but he didn’t smoke either.

On the other hand, many cool people from the golden ages of film and television did die of smoking. Humphrey Bogart, Frank Zappa, John Candy (2 packs a day), Graham Chapman of Monty Python, Carol Burnett’s kid (at age 38), Babe Ruth, Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond novels), Beatle George Harrison, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Walt Disney, Ulysses S. Grant (okay, he was a US president and not in films), Desi Arnaz (Luuucyy), Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, John Wayne, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward, Jack Benny, Betty Davis, Joe Dimaggio. Many had long painful illnesses before they died. I feel so sad when I see so many more teenagers than ever before smoking. What the F is going on?

22

Hmm, the above linked thread. This thread. And then this one:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=182151

Are we beginning to see a pattern here?

:dubious:

23

Qazzz-how old are you, anyways?

Because you sound like you’re about 12 years old.

Survey Says! You’re a complete tool.

24

Yeaaahh, people that you’ve never met express a genuine concern over your health, you whine about it. Then you open a pit thread, whine some more, and now you’re telling us to fuck off?

And your “aw shucks” attitude is wearing thin.

25

No one who started smoking ever thought they would become addicted. No one decided one day they would “take up the habit.” Everyone who became addicted to cigarettes started the same way you just did.

You can have one, or five, or 100 before you become addicted. The problem is you don’t know what your number is, and you don’t know you’re addicted until it’s too late. Just realize - some people have been there and it is hard to watch others start down the same road.

26

Quazzz, you ignorant slut.

(bolding mine)

By stating that you may get some more smokes, you are saying you may “adopt” this vice. In my not humble at all opinion.

This is the first time anyone on the boards has told me to “fuck off.” I was hoping for a “fucko off” to pop my cherry. Oh well. So tell me, what were you expecting as a reply to your post in MPSIMS? A few pats on the back? A welcome to the club memo? No, you got a bunch of people who are concerned for your health. People that you don’t even know trying to help you out. And you respond by telling us all to fuck off. Fine. I will even agree that at times I do act like I am “little-brained.” However, I will stand by my original remark of calling you a dumb shit. Your statements that I have quoted above are proof enough for me that I may not be the only “little-brained” person around.

27

“I never said that I was going to take up smoking.”

“I’ve been thinking about getting some more just to feel cool.”

That’s what people are jumping on you about. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of “I’m going to immediately start smoking two packs a day”, but, for some, a scary thought.

Qazzz, you can use these threads to bitch about people misunderstanding your intentions, or you can use these threads to see how other people got addicted to cigarettes on EXACTLY the same path it looks like you’re on. You could also take a moment to notice that most of the people in these threads are concerned about you, and that they don’t want you to make a huge mistake.

Or you could just ignore all that and be a dick. Your call.

28

Kiss me, Son of God.

29

I almost spit my coffee all over the computer screen! :smiley:

30

Both my parents were cool. I miss them so very much.

31

OK. You are correct. To say, “I think I may get some more cigarettes” is not the perfect logical equivalent of saying, “Yes I’m going to start smoking.”

However, as we are pointing out over and over, no one “decides” to start smoking. People are jumping all over you, telling you not to start, because they are alarmed. In your statements, these people see themselves right at that crucial moment when they could have stopped but decided they “felt cool” or “enjoyed the rush,” and next thing they knew they were waking up wheezing and wishing they’d taken up knitting instead.

In other words, it is concern for your health. If it comes out harshly, it’s because we see all too clearly the total black-and-white nature of this decision and are frustrated by seeing someone even consider making what is, without question, a bad decision in every way.

Did you ask people to tell you whether to start smoking? No. You didn’t. But if you’d sad, “I played Russian Roulette last night. I felt so cool! I think I’m going to play it again!” you’d have to expect this kind of reaction.

Out of curiosity, what did you expect in the original thread? “Qazzz, today you are a man”?

32

Don’t give up after one cigarette. You get used to it and then you really learn to enjoy it. Also it does look cool, no matter what anybody says. It’s not as cool as smoking blunts though, and you shouldn’t be afraid to eat some “vitamin A” either. Don’t let these squares drag you down to their dork level, dude. They’re just jealous.

33

“Smoking does have some advantages, they keep you from looking old. You’ll die before you get there.”-Jay Leno

34

Yikes. I’ve never contributed to a Pit thread before. Usually, someone comes along and says something calm and reasonable, and the best I could do would be to say, “Yeah, listen to Screen Name… he/she’s SMART.” That said, I have to say I don’t blame Qazzz for being a bit offended by some of the responses. Here’s how I saw this develop:
Qazzz says “I smoked a cig… I didn’t like it but it felt cool (paraphrase)” Now we’ve all heard that line before, smoking is rebellious, rebellious is cool. Then Qazzz says

From the very start, Qazzz conceded the point that smoking is capital B Bad for your health. Nowhere did (he? she?) say that smoking is actually something everyone should do. The “cool” thing seemed like a pretty lighthearted remark, and while perhaps naive, wouldn’t you agree that as a MPSIMS thread, it can be let pass. I mean, all you smokers thought it was cool sometime, right? Qazzz is at that point now- but Qazzz says that smoking is not all that attractive an idea despite the cache factor

Then a bunch of people said, essentially, you are an idiot if you think it’s cool to smoke. And rightly so; if Qazzz was planning on smoking regularly, or putting herself in a position to pick up an addiction as a way to gain social status, that would be pretty stupid.

Then this thread was born. Qazzz took issue with some of the insults.
Jackelope said, rightly in my opinion, that Qazzz could be walking in dangerous territory if he/she continues the flirtation with smoking, and that it was wise, and beneficial, for others to warn Qazzz against that danger. However, things have become downright nasty here. Ignorant slut? Pathetic? Fuck off? Really, what’s the point, and more importantly, what’s the reason?
I ask you, the Pit, who are we fighting here? Can’t we all agree that smoking does kind of have a sex appeal to it on some level? And can’t we all (including Qazzz) agree that if you wish to pursue the art of encancering yourself (yes, yes I did make that up) by smoking, you’re a damn fool? I say yes. In summation, then, Qazzz, I think I speak for most of the SDMB when I say that even if you realize it’s bad, you can get sucked in pretty damn easy. Those tobacco companies ain’t in business for the fun of it. Likewise, I think I can speak for Qazzz in pointing out that Qazzz realizes the health risks. At this point, with all good intentions in mind, isn’t it up to Qazzz what happens from here?

And if I’m way off base here, hell, I’m not paying attention, the Sixers are on.

35

Well… I’m just a little suspicious of the whole thing.

He says he is 23 years old. OK, so would a 23 year old man say these things:

And later, after taking some shit for his comments, he responds very maturely with gems like this:

I dunno. It just doesn’t sound right to me. Also, the other thread about hitting the “worker bitch” is equally strange sounding. I could be wrong, of course - I’m just saying what my gut feeling is.

36

I didn’t really like my first one either, but then I found menthols, which I came to enjoy. My friend Jason, who introduced me to smoking, his dad smoked Salems, which are the easiest (read: lightest) menthols to smoke. The key was to build up my smoke-inhalation abilities, little by little. The first few cigs, I could only really get a good inhale a few times over the life of the smoke. It took me awhile to get to the point of my lungs tolerating the real smoking experience.

But boy was it worth it. I just lit up now. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. After a nice full meal, nothing satisfies like a smoke. And there’s nothing like a quick smoke break at work, not those abusive pity smoke-breaks where you just use it as an excuse to waste 15 minutes without working, I mean those times when you just duck out for like 2 minutes tops and have to hotbox the thing and get a solid rush of nicotine-power. Or that first smoke in the morning…mmmmmmmmmm, wonderful. Smoking even calms my stomach down (I’m one of those who gets carsickness alot when I’m a passenger on hilly routes, a cig seems to cure it.) I just couldn’t imagine myself as a non-smoker, and I’ve only been smoking since I was 17 (7 years).

But, that said, there’s a drawback. If you choose to start smoking, there really is no clean-break. Smokers can’t just quit and forget about it. I’ve talked to quitters before. Everytime someone lights up, and you smell it…you wish you had one. You can rarely go a day as a quitter without part of you wishing you had one again. I saw it in my father when he tried to quit. He made it 10 years, a few of total abstinence and a few of only smoking a couple drags of a Winchester Little Cigar per day on the walk between the car and the store. I don’t want to spend every subsequent day of my life wishing I had a smoke, so I ain’t quitting. I’ll roll the dice. Only a 1 in 12 chance of dying by 65, that’s bad but not enough to make me go through the agony of being a quitter. Heck, it could be 3 in 12, still not enough. If I live so long I can’t eat pizza anymore from indigestion, that’s too long.

So it’s one of those one-way roads. I understand the people who get pissy and urge someone not to start, it’s a semi-irrevocable choice. Maybe you are better off just going with your “I don’t like it” instincts, and maybe you’re better off with people reinforcing that. Smoking ain’t for everyone.

37

If you were being serious, than this would be a landmark. It would mark the first time me and Diogynes agreed about anything other than a general distaste for religion.

Oh, and besides looking cool, it also helps keep weight stable. For us snackers who have oral fixations, FYI: potato chips = lots of calories, cigarettes = zero calories. I’m no thin mint, but I can only imagine what I’d look like if I didn’t smoke.

38

RexDart: Don’t you think encouraging a kid to start smoking is just a little irresponsible? I had to scan your post twice for signs of sarcasm but it came back clean. I’m suprised.

I thought (and would still like to think) that DTC was kidding.

39

A) didn’t someone say this guy is 23? that’s only a year younger than I am, he ain’t a “kid” from my perspective

B) didn’t you catch the following from my post:

I like smoking, and I imagine I will never quit, but I don’t pretend that it isn’t a life-changing habit, one with immediate psychological drawbacks, which I described right there. Isn’t what I posted a pretty good description of what a psychological addiction with physiological cues comprises?

I wasn’t being sarcastic about any of my post. I was describing what it’s like for me to be a smoker, what my thoughts about it are, my feelings about my smoking, in as honest terms as I could muster. People continue to smoke despite the apparent health consequences. My post was my attempt to shed a little light on why. On one fork of the tongue, there’s the psychological conditioning which I thought I explained pretty well. On the other fork of the tongue are the things smokers enjoy about smoking. Do we just pretend there aren’t any such things and cave in to the lies.com propaganda, that everyone who smokes hates every single thing about smoking and would quit if only the evil giant corporations hadn’t put us under mind control? There are things about smoking that kept us doing it during those first 6-12 months, the period in which most of us could have easily quit but we didn’t really want to. Why didn’t we want to? Because there was and still is something about smoking that we enjoy.

That’s just the truth about the smoking community, we had our reasons for starting and they didn’t all fit some ABC after-school special logic like “kids only smoke because of peer pressure”. No matter how intense the peer pressure, if all the cool kids started stabbing themselves in the leg with a scalpel a la Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein I sure wouldn’t have done it more than once. Difference: stabbing yourself in the leg with a scalpel is neither fun nor in any way enjoyable. Smoking is enjoyable in the here-and-now and the drawbacks don’t begin until you become “addicted”, and the physical drawbacks take effect slowly over years and years. For some of us, that cost-benefit ratio is acceptable. For others it’s not. So be it.

As a recent South Park episode pointed out, it’s not right to spread total biased lies about marijuana usage to discourage it, just tell the truth and let people decide. Same about cigarettes. There are reasons we smoke, there are consequences that are well known and legitimate. Save the “smoking is pure, unadulterated evil” stuff for the Democratic primary candidates, this website is about truth. And the truth is, there are enjoyable things about smoking that, for some people, counter the bad things.

40

I was (mostly) just kidding.

I’m an ex-smoker. I started when I was 16 and quit when I was 28. I’m 37 now. As Rex was saying, people who smoke actually do enjoy it a lot of the time. There are times when it is quite gratifying and it would be dishonest to say otherwise. I quit mostly because it got too expensive. It really sucks when you’re broke and you’re out of smokes. it sucks to have to bum smokes off other people or try to find a way to scrounge change from the couch cushions and the car to get a pack of generics. I got tired of being a slave to the habit so I quit cold turkey. My methods would probably not be AMA approved but they worked. I smoked tons of pot and ate like a pig. That was nine years ago, and I haven’t had a cigarette since (I quit smoking pot as well).

I had always been scrawny and underweight when I smoked. After I quit I gained fifty pounds. I also had to quit drinking (which I never really did that much anyway) because drinking made me crave cigarettes.

I am now drug, alcohol and nicotine free, and have been for years (well, maybe the occasional beer). I’m supposed to tell you how much better I feel and how glad I am that those days behind me but here is the dirty truth:

Even after nine years, I still feel that little twinge of craving when someone lights uo a cigarette. Sometimes I still dream that i’ve started smoking again and I’m relieved when I