Don’t take it up. I’m a half-a-pack-a-day cigarette smoker and I’ve tried to quit in the past.
Please don’t, Lobsang.
If you’re stupid enough to think that the only reason people don’t approve of smoking cigarettes is that its “effects on human psychology”, please DO take it up and remove yourself from the gene pool before you procreate.
How did you manage to miss all the information about the damage smoke does to your lungs, and the rest of your body? It’s on the fucking packets even!
Of course, if you DO know about the dangers of smoking and you posted this anyway you’re a bigger attention whore than I thought.
Taking up smoking at this point in your life is akin to taking up cutting for the adrenalin rush.
If you want to smoke try something besides just boxed cigarettes. Maybe see if a cigar is to your liking, as Kyrywyyyweweaoargh7 said. My personal vice is cloves, not much nicotine in the them so I only smoke them when I feel like the taste and end up using only a pack or so a year. MMMmmmm sweet clovey smokey goodness.
Really, don’t try normal cigarettes though. I tried one once from a friend to see what the taste was like, and from just that single cigarette I was already starting to get hooked. That itchy, antsy feeling inside your skin when you’re craving another even when you don’t want it is horrible. 
I felt the same way when I started smoking. I loved it. Cigarettes were these wonderful things that could either calm me down or perk me up depending on what I needed. They made me feel good. They were fun.
Before I quit for the last time (going on more than 2 years now), I realized it wasn’t fun at all anymore. I wasn’t smoking because I enjoyed it. I was smoking because I needed to. I hated planning my activities around smoking and constantly worrying about whether I had enough cigarettes on hand. It got to the point where every smoke I had I was regretting.
It does start out enjoyable, but it end up making you hate it, hate the way you smell, hate the way it makes you feel (out of breath, tired, etc), and hate the way it controls you.
It’s fabulous. You’ll absolutely love it. And actually, contrary to what you said, not many people are doing it these days, so you will look very hip and innovative.
Now that’s funny.
I always wanted to win the Boston marathon so I could light one up during the interviews.
Regards,
Shodan
<Zap Brannigan>
C’mon Kif, teenagers all smoke, and they seem pretty on the ball.
</Zap Brannigan>
My father smokes. I helped him move.
In cleaning his apartment, I discovered areas behuind the curtains where the white walls were chocolate-brown from years of air-currents depositing smoke residue.
Every surface of his apartment stank. The dishes and cutlery were unclean. The cases of his CD collection were sticky. I lent him my VCR; when I got it back, it was rendered unusable due to smoke residue gumming up the tape path.
You don’t want that. Please don’t smoke.
According to http://www.ash.org.uk/ , “About 12 million adults in the UK smoke cigarettes - 28% of men and 24% of women. In 1974, 51% of men and 41% of women smoked cigarettes - nearly half the adult population of the UK.”
The current rate is slightly higher than that of Canada, where Health Canada tells us that 20% of Canadians are smokers.
paging serious lark, paging serious lark,
Serious, dearie, could you please kindly describe the quality of life of a typical lung cancer patient in pallliation phase to Lobsang? feel free to mention spinal mets and the chance of paralysis, loss of bladder and bowell control. Oh yeah, and also the pain. He’s a good doper, writes enjoyably, and we’d like to spare him this fate.
**Serious lark ** is my darling wife, and also an oncologist who treats lung patients.
They gave her sarcoma as a second site to cheer her up from dealing with all the lung patients…
Mangle my name, will ya?
:blows smoke in DarkPrince’s face.
So, Lobsang. Made your decision yet?
Lobsang, all the reasons people have given you for not starting smoking (including the post from my husband, trupa ) are valid, in my experience. The list of health risks is really long (stroke/heart/aneurysms/peripheral vessel disease, lung disease & repeated lung infections, cancers (head & neck, lung, esophageal, bladder, kidney, cervix, …), ulcers and osteoporosis. I’m glad you’ve decided not to start.
Because I treat a lot of lung cancer patients, I was curious in the past as to why people started smoking in the first place, so I used to ask my patients. * Nobody * started this vice because they thought it would be enjoyable. Girls and women tended to start smoking either to lose/keep off weight or to look cool/adult or “to help deal with stress”. Men above a certain age invariably described being non-smokers until the World Wars, when the army/navy would give all their men a daily ration of tobacco along with a daily ration of alcohol, and apparently only the designated recipient was allowed to use it. A lot of these men started smoking so that they would not forfeit this benefit of being in the armed forces. (Now that says something interesting about human nature, doesn’t it?) Men below that age described starting smoking because they wanted to see “what all the fuss was about”, “because others in my family did”, and to look cool/adult.
And don’t forget that Cecil wrote that more US soldiers died from smoking habits picked up in World War II than died from the sctual fighing:
Here are a few things about the benefits of smoking:
- Smokers tend to be more easy going
- If you are standing outside somewhere smoking a cigarette, you are automatically part of a “group”. The social implications of smoking are to considered. Yes there are negatives (already mentioned) and positive (ie: having something obviously in common with a stranger)
- It is something to “do” when you need to get away from the job for a minute for stress relief. Of course there are other things but somehow, he went out for a cigarette, sounds less problematic to me then he went out to walk around the block.
- It is pleasurable after a meal, after sex or with a drink.
Having said all of this, I must agree with the group that it is a terrible habit that is dirty, disgusting and hard to stop. I just wanted to mention that smokers aren’t complete idiots that get no pleasure from smoking at all but most of us would like to stop this highly addictive habit. To start would be very foolish.
Sure, go for it. While you’re at it, play in traffic and juggle with knives. :rolleyes:
You left out running with scissors.
It’s all fun and games until someone coughs a lung out.