I just love it when someone points out (in this case an MD) that social smoking is very rare and then 3 or 4 posters pop in with ‘I’m a social smoker!’ type of comments. I’d hate to think of all the lurkers and kids out there hoping the same thing.
Face it, for every “social smoker” there are thousands of kids who thought “I want to be a social smoker!” and turn out to be addicts. My friend boasted once that he only needed a cig once or twice a week and turned into 1 pack a week, then 1 pack a day smoker and he started at 18 (6 years ago).
Not trying to be snarky, I’m sure there are plenty of social smokers (1% of the huge number of smokers is still going to be a lot of people) but it’s still rare.
Time does fly, but even though I spent most of my twenties smoking 2 packs a day (this came hard on the heels of my “oh I’ll just experiment with an occasional cigarette in social situations” phase), it’s really not as exaggerated as all that.
Please continue posting as usual (bemoaning how we are stressing the poor hamsters, then making 20% of the posts in a 2 page thread).
Well along with all that time whizzing by, you must have forgotten what it was like to feel peer pressure. Judging by your inane suggestions, you must have been in an alternate dimension during high school/college.
Feel free yourself to continue posting as usual and return to lurking on the underside of that dank rock whence you shat out of.
I hope smoking becomes illegal in my life time.
>> Insert lengthy lambasting for the suggestion of legislating common sense <<
“You can have my smokes when you pry them from my cold, yellow hands!”
…whence you shat out of.
Tricky grammar here, but I think this translates roughly into, “the place from which you excreted yourself.” I’ve never considered the possibility of someone actually excreting themselves, but it is most intriguing in a chicken & egg kind of way…and vaguely degrading. I like it.
And so the thread takes another surreal turn.
It’s pointless to tell SOA it’s a dumb thing to do. Cuz it’s not. Recognizing addiction or health loss, becoming uncomfortable with the idea of addiction or health loss, and then either ignoring THAT discomfort or avoiding dealing with it…THAT’S idiotic. Foax, we only get the one life (an assumption based on empirical observation) which, as has been pointed out, will end any time after right … now. For many of us, enjoyment of the time we have is what is important. If SOA enjoys smoking, and if he manages to do so well into his 90’s, I’ll envy HIM. If the smoke makes him sick, I’ll feel bad for him, but I won’t tolerate him whining about how the evil tobacco companies beguiled him. I’ll hunt him down and SMACK him (or anyone else for that matter) who cries about how they didn’t know smoking could damage health.
I am not the brightest, nor certainly one of the best-regarded posters on this board, but I am downright discouraged at the MORALIZING going on about this subject. Yes, moralizing. Various posters, with very good anecdotal/research evidence have repeatedly pointed out that “smokin’ be a bad ting”. But you have NO right to judge or attempt to limit someone else’s life experience based on YOUR experience. Remember Siddartha? All the best teachers in the world can not teach you enlightenment. That can only come through 1st hand experience. Gives you a sort of … um … perspective. Another facet in the jewel of your eye through which you view life from many angles…or something. Think of the Cenobytes from “Hell Raiser” whose stated purpose is to serve man by allowing him to appreciate the ultimate in ecstasy through delivering its ultimate antithesis in agony.
Live your own life in your own way for what is important to YOU and stop preaching…oh. I gotta go.
I hear this ‘fact’ bandied around alot but have never seen any evidence of this…cite? I find it hard to beleive (from personal experience) that nicotine addiction would ever be likened to opiate addiction. I think that cigarettes are only hard to kick due to the fact that they are readily available and more socially acceptable. The actual withdrawl symptoms of nicotine are very mild in comparision to heroin withdrawl. How many smokers do you know who get chronic diarohea, vomiting, severe cramps, insomia and extreme pain from kicking even the most extreme nicotine habit? On the other hand I still think its a bit daft to make a decision to start smoking at 18 when you should have the capacity for logical decision making. But on the other hand he could be smoking crack so ease up on the guy, its not the end of the world.
The odd thing is that I actually did fancy a cigarette this morning, for the first time in quite a few years. I know I won’t succumb though - I remember how bad it made me feel last time I slipped.
lezlers First post said i was a reforming smoker, you wait till i kick the habit, then I’ll be a rabid Xsmoker. Everything I said is true. There is something i can’t quite grasp though, you said you knew a heap of social smokers, usually Xsmokers actually…wouldn’t that make them smokers still???:eek:
I’d didn’t say he was going to keel on the spot after his first drag on a durrie, it is highly possible in the long run though. As for smelling like a walking ashtray…ask a non-smoker if they can smell smoke on you a couple of hours after your last one.
As for My first post bordering on hysteria…your funny, I think you will be a great lawyer when you get through school. Good luck (and thats genuine)
1-4 ciggies a day…thats what I’m down to per week, grasp the denial!!
WILLASS that referance came from a psyc journal on the effect of drugs on the human brain, I read it a long time ago but that was one of the pieces that stuck. I don’t know how to cite cause I’m a noob and couldn’t find it anyway, google it if it is of major concern. I did a period of banging smack up my arm along with partaking in a shitload of other drugs along time ago (about 10 years), the only sucker that I haven’t kicked is the smokes.
Matchka Hallelujah brother, preach it!
badmana so do I. That would make me as happy as a pig in shit!
Social smokers, I challenge you to quit. Stupid I know, you have to want to stop and i’m prepared for the torent of abuse.
Grasp the denial? Denial of what? I never said I was a social smoker. And no, it doesn’t make them smokers, still. It makes them social smokers. By your theory, any social smoker would be a “smoker.” So basically, you don’t believe in the whole concept of social smoking.
Why would you challenge social smokers to quit? Obviously they’re not addicted. If they were, they wouldn’t be able to go weeks, some months, without smoking. So obviously they smoke because they enjoy it. Why would they quit doing something they enjoy and aren’t addicted to? That would be like you challenging all social drinkers to quit. Rather silly, isn’t it?
And my statement about not always smelling like a walking ashtray and your response of “ask a nonsmoker if they can smell it a couple hours after you smoke”, obviously they can’t. If they could, my telling you that most people don’t know I smoke unless I tell them, wouldn’t be true. If you only smoke a small amount of cigs a day (1-4), wash your hands after and chew gum, trust me, you don’t smell like a walking ashtray a couple hours after a cig.
The fact that you’re a smoker is in itself, hysterically funny.
A bit of a hypocrite, aren’t we? Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and just quit. If you’re only smoking a few cigs a week your addiction can’t be that bad.
lezlers Go back, read my first post. I am in the process of quitting. I to can go for a week, two or a month without a durrie, but i crave them…that is addiction.
But have you asked a non-smoker if they can smell it on you? Merely saying that it doesn’t happen is not the same.
4 smokes per day, how bout you take the challenge then, put your money where your mouth is?
WILLASS, this is probably the list you’ve heard referred to. It actually puts nicotine at 100 and heroin at 80. (Surprisingly, to me, heroin is listed below alcohol, which is 81.) However, I don’t know how reputable the source is, so I won’t comment on that.
Why would I take the challenge, lurks? I don’t want to quit. If I wanted to, I would take the challenge. Someone’s not going to give up something they enjoy merely because someone challenges them to. This isn’t the second grade.
And somehow I find it difficult to believe someone can go for a month without something they’re truly addicted to. That’s not an addiction. That’s weak willpower.
And I think the blatent shock on people’s faces when they find out I smoke is proof enough for me that I don’t smell like a walking ashtray.
Let’s be perfectly clear about this. They’re INTERNAL combustion engines, but they do their thing outside in the open air with a catastrouphic converter.
