The weird thing for me is that, although I chewed tobacco for over 8 years and (since I worked in an outside job) had a chew in all day long, quitting was not difficult for me. Losing weight is much more difficult for me than quitting chewing was. I never understood why, since I do understand how bad the nicotine addiction is for most people.
I started smoking when I was a freshman in high school, because it was cool. I smoked the next million cigarettes because I was a slave to an addictive habit.
I tell my son he’ll break my heart if he starts smoking. He tells me he won’t, and he means it.
Let me guess – since then, you’ve either taken up hunting or joined the Marines?
For me, it was pure peer pressure. First from my older sister, then after I quit, from my best friend. “You’re not cool if you don’t smoke” is a powerful message for a 13 year old. Health problems are for old people. Being accepted has benefits Right Now.
Ironically, one reason I keep smoking is because everyone tells me not to. I don’t want to blend in with self-righteous goddy-goodies. Probably not the wisest of attitudes.
Check out this thread for some deja vu. Even the title is almost identical.
Well… I would disagree. Starting smoking was a difficult and long endeavor for me. I hated the taste, I don’t remember any pleasant “buzz”. I just eventually overcame my repulsion and become accustomed to the taste and addicted to nicotine.
I know what kind of “buzz” you’re talking about because I got it each time I started smoking again after quiting (that would be a significant number of times). Though it doesn’t last for a month, but rather just apply to the very first cigarettes. That’s how I could notice that nicotine indeed affect directly one’s brain. But I absolutely don’t remember this “buzz” when I started smoking. Just that it was foul.
Yeah, but it’s a whole year old. Your dinosaur threads couldn’t possibly be relevant to the world today, man. [/bravado]
I was specifically wondering about people who started after the culture at large stopped encouraging people to smoke (as described in straykat23’s post near the top of the thread). Thanks for all the informative replies.
I lived in Mexico as an exchange student when I was 17-18. My host family had a cousin, Hiro (my host family was Japanese-Mexican, which was an interesting twist in itself). Anyway Hiro smoked, and I liked Hiro, and he taught me to smoke. I remember trying to cough my lungs up, and for reasons that totally bewilder me now, I was determined not to let a little thing like coughing stop me, and I persevered until the coughing stopped.
I quit in college, having progressed from ordinary cigarettes to ‘clove’ cigarettes. I couldn’t afford them. I found smoking to be a kind of slavery. I couldn’t be happy without my smoke. I hated feeling that way.
The real irony is that 20 years later, I still occasionally crave a cigarette.
When I first turned 18, one of the first things I did was buy a pack of cigarettes. But not because I really wanted to smoke that much, and I’d had plenty of opportunities to do so before that. But because I wanted to feel like an adult. 
And he didn’t even card me, which made me feel even better.
After that pack, which I didn’t even finish (gave away the last 7 or 8 to homeless people), I didn’t smoke again till about 2 years later, when I smoked lightly for a few months. Basically this time around I was bored and wanted to experience life from a smoker’s point of view. It definitley gave me a lot of perspective - many people will avoid you if you are smoking.
Anyway I never figured out what all the fuss was about as far as the addictiveness of it, because one day I just got bored of it / didn’t feel like spending money on cigarettes anymore, and so I didn’t. And that’s all there was to it.
The same reason adults smoke: cause its cool and it relieves anxiety.
Actually, I started for the second reason.
I’m in the process of quitting again. So far I’m 3 days clean.
I’m another on the “In-for-the-Buzz Crowd”. Started Senior year of High School.
None of my crowd smoked. Was out drinking beer one night with friends. Bummed one from someone who came along. Noticed a nice little buzz. Next time I was out of pot, went to the liquor store, where one could purchase the long Sherman’s
they used to have. Didn’t get carded. The old dudes that worked there had no qualms, ever about selling them. It was a long, slippery slope after that.
“I curse Sir Walter Ralleigh, He was such a stupid Git”…
Dr. Memory-Six monthes "Smober "
I very consciously made the decision to start smoking because I wanted to kill myself, but didn’t have the guts or means to do it directly.
Seriously. I was quite full of self-destructive self-loathing and rage then. And was for quite some time, although it took me years and effort to get up to almost a pack-a-day.
But I definitely started out of a desire to cause myself harm, even if that harm was 50 years away. (This was in 1988 when I started, at the age of 19.)
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It’s cool. Yes, still. Yes, we’ve seen the adds. So? You’ve seen the “your brain on drugs” ads too, haven’t you? Kids still think that smoking (diverse things) is cool.
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In my case, I knew tobacco would have a calming effect. Sure enough, it did.
The reason I didn’t become a smoker is that my pocket money was so short I had to choose between smoking or movies. Movies won.
I suppose I tried cigarettes because it was (pick one):
- forbidden
- things adults did
- things the cool kids did to look adult
Didn’t last long. Consistently made me sicker’n a dog. I did take up cigars years later because I like the taste (vs inhaling them). Mostly gave it up because of the cost but I did find a good cheap cigar that I consume once or twice a week… outdoors…
On a related note: when discussing the health effects of cigarettes it’s a little disheartening to see commercials that say 2nd hand smoke is worse than directly smoking. I’m guessing that makes 3rd hand smoke worse than the plague :rolleyes: It would be nice if they would stick to facts or at least some trendy jingo.
I smoked a few times the first time I went to Europe, but I would have stopped when I returned to Seoul…if my best friend hadn’t started. She’d just returned after a year at Wellsley and a summer in Europe, and the two of us started smoking whenever we went out for drinks or coffee. Neither of us ever became serious smokers, although there will be nights when we smoke like chimneys and managed to finish off a pack. I just really like the taste of a cigarette after I’ve had alcohol or coffee. Those are the only times I really crave one. (Well, sometimes after teaching a classroom full of brats for three hours, I feel a cigarette would be nice, too.)
I started when I was 17, and I don’t know why. I know that i did NOT do it to be cool - I hid it from my friends and family forever. I really picked up my smoking more when I was in college. I was HORRIBLY lonely - I missed my home, and my home smelled like smoke (my dad’s a big-time smoker).
I have always been very nervous, and I find smoking helps me “calm down.” Maybe not chemically, but the action of taking a couple minutes out of my life to stop whatever I am doing and light up and drag…mmmmm.
Most of my friends still don’t smoke. Just me, my dad and my brother. For the first time in my life (i’m 27), I am dating a guy who smokes. It’s not bad - I finally don’t have to worry as much about how I smell. But I notice things seem alot more smoky now since there’s 2 of us smoking
If adults wore diapers and occasionally leaked fecal liquid down their legs, and babies sat on toiletbowls while reading newspapers, guess which group 's behavior I think teenagers would want to emulate?
My wife started smoking at 23 or so, because of stress, social pressure and to get that buzz.
I have offered to start smoking for her, figuring six months would be enough to get good and addicted, and we could quit together, but she has declined my offer.
It seemed cool, dangerous and adult when I was 12. Of course, that coolness has worn off by 35. I do enjoy the feeling, but would like to breathe normally again.
Incendentally, I think about quitting usually because cancer killed my grandmother, father and aunt. I told this to a cow-orker and he replied “It looks to me like you are gonna get cancer no matter what you do, smoke up!” He’s probably right, but I am still gonna try to quit again.
[Cigar smoking woman to friend…]
I started when my husband came home and found one burning in the ashtray.
[/Cigar smoking woman]
I think a lot of it is the ‘It’s an adult’ thing. Society calls you an adult at 18, you can buy cigarettes at 18…hence rite of passage to buy cigarettes. Some of us just keep doing it. (14 year smoker)