And I screwed up the italics.
Well, guess what? Constant bitching at smokers you don’t know, smokers you meet at the bar, or people on-line who will never be close enough to you to make you worry about second hand smoke does not atone for this. It only annoys us. Please stop.
That is very sad, but it was her choice. It was not your responsibility to tell your mom what to do. And if it is any counselation, she wouldn’t have listened. You quit when you’re ready…
He is full of shit as much as he is full of himself. He can say it is very likely that smoking caused it, he can say it made it worse without a doubt, but he cannot guarantee the cause of anything!
You mention giving a child a handgun. I said that your mom is not a child, and if an adult has a legal firearms, comparing that to a child having the firearms is rather stupid, unless your mom was retarded and unable to think as an adult.
Oh, and I am not telling you how to feel. I am telling you to shut up. And I am telling you that you are acting like you feel guilty, and I surmise that you feel this way over things which go beyond tobacco. But you cannot point to a place where IO tell you how you should feel…
I do not get mad at you because I choose or chose to smoke. I get mad when you and your kind (the crowd at alt.smokers calls you “anti-smokers”) crusade against it like you do.
You not only got the planes, you got the airports, the cabs, the busses, trains, and a lot of restaurants and even bars and streets! As in, in the open air!!
Well, I’m all for people who do not smoke being able to avoid smokers in enclosed spaces, but I am not for smokers being made to feel like third-class citizens!
I quit smoking, and I am smart enough to know the damage it causes, but I have no problem avoiding smoke if I want and I have no need to tell someone else how to live their life.
I did quit, but I refuse to become an “anti-smoker.” I am simple someone who chooses not to smoke. That apparently isn’t enough for you, Bjorn and your like. And that pisses me off…
Two things:
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Remember back when someone you didn’t know made you feel like shit for smoking - How much you were thinking they should shut the hell up and you never asked their opinion.
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If you know the lure of cigarettes, how can you fault others for indulging? I would never fault someone the same things I myself feel… Sounds pretty hypocritical to me!
Just quit jumping into traffic and you have nothing to worry about!
I think everyone could benefit, just some more than others. I’m glad you are seeing someone. Get well…
Cool! I get the last word!
satan: you quit? good for you. why did you quit? even better, why did you start again? you wanted to quit for some reason…and then you forgot about it…what made you do that?
a tiny story from a friend of mine: he, his sister and his dad all stopped smoking. now 1½ years later both his dad and his sister have started smoking again. sometimes he wakes up in the morning because his sister is in the other end of the house lighting up a cig. the smell in their appartment is disgusting, and no place for an ex-smoker. now they are moving and my friend is insisting that his sister and dad will not smoke in their new appartment because he thinks it is the least they can do to respect the fact that he managed to quit smoking, and stay quit.
i want to remind you of what i said earlier, i dont care if you smoke, just dont do it anywhere near people who dont smoke. that includes restaurants, planes, airports, cars…whereever. because the smell doesnt go away. you talk about bars and stuff in the open air, well it aint so open when you are surrounded by smokers, ill tell you that much.
id say in answer to “why the hell does anyone smoke”…its an addiction, they cant help it, but bloody hell, i and alot of other people arent.
just get it through your smoke filled skull now, dont light a cig anywhere near another person, not even in your own house. and a word to everybody else, if someone starts smoking near you, go away, or just politely say “excuse me for a moment, i dont want to be near you when you smoke, could you either put that out or smoke somewhere else.” if the person smoking doesnt put it out or moves away, then the smoking person is demonstrating how he/she feels about other people.
and no, i bloody well am not going to see it from you point of view. its you who are violating my personal sphere.
and now, please be stupid enough to argue with me!
I wouldn’t have a problem with you rallying against perfume. It’s your right to do so.
Your comments seem to imply “too bad about you” regarding my allery to cigarette smoke. It’s obvious that you don’t care about me. Most people I don’t know don’t care about me. That’s why I’m my own biggest advocate (with the possible exception of my mother and, sometimes, my father and boyfriend) ;). When I have children, I won’t want them breathing second-hand smoke either and I’ll fight tooth and nail for them.
The thing about smoking though is that it doesn’t only hurt the people who are allergic to it. It hurts everyone. If, tomorrow, they discovered that CK1 can cancer to a significant portion of the wearers and those who smelled it, you bet I would be in the anti-CK1 camp.
True, some industrial pollution causes much more deteriment than smoking. Don’t think I’m not angry about that either!
As for jumping out of planes and such, I don’t mind that. As long as the people know the risks, they can do whatever they want as long as they’re not knowingly hurting innocent people. If someone plays chicken with a train and gets killed, I see it more as a “thinning of the herd” than some kind of tragedy. They were dumb enough to play chicken with a train and they killed themselves. Oh well.
With things like smoking and driving drunk, you’re placing other people at risk. I’ll speak out about that. Actually, driving drunk, IMO, is worse than smoking, but I’ll still speak out against either of them.
ShavaunJ, you do so stink–smokers never smell their own odor, and after they quit are amazed and embarrassed at how they smelled. I can smell you right through my computer screen.
Shirl, I don’t have a citation on lung cancer (not all cancers, only lung) having risen dramatically after WWI, I have just read it in several medical journals.
Manhattan, good for you! I am keeping my fingers crossed.
Come back, kelli! I agree with Bjorn, too, he makes a lot of sense on this thread! I’ve disagreed with lots of people on one thread and found them to be quite sensible on others . . .
And as for you unapologetic smokers like Shavaun, BeerUser and Shirley–please, please, keep smoking! Constantly! I’ll buy you some! Never take those cigs out of your mouth! You’ll be silenced for good, and will leave the rest of us to enjoy a better, cleaner world.
I quit for about seven months. A trip to New York, where I smoked when I lived there, and thanks to archaic laws telling people they cannot have a smoking area in their building, I walked around Manhattan surrounded by smokers. Not just people smoking either, but people who have been in their office all day, probably wanted a smoke for a couple of hours and coundn’t get away until some boss was appeased, so they all were, like, smoking! Like it was the best thing in the world! Inhale… Hold… Release in a whoosh… Ahhhhhhhhh!
So I bought a pack, figuring I would just smoke while there. After five days of this, I got back, lasted promptly six minutes, bummed smokes off co-workers until they wanted me dead, and next thing I know, I’m back up to two packs a day.
So I renewed my Zyban and I quit again. I am doing fine. It has everything to do with finances, very little to do with health reasons. That’s my decision, not made to appease you, my mom’s memory, or some insurance company. I hope either to remain smoke free or to have Marlboro promise me free cigarettes for life. Until then, I’ve got better ways to spend my money.
Well guess what, Mensa boy - I think there are sufficient places for you to go and be smoke free. It is far easier in these times where tobacco is a bigger threat to humanity than AIDS, the Black Death and Communism ever could be or was to find a place where you don’t have to deal with smoke than to find a place to smoke.
If you come up to me on the street and ask me not to smoke, I will tell you to fuck off. If I am the smoking section of a restaurant and you tell me not to smoke, I will tell you to fuck off. If I am in the smoking section of an internationall flight and you tell me i can’t smoke, I will tell you… Well, you get the picture.
Just as you will not see me light up in your house when I smoked, if you do not wish to spend time with me in mine because I smoke there, well, that’s your loss.
Even as a non-smoker I am now, I do not have problems with smoke. People blow smoke in my face and I see bands live all the time in bars for my job. I guess I’m just not as weak as your family members. Or aybe I just remember what it was like. Whatever…
The point is I’m all for non-smokers rights, but you anti-smokers seem totally against any rights for smokers, even when the rights smokers want still give you plenty of places to avoid us if it offends. Well, maybe there are some hardcore folks who want to smoke in elevators, but I’m talking reasonable things. And the screams of kellibelli and yourself (and your kind) are anything but tolerant.
So your personal space is in my house all of a sudden? You can either pay my rent or play hide and go fuck yourself.
I maintain that in public, there are far more places to be smoke-free than to be able to smoke. Yet, you anti-smokers still want more. Face it, you want tobacco to be outlawed and for it not to exist.
Well, it does. And if they tried to get rid of it, it would be like prohibition in the '30s in America. So learn to live with it, like smokers have learned to live with long flights they cannot smoke in, restaurants they cannot smoke in, and assholes like you who want to take even more rights away from them.
You’re right. I can’t argue with someone who is so set in their ways that they cannot realize that they can have their rights without trampling on the rights of others. I can’t argue with someone whose attitude and rudeness is far more harmful and than 15 seconds of second-hand smoke would ever be. And I sure can’t argue with someone who reacts emotionally to an issue when looking at it with common sense is the more prudent choice.
In a nutshell: I am all for non-smokers rights. You are against any and all smokers rights. Who is the inflexible party here?
Sigh…I hate fighting with Flora, even in the Pit. We agree on everything except tobacco and Lupe Velez.
You’re not planning on dying? Like Doc Daneeka said, “Where the hell else do you think you’re headed?”
The “You smoke and you’re going to die, I don’t and I won’t” thing is startin’ to bug me.
Uke
that was a horrible thing to say.
Shame on you.
I dont care what a jerk someone is, there is SOMEONE out there that loves them, and would suffer untold pain at their death.
you should be truly ashamed of yourself for saying a thing like that after you have read what I am going through with my mom…that is the most offensive post I have ever read.
you sicken me.
I have often warned my children not to wish harm on others, as it will come right back at you.
And to the ‘pro-smokers’, I wish you would quit, I admire those who have, and if you choose to continue…I truly wish you the best of health, and I hope you live long productive lives.I mean that with my whole heart.
I should type faster…
This is the post I was offended by.
hey satan…“hide and go fuck yourself”…please, stop–I just blew pop out my nose!
And as for you Flora… You start a post asking why people smoke. You have been given ample reasons from smokers and ex-smokers and even people who simply knew smokers and didn’t have their head up their ass (first-hand anal vapors are preferable to second-hand smoke, of course), yet you still act arrogant and as ignorant as when you asked th question.
Do not ask a question if you think you’re not going to like the answer. And do not keep badgering people with commentary th6t shows you never intended on listening in the first place…
What? Nothing for me? was it the pop crack?
Do you like me now? (teasing)
This IS the BBQ Pit, isn’t it? Did I accidentally wander into Satan’s Sunday afternoon tea party? So sorry! Thought you people could dish it out AND take it, guess I was wrong.
Kelli, I did think twice about you before I posted, but I tried to word it specifically to those three people–the ones who are PROUD of the fact that they smoke, consequences be damned and screw you anti-smokers. I’ve made it very clear that I feel sorry for those who are hooked and who want to quit.
Satan, I HAVE thanked smokers for enlightening me on certain topics–no one has changed my mind on anything, because nothing mind-changing has been posted.
And dear Ike, we can disagree and not hate each other! Yes, I plan on dying–but I don’t plan on taking anyone else with me by blowing poison in their faces.
Kelli, there is really no one in the entire world you have ever wished ill? “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
I’ll see y’all in General Questions, I guess none of you are Fit for the Pit . . .
only my ex-inlaws, but not publicly…until now.and I dont wish them dead…just a nasty rash on their ASS!
I also wont call in to work and say that someone died…bad Karma.
I see…but you wish them dead?
Look, satan and I got into it pretty good, and we never resorted to death wishes…
why dont you trot on along and we will catch up later.
" Hey Teacher! Flora is putting chunks of ice in her snowballs again…I dont want to play with her anymore!-She’s bad!"
Kelli, I know this is an emotionmal issue for you–me too, as my mom has serious breathing problems from my father’s smoking (which killed him). I don’t “wish” smokers dead. But I do think that anyone who has started to smoke since the late 1960s, when it became widely known that it would kill you, does indeed deserve whatever they get. People our parents’ age, who were tricked into it, are pretty much blameless. Someone in their 20s who started smoking in, say, 1990, I’ll have no sympathy for when they get sick and die. “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”
P.S. There is no such thing as “Karma.”
Flora - Are you implying that I must call you a douche bag cunt-lipped shit-fucker to make a point here?
It seems to me that you just don’t get it.
Maybe because you lack the intellectual prowess to comprehend that I don’t have to resort to childish name-calling (no matter how fun it is) to flame you.
Because, you see, I have taken everything that has been dished out by guilt-ridden Prozac addicts like kellibelli, Hitler-esque anti-smokers like Bjorn, and now, meaningless horse poop from you, someone who, from the posts here, I gather simply likes hitting “Submit Reply” and reading it back over and over to yourself to justify your existence.
And I’d say I dished it out rather nicely, IMHO. You may differ, but hey, that would just make you wrong bout one other thing. Like spitting in the ocean, I sumbmit…
I’d suggest you head over to General Questions now, darling… Because if you wish to get into a battle of wits, you are sadly lacking the fire power to do so.
My, what as THAT all about, Satan? Run short of ciggies?
I’m beginning to rethink my planned trip to hell if it is run by such a hissy, delicate little person. If you’d like to question my posts individually, point by point, I’d be happy to debate. But calling me naughty names neither makes a point, upsets me, nor enlightens or amuses our readers. I may be a Lady, but I have read enough graffiti to have seen all those words, dear.
Now. Is there something SPECIFIC you’d like to ask me?
my oh my…you have been busy
well now, ive got to start somewhere, so…
flora: quite early in this topic you were saying something like
well, i belive you got what you wanted.
and now from the mists of smoke, satan:
i have simply one thing to say about that, no thank you!
do you leave your personal sphere at home when you go to work, or…? that might explain alot, you know.
of course it is. i dont want anything to do with your decision.
no thank you!
as you put it, i am the inflexible party. but you are the illiterate one. im not talking about rights and stuff, i dont care if it is your decision to smoke, just dont do it anywhere near me or any person who doesnt want it. thats the only rule that should be made about this particular subject.
and that includes places where the smell lingers after you go.
now thats a direct similation of a person to something as negative as hitler and a drug addict. i think that calls for a delete from a moderator.
from the rules:
You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this BB to post any material which is:
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knowingly false and/or defamatory,
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inaccurate,
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abusive,
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vulgar,
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hateful,
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harassing,
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obscene,
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profane,
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sexually oriented,
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threatening,
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invasive of a person’s privacy,
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or otherwise violative of any law.
i belive you broken rule number 1 and possibly number 5 as well.
one last thing satan, for comforts. smoking breaks more of theese rules than you do.
Gee, why does everyone seem to dislike Bjorn? Seems like a nice guy to me . . . .
I know I’m almost certainly going to regret this, but what the hell – no pain, no gain.
First, a little background. I am an ex-smoker. At one point, I went through upwards of a pack and half a day. Had my first cigarette when I was – lemmesee – yeah, seven. I believe it was the same morning I tried to set fire to the schoolhouse. However, I’m not saying one necessarily had anything to do with the other.
Didn’t have my second one until I was about 13. By the time I was 18, I was hooked. Both my father & mother smoked, as well as both my older brothers; strangely (or perhaps not) my older sister never smoked.
I tried several different methods for quitting, including individual therapy, group therapy, etc. What finally worked for me was identifying time periods when I could go without smoking and then gradually expanding them as I progressed. My primary adjustment was, I would only allow myself to smoke when I was at home. Never carried smokes or lighter out in public; however, I’m the first to admit that, if I was with someone who smoked, I’d often bum one from them (and later buy them a whole pack) to get by. Eventually, I was able to resist the urge to bum one, as long as I stayed upwind from my smoking friends.
I should also point out that, since I work close to home (8 minutes by car) if my ‘jones’ came down bad I could always manage to hold off until either lunch or the end of the day.
When I finally had myself disciplined to only smoke at home, I began cutting out certain time periods. The first was easy – I swore to myself,“I shall not smoke between the time I go to bed and the time I get up in the morning!” Yeah, now that’s whatcha call real moral backbone, huh?
Actually, up to that time, I often got up in the middle of the night to whiz, and took the opportunity to smoke one then, too.
After I mastered that, I started taking periods out of the day. Wednesday from noon to bedtime. Then Wednesday and Friday. Then all day Thursday. Then all day Tuesday and Thursday. I found that, if I could just keep focused on the next smoking period, the non-smoking ones weren’t really that much of a hassle. Then I tried not smoking from 6 p.m. Friday to Monday morning. As I gradually eliminated other days of the week, I was somewhat surprised to discover I didn’t seem to be suffering much from withdrawal. I had occasional restless nights, but a couple of aspirin were usually enough to ease the craving pains.
Finally, I got to a point where I didn’t smoke from Monday to Friday, but ONLY smoked from Friday evening to Monday morning, the reverse of what I had done at one point. Then I eliminated Sunday evening. And gradually I cut back to just Friday night, if I wanted to, because my then I had reached a point where I not only wanted to quit completely, I also knew that I could.
Now, having said all that, I will also say this. While I was trying to quit, I replayed an old record I have – it’s by Baba Ram Dass (formerly known as Richard Alpert, the guy who introduced America to LSD with Timothy Leary). On his “Love, Serve, Remember” album, he’s giving advice (on a radio phone-in talkshow) to a wannabe non-smoker who constantly finds himself backsliding (like someone we ex-smokers probably ALL know). The essence of his advice was something like,“Well, don’t be addicted to smoking, but don’t be entirely addicted to NOT smoking, either. If you find yourself out somewhere, and you really, really want to smoke, sort of step outside yourself and say something like,‘Well, here I am, God, smoking again’ and make the act into a sort of offering to God. But don’t bash yourself over the head about it, and remember that when you’re NOT smoking that that’s also your offering to God”. That struck me at the time as being eminently sane and I have followed it to this day, vis., when I’m sitting down with my girlfriend (who lives in my house, but in the downstairs apartment I set up for her and her daughter) and I feel like it, I’ll still bum one.
One or two smokes over a period of several days, I have no problem with, especially since it’s in my house. I still never smoke in public, though.
My mother died of congestive heart failure about 9 years ago, at the age of 69. Much of the last eight or nine years of her life she spent at the end of a 20-ft plastic tube connected to an oxygen generator, and she never denied greatly regretting taking up smoking and knew it had deprived her of a great deal of life. She lived long enough to see her grandson, but lamented (toward the end) that she knew she would never see him grow up.
I live in, and work for the government of, Kentucky, a state as slavishly addicted to tobacco money as any that has ever been (well, maybe excepting North Carolina). Fortunately, tobacco makes up a smaller and smaller part of the state’s economy with each passing year. If there’s any place that supports the idea of “smokers’ rights”, this is probably it, since a goodly number of the state legislators rely on it for income and get downright fascistic about it.
But “smokers’ rights” are bullshit. There are no such things as “smokers’ rights”, with apologies to Satan and the rest of you. What you have are the same rights as everyone who doesn’t smoke – the presumptive right under both statutory and common law to breathe air that is not polluted and to work under conditions that are not harmful to your health.
That’s not to say that I don’t think some accomodations can’t be made for smokers, but as the ones with the bad habit, they ought to be the ones who make the adjustments. In every office of state government, there’s a room set aside for smokers with a big freakin’ Smokeeter going full blast, and it’s hopeless – the room still smells like an ashtray. Furthermore, the geniuses who set it up have the exhaust vented from the room over to the front wall of the building, where it emerges ten feet from my car. Even on a windy day (due to the shape of the building), I can go out there and the air can be crystal clear – and unbreathable. What really pisses me off, though, are the idiots who stand just outside the front doors of the building, filling the air with pollution, as if the place has been designated a smoking area. I do not see why I or anyone else should have to walk through a cloud of someone’s smoke to enter or leave a building. If they can’t be bothered to walk an extra 20 feet away from the entrance, I should be able to ‘give in to the call’ and pee all over their shoes when the need strikes, rather than go all the way indoors to the men’s room. I mean, isn’t urination a much more natural function than smoking?
When someone smokes around me in an undesignated public place, without having the courtesy to ask first, I don’t ask them to quit – I just don’t feel constrained to hold in my farts. And, believe me, I GET EVEN!
And, don’t even get me started on the number of cigarette butts littering the building around every entrance – even the ones where there ARE ashtrays. Smokers have turned the building into a pigsty – but try suggesting that they clean up after themselves. Just try . . .