Same here. My father smokes, my grandfather used to smoke and my great grandmother used to smoke. It killed my great grandmother, but my grandfather and father are still around. I really don’t like the smell of smoke, so I don’t think I will ever start.
I was watching “Entertainment Tonight” and they had an interview with him from a few years ago and he was saying that he was worried about not being able to sing, etc. and that he couldn’t quit. I had a cigarette in my hand at the time and was brought to reality for a second and then took another drag. And I’m typing this as a cigarette burns in the ashtray, just waiting for me to pick it up when I hit “Submit”. So, no, it won’t make me quit, but I’ll be trying to get pregnant in a few months, so that will make me quit. Everyone does it for personal reasons and that’s mine.
BTW, he had throat and lung cancer, so I think we can pretty much assume with 98% certainty that smoking was the cause, IMHO. No, not everyone that smokes gets cancer, but if you have those particular types of cancers and have smoked most of your life, you’re fooling yourself if you think it wasn’t the cause.
It’s one more reason not to start.
Probably not. I quit for over two years, but started again when my weight shot up to 280 lbs and I felt like death anyway.
Actually, I have no excuse not to quit smoking. I work for one of the largest and best (according to people who rank such things, so it’s not bragging) cancer hospitals in the US. I see the records on hundreds of patients who have smoking-related cancers. Among the benefits offered to employees of the institution is no-cost smoking cessation classes with the patch, and weight-management programs that include support groups and an employee-only gymnasium in the building next to mine. So my only reason to keep smoking is that I just don’t want to quit. When I want to quit, and I want to do it intelligently this time, I will do so.
Robin
Absolutely not. Who wants to live 10 more years in the rest home wetting their pants and not remembering who they are, anyway? I want to enjoy my life, not live a few extra years walking around saying, “Damn! I sure wish I could eat some bacon and smoke a cigarette!”
Carry on.
News Flash!!
The Earth-Pig Born,a fellow I know well and who started this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=91137, has quit smoking. But not because of George keeling over.
Carry on.
I’m not denying that smoking kills. I’m pointing out that we all know it does, and it doesnt take the death of a celebrity to bring it home. I’m also pointing out that non smokers will get cancer too, and that some smokers won’t. No one ever believes it will happen to them, and for every George, someone will produce a great uncle Bill.
Being a smoker and wanting to quit is hard. It’s not something that’s made easier by having non-smokers ragging on you all the time.
I accept that most of the medical studies have merit. I accept that smmoking increases my chances of cancer. Why do you give a rat’s ass as to my health? I know what I am doing. Why don’t you go and run and play with the other kids, now?
There should be a website where you can listen to rock stars singing through false larynxs - you know, those robotic sounding throat devices some cancer victims get fitted with.
I believe that increasing numbers of rock star deaths from smoking will actually result in more people choosing to smoke. An early, smoking related death will be a fatalistic choice some people will make because it will seem to mirror the life pattern of the people or person they most admired. Such deaths will be seen to be “built in” to the rock mythos. When Jimmy Page dies of cancer, for instance, I’ll probably see it as the price he paid for being a risk taker. He’ll be remembered for risk taking (a.k.a smoking), his good looks, the occult, and incredible music. I gave up smoking years ago, I must say, but that was only because I developed an allergy to it. Incredible but true none the less.
Mmmm…don’t get me wrong but wasn’t Nachos4Sara very vocal on her lack of finances during the whole ‘pay to post’ thing.
Mmmm…I was sympathetic to her. But now I read that she spends her sparse money on smoking??
Sara, if you gave up that disgusting habit you might have some more money, just a thought.
(forgive me, but this is a subject that upsets me. If you spend your money on cigarettes you have No right whatsoever to complain about not making ends meet etc. I mean how can you believe that someone can hardly afford to feed themself and they are spending money on cigarettes?. I don’t think so! So Sara has lost all my sympathy I am afraid. I am sure she won’t lose any sleep over it.)
It’s sorta bothersome that a smoker would bring up asbestos as an example of risk, when the link between cancer and undisturbed asbetos insulation is so tenuous that it is laughable.
While it is true that no one can prove how the cancer that George died from came about, smoking certainly was a large risk factor. But with tens of thousands of ordinary people likely dying each year from smoking, I don’t why anyone would suddenly change their minds about the issue just because someone famous dies.
Infectious Lass - I don’t think that the finances thing was proper to bring up here. I guess we could also ask Nacho if she is using single or double-ply toilet paper too, and see if she is wasting money there. And people can jump in and ask if she ever eats out, when one can buy a hundred-pound bag of rice for $100 and eat for 4 months, rather than spend money on meat and vegetables…but I digress.
I’m sorry, MonkeyMensch, I don’t remember expressing any concerns about your health or your personal smoking habit.
I was responding to several posters immediate questioning about smoking having anything to do with Harrison’s death and the usual trotted out stories about smokers living to a ripe old age. Too many say they realize that they are increasing their chances of cancer and a host of other diseases, but don’t actually believe it will happen to them or people they know. I say these people are kidding themselves and need to face up to it that they are not special or excluded from the medical facts.
You chose to take these comments as addressed to you and join this thread all on your own. Did you recognise yourself?
Hmmm. An attempt to belittle me in the hope that it will devalue my point. If you don’t want to talk about it then why are you reading this thread? Feel free to go back to your smoking.
Now my eyes have been opened! To-do: buy a hundred pound bag of rice to last four months, switch to one-ply TP, (thanks Anth!), quit smoking, drop out of college, default on my student loans, and flee to Mexico to avoid the collection agencies. YES! Now I can afford the SDMB!
Give me a fucking break. I never said I couldn’t afford to feed myself. I said WHEN and IF I have extra money, I prefer to send it to my loan company or other related bills so I won’t be in debt for the next thirty years.
If you really want to delve deeply into my personal finances (I could send you my budget for the next six months if that would make you happy), maybe you should get my name right.
Infectious Lass,
Just to bring home Sara’s point, nicotine is an addiction. It’s very difficult to quit and money is generally spent on cigarettes before anything else. I think Harrison’s dying of throat and lung cancer proves that quitting is hard under any circumstances.
Nah. I don’t smoke anything legal anything.
Exactly. Despite the claim by the federal government some years back that raising cigarette tarrifs was part of their campaign to help kids not smoke, no one has ever been miraculously cured of an addiction by it’s being expensive.
I quit when my therapist’s husband died of lung cancer about two years after quitting. I thought if god was going to spare anyone, it would have been him. After that I figured I was on my own. When I actually started to think of the tobacco companies as people who were out to kill me for a profit, I was able to quit.
<<<No, George’s death will not make me quit smoking. I understand that it’s not the healthiest of habits but neither is drinking and thousands of people die because of that everyday too.>>>>
That is SO idiotic! Seriously, trying to defend one kind of evil stupidity by comparing it to another. Yes, smoking kills. Yes, alcohol kills too. So here’s a wild, crazy idea:
DON’T PUT EITHER OF THEM IN YOUR BODY!
Nuff said.
And for all of you who whinge about “quitting would be too hard, no WAY slow death could be worse!” Well, my mother quit 20 years ago BEFORE Nicorette or any of that mumbo-jumbo, with nothing to get her through it except that she wanted her unborn daughter not to die! So if she can, and with SO MANY quit products out, that excuse is just lame.
And if you want an incentive to quit, go find one of those people who smoked our their larynxes. Listen to them talk like a Cyberman. Feel immensely creeped out (in fact that first time I heard one I seriously wanted to run away). That should help.
And for all of you who whinge about “quitting would be too hard, no WAY slow death could be worse!” Well, my mother quit 20 years ago BEFORE Nicorette or any of that mumbo-jumbo, with nothing to get her through it except that she wanted her unborn daughter not to die!
Well, let’s all admire her sheer strength of will. Equally, however, let’s all wallow is self-misery and punishment because those of us who smoke are obviously losers. For those of us who don’t, let’s look down smugly on those smoking losers. Yes, life is wonderful when you’re perfect.
>So if she can, and with SO MANY quit products out, that excuse is just lame.
Yeah, try being a pack-a-day smoker for ten years and see if “lame” and “whiny” are words you’d use when attempting to quit.
>And if you want an incentive to quit, go find one of those people who smoked our their larynxes. . .That should help.
But smokers should just quit cold turkey, right? This is plan B? You have it all figured out for us. Thanks!
Seriously, smoking is a strong addiction and a majority of smokers have difficulty when they want to quit. You shouldn’t rag on smokers, regardless of whether or not it’s well-known that cigarettes are unhealthy. No one is perfect and we all make decisions we later regret. Most people start smoking in their early or mid-teens. Some bad decisions have longer-lasting results is all. . .
I don’t smoke. This has nothing to do with scare tactics, Church, or my financial state. I just decided, when all my friends started, that I didn’t like the taste, and since I was the school geek anyway, I had nothing to lose in the “Cool” department.
Thank God!
I was brought up by smokers and have lived with Mr zoogirl’s smoke for twenty-one years, so my lungs aren’t exactly christal clear, but at least I have a chance. The last couple of years the Canadian government has required that 1/3 of the front of cigarette packs be taken up by a printed warning. Now some of them feature full colour pictures of mouth and lung cancers. Just lovely! I wish Mr zoogirl would quit, but since I’ve never been through it, I find it hard to push him on it. I can only imagine how hard it would be.
My Mom died of multiple organ failure, largely caused by alchoholism. I never liked to drink since it makes me really quiet. I am FAR more uninhibited sober! I would have a beer if everyone else was, but never more than three, tops. Actually, three was a rarity. Even so, about a month after Mom died, I had a glass of wine from a bottle she left, and simply never drank again. No big decision, no struggle, just no. That was more than six years ago. Now, I KNOW, even though I didn’t like to drink, I probably would have kept having the one or two beers when I went out. It took her death to make me quit. Sure, what I’ve described is nothing like the hell of quitting smoking, but the point I’m trying to make is that it does sometimes take a death for us to look at what we’re doing. Maybe George’s death will be just that final push for someone. I hope so. I suspect, from what I’ve heard, that it would have made him happy.