[OT] Nicotine - What's your story

[remute99]

Love to smoke. No plans to stop. Heart and lungs like a 20 year old, (ECG and Chect X-Ray to prove it). Athlete, (Junior Olympic level in my teens and twenties), I work out 5 days per week and smoke a pack a day. Feel great and look 10 years younger than I am.

COPD? That's why I'm planning on having a kid soon. Stem cells baby. Science will get me a new pair of lungs and a shiny new liver when the first pair wears out.

Don't hate. Just giving a fresh perspective.

T-

But how old are you?
Always thought that if you minimized all of the other risks (ie obesity, lack of exercise, diet) then smoking could well end up being the lesser of two evils.
I've quit (again) using Champix, easiest it's ever been. The weight gain though...ouch.

[doc holiday]

tobacco free since 1998!!!

it was hard as hell to quit.

[Tone Deft]

started in anger early in college after an all nighter bitch of a homework night, smoked it to the filter, didn't cough and threw the butt at the engineering building. I would try to smoke a pack in a day, never could, but I loved to smoke.

after college I quit on and off, mostly on then I quit. met my wife, she would only smoke when she drank, so I started up again. the next 7 years were me quitting while she was smoking and vice versa. we quit cold turkey at separate times, I don't miss the stench or feelings of addiction. ZERO cravings, been off them for 3 years.

I do miss the ease of meeting people while having a smoke break, you can talk to ANY fellow smoker and you have an excuse to end the conversation when the smoke's over. you also have an excuse to be anywhere outside. I can stand in an empty parking lot at 2am and look suspicious, if I have a smoke I'm taking a smoke break.

[noisetonepause]

Goddess of the murmuring courts,
Nicotine, my Nicotine,
Houri of the mystic sports,
trailing-robed in gabardine,
Gliding where the breath hath glided,
Hidden sylph of filmy veils,
Truth behind the dream is veiléd
E'en as thou art, smiling ever, ever gliding,
Wraith of wraiths, dim lights dividing
Purple, grey, and shadow green
Goddess, Dream-grace, Nicotine.

(Pound)

[LoopStationZebra]

I love smoking. Outside of music it's the most wonderful hobby I've ever had.

[leedsquietman]

It's a pointless, expensive and ultimately futile and ridiculous hobby. You might as well just go outside in a hurricane, open your wallet and watch the ten dollar bills fly away into nothingness band then set fire to a pile of car tires and suck in the fumes.

I can understand smoking weed (in a non nicotine deliver method), there's a high and a calming effect that can bring out mystical things to music and art.

Smoking tobacco ?? You get NO high, and it only calms down those addicted to it. It stinks, it wrecks your health, and it's harder to break the addiction than heroin.

My dad who is a two pack a day smoker, will kill himself way before his time, but he won't stop (it's my right, I like it etc) although when he's had a few beers, he often just confesses to being a hopeless addict.

I wish luck to anyone trying to quit. Anyone wanting to start - it's not cool (hasn't been since the 1960s), it's not big and it's not clever, it will mine you of tons of cash, wreck your health and put you into a 'loser' pool for the majority of the population who won't want to be friends or sleep with you. A few nicotine stained skanks aside the world is getting harder and harder for smokers - no smoking in restaurants or bars, no smoking in the car if there are kids, being relegated to a bus shelter at work in the depths of winter, like a major outcast, etc.

[LoopStationZebra]

It's a pointless, expensive and ultimately futile and ridiculous hobby. You might as well just go outside in a hurricane, open your wallet and watch the ten dollar bills fly away into nothingness band then set fire to a pile of car tires and suck in the fumes.

I can understand smoking weed (in a non nicotine deliver method), there's a high and a calming effect that can bring out mystical things to music and art.

Smoking tobacco ?? You get NO high, and it only calms down those addicted to it. It stinks, it wrecks your health, and it's harder to break the addiction than heroin.

My dad who is a two pack a day smoker, will kill himself way before his time, but he won't stop (it's my right, I like it etc) although when he's had a few beers, he often just confesses to being a hopeless addict.

I wish luck to anyone trying to quit. Anyone wanting to start - it's not cool (hasn't been since the 1960s), it's not big and it's not clever, it will mine you of tons of cash, wreck your health and put you into a 'loser' pool for the majority of the population who won't want to be friends or sleep with you. A few nicotine stained skanks aside

meh. ^ lecture ^ meh.

[leedsquietman]

lectures are what I do - that's the elementary teacher in me coming out !!

Consider yourself told young man

[LoopStationZebra]

lectures are what I do - that's the elementary teacher in me coming out !!

Consider yourself told young man

lol. I was only messing around. I do smoke, and enjoy it, but know that it's horrid for me. I have cut way back though.

[leedsquietman]

That's AWESOME. I am giving you 50 reward points AND a gold sticker !!

[condra]

It took me three attempts to quit. The first time I was off them for about 6 months. The second time, about 9 months. Now, I've been off them over a year and I'm confident that I'll never be a regular smoker again.

I think it's important that smokers realise that quitting may take a few attempts, but you will get "better at quitting" every time.

[Tone Deft]

in the morning it makes the coffee taste even better.
at night it goes great with an adult beverage.
it's a great way to meet chicks
and consolation when you break up.
if you think you have bad breath,
have a smoke now you smell but it's an 'acceptable' stench.

[chevthewizard]

in the morning it makes the coffee taste even better.
at night it goes great with an adult beverage.
it's a great way to meet chicks
and consolation when you break up.
if you think you have bad breath,
have a smoke now you smell but it's an 'acceptable' stench.

i think the social aspect is one of the main reasons to smoke really!

besides from the fact that it's incredibly enjoyable

[smutek]

I tried smoking once or twice prior but didn't start smoking cigarettes until 1991, made it all through high school as a non-smoker though all of my friends smoked and I grew up in a house with smokers. I was pretty hard core against smoking. Never understood the purpose of smoking something that didn't get you high.

Around mid 1990 a friend introduced me to clove cigarettes. These I liked because of the sweet taste and I would smoke them occasionally while at parties or out and about, occasionally I would buy a pack of them but still didn't smoke regularly. Also, the cloves were kind of a pain in the ass to get because they don;t sell them in Maryland for some reason and we would have to drive to DC to get them - so they remained kind of a novelty.

In September of 1990 I went away to photography school in Providence Rhode Island. Cloves were legal and easily accessible here so, being an addictive obsessive compulsive type, I started smoking them regularly and this is where I picked up the habit.

Got kicked out of photography school in December of the same year and came back down to Baltimore. With no way to easily get cloves I eventually bought a pack of camels and have been smoking around a pack a day since.

I've tried to quit a few times. The most success I've ever had was by using welbutren to help me. I quit for about 2 months and then one day, just for the hell of it, I had "1" smoke. It was retarded. I'm a recovering addict and I know better.

The last time I tried to quit was at the end of January this year. I considered trying Chantix but to be honest that shit sounds really scary so I tried cold turkey. I actually did better than I thought for going cold turkey. The wife and I drove down to Rehoboth to stay with my Mom. She'd been smoke free for about 2 months and had quit after 50 years or something crazy - so that was an inspiration.

I made it through the entire weekend with minimal cravings and no feeling of wanting to jump out of my skin. Definitely had the racing thoughts and inability to concentrate, but I felt pretty strong.

Within one hour of being at work, at my desk on Monday, I caved. It was the racing thoughts and inability to concentrate that did me in. I just can't deal with it at work, too much going on, too unorganized, and to easy to make a costly mistake.

I am going to try again this July when I go on vacation. The wife and I are driving down to Raleigh NC to take the jeep out on the beach, camp and hang with some old friends of hers. I'll have 10 days off of work so I should be well over the craziness by the time I get back to work.

I've wanted to quit for a while and as time goes on that desire gets stronger. I rarely enjoy it anymore, I'd say maybe one cigarette out of 20 I actually enjoy, the rest is just going through the motions.

I'm just getting tired of it.

I quit heroin, drinking, and all other drugs 10 years ago (except nicotine and caffeine) and I find quitting smoking to be just as hard as quitting heroin.

With cigarettes I am in that phase that occurs during that period of time where I want to quit, but that desire to quit does not quite outweigh the desire to use... It's just the hugest head fuck.

I suspect though, similar to heroin, that once I do finally make the decision to quit it will turn out to be one of the easier things I have ever managed to do.

Seems really hard, but just comes down to the honest desire to stop, and making the decision to do so.

[funknotik]

I would suggest you save your money, purchase a vaporizer and some marijuana, and enjoy that occasionally. Trust me you will enjoy it much more and it won't damage you at all.

and what is this suppose to do?

does it actually get you high or relax you?

Marijuana gets you high and relaxes you as well my friend. But Vaporizing uses the process of "convection" to extract the THC from the Marijuana plant. Smoking is "combustion" and burns the plant to extract the chemical but also extracts other harmful carcinogens in the process. According to norml maps tests vaporizing involves only 5 chemicals where smoked marijuana can contain up to 200 harmful chemicals. It is also more cost effective. Now smoking cigarettes is completely pointless I would suggest vaporizing marijuana instead.