If only you knew Betty, if only you knew...
This is a stark reminder: women smokers lose 14.5 years off their life span.
I'm going to disclose a little, shameful secret: I'm a smoker. Well, not your average pack-of-cigarettes-a-day smoker, but depending on my stress level, I can be a pack-of-cigarettes-a-week smoker. And I hate it. I've been smoking casually, socially, whatever you want to call it, for over 10 years.
But that "I'm a social smoker" excuse is a complete cop-out. I'm in the process of trying to quit, and if you're a smoker, this is a great time to kick the gross-ass habit too. Reasons? Gee, let's see...
Are there any former smokers out there who can share their quitting stories? I know I can use all the help I can get.
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I have crohn's disease so smoking for me is especially bad but I can't shake it.
I think the hardest thing to do is to WANT to quit. If I woke up tomorrow free of the physical addiction, a huge part of me would want a cigarette. Not even a psychological addiction. I like to smoke when I have a slurpee or when I'm drinking. I like the smell, the feel and the taste.
I think it's getting past those routine things and no longer wanting a smoke that's the problem.
I've tried to quit three times. Over Christmas break from work I'm doing round four. Hopefully it works.
It really is more due to the routine than anything. The physical addiction/withdrawal is over relatively quickly. The problem is that it becomes so natural. I used to smoke pretty regularly for about three/four years. I will still have a few if i'm out having a few drinks or every great once an awhile if I'm out to dinner with a friend who smokes. Once I got out of the habit of doing things like, driving and lighting up a cigarette, smoking while having a cup of coffee etc it was a lot easier. Still though, if I see someone smoking on TV it makes me crave one.
Advice:
Be aware of all the times you smoke, in the car, while out to dinner etc. and remind yourself that you may want one but and maybe bring along gum or something else to hold in your fingers instead.
I dont like using the patch and stuff unless necessary, such as a real stressful situation, where you know the cravings will be bad.
If there are certain places that are tied to smoking, example: certain coffee shops...try to avoid them at least at first.
Take an advice for AA/NA, one day at a time etc. Just focus on not smoking at the moment, don't worry about what might happen later in the week that will make you want to smoke or far away it seems. Be aware of your triggers and how to prevent them but keep yourself in the moment so it doesn't seem so overwhelming.
I quit smoking two years ago this coming January, after having smoked for over 15. I'd suggest you don't think of quitting smoking as a process, but as an event. You either smoke, or you don't: there's no halfway 'I'm in the process of quitting.' Look at your pack of cigarettes, say to yourself 'This is my last pack of cigarettes; once it's done, I'm no longer smoking.' And then...do it. No bumming cigarettes from friends, no having just a puff on someone else's friends, don't even go stand outside with the smokers, for at least a few weeks.
It helped me to look around at other smokers, especially those a bit older than me, and ask myself 'Is that who I want to be? Do I want the world to see me the way it sees them?'
It may also help you if Jessica got herself knocked up. My last cigarette was 6 days after the birth of my first nephew. I didn't want to be the aunt who smoked.
At one point I considered getting myself a pet bird, since you can't smoke around them.
As soon as the family doesnt drive me crazy, I am done with college, and patriarchy and ignorance are no longer around... then I will stop smoking
Until then, I will continue in order to keep my sanity.
As soon as the family doesnt drive me crazy, I am done with college, and patriarchy and ignorance are no longer around... then I will stop smoking
Until then, I will continue in order to keep my sanity.
My mother started smoking at 19. She was fit and vigorous into her fifties, smoking a pack a day, until her dignosis for hypertension. Then she had her first heart attack; then her second. So finally she screwed up the courage to do what she didn't think she could: to quit.
Seven months later, she was diagnosed with lung cancer, found only in stage 4, with mets all over her brain. This week is the ninth anniversary of the diagnosis.
She lost the use of her right arm. Massive steriods cured that. Then the steriods caused delusional episodes. She spiraled down. She was bedridden for months. Catheterized. On morphine, asleep much of the time and in pain the rest. She developed thrush. My father sobbed uncontrollably every day. Then she died. She was 58.
My mother had three full siblings, all regular smokers. Three of the four died of lung, heart of circulatory ailments before reaching 65.
Don't quit later. Later is never. Quit now.
Wow!I'll keep that in mind. I'm not an addict, but lately picked up a pack of cigarrettes because I have an anxiety disorder and it makes me need to either a.) drink, b.) smoke, c.) or try out other drugs. I do this only occasionally (one a month), but as a new smoker I should probably think about your last post. I dont do the marlboros, but the clove kreteks and occassionally a shisha pipe (of which I'm not quitting).
Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs out there so I would recommend trying other drugs. Just a thought. :)
WTF.
Yes, nicotine is addictive and yes, cigarettes are bad for you and make eventual health problems a lot more likely, but honestly, if you're picking up a pack of cigarettes instead of picking up "other drugs," I say keep it right the fuck up. I can't believe anyone would advise you to give up a habit that, in the immediate, is relatively harmless, and is being used to mitigate a tough situation... I'm not saying it's a good thing to start (or keep) smoking, but sometimes if you're up against a wall, you have to prioritize.
I think the lyndorr was just trying to point out that there are much much less harmful drugs out there than nicotine, drugs that don't have nearly such as high mortality rates (alcohol and nicotine have the highest mortality rates from use)...and that perhaps some less harmful drug could have the same effect as relieving stress. I don't think she was trying to imply that people are "wrong" or "bad" for trying to self medicate.
Thank-you. Yes, all I've read shows THC in marijuana for example to be much less addictive than nicotine. It's more likely it can be smoked just once a month without getting addicted. Of course it's illegal but apparently was made illegal in the '30s based on exaggerated stories of it's effects. See Reefer Madness.
I'm not unaware of many arguments in favor of marijuana usage in this circumstance. There are some good reasons to consider its usage, and some very good ones to be disinclined to it as well (such as the very fact of its illegality, for example). I don't think that's a choice anyone should be making for anyone else -- if someone is self-medicating a situation with cigarettes as opposed to pot, I don't think anyone should be saying that they've made the "wrong" choice there and that they "should" switch.
It's been proven that marijuana has medical benefits (pain, nausea, psychiatry, etc). Which would explain why so many people self-medicate with it. There are plenty of arguments to make the case that marijuana is a much safer drug than nicotine, and if it were decriminalized/legalized many people would switch over to it from much more harmful drugs such as alcohol and nicotine essentially making pot decrim/legalization a harm reduction argument.
Unfortunately because of government propaganda over the decades, we have a largely ignorant public that is not aware of the history behind marijuana criminalization, it's safety and benefits.
Pot's illegality, is founded in racism and profit motives as well as corrupt politicians and ignorance. BigPharma doesn't want to compete with a medicine that people can grow in their backyards, other industries (paper) don't want to compete with a hemp industry. In the 80's right after IranContra, it was also revealed that the CIA was importing crack/cocaine into poor & minority neighborhoods, a practice which I'm sure still continues to this day. For those who say "I don't want to advocate something that is illegal", consider this, many things that were morally wrong or just plain stupid used to be illegal/legal, that is until the law was able to be corrected. So, just because the government says so, doesn't make it automatically right. To put it simply, prohibition & the drug war causes far more damage to our society than the actual drugs themselves.
forgot this link: http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html
While I agree that the whole "war on drugs" is ridiculous and that marijuana can have some health/pain benefits I am not a big fan. I have seen some really negative changes in people after they started smoking weed and though I can't prove the drug caused the changes I believe it did. I also think that it is more addictive than has been recognized and that the weed people are smoking now is very different than the weed people smoked in the 60's. I also know people who have smoked weed that had other drugs mixed into it and who had not been told and had very bad reactions and many people have had paranoid experiences caused by just regular weed, so I wouldn't state that weed is better than cigarettes. Weed has also been found to damage lungs, by the way. Because weed is illegal there is a risk involved in using it, because of that risk you can't use it in the kind of social situations you could cigarettes, and the stigma attached to it means if your boss or coworkers or mother in law catches a whiff you could have a tough time ahead. Oh, and since it also can impair your ability to drive and to do certain jobs it does not have as wide of a range of times that you can do it. I think everyone just needs to do some research and than make their own decision about if using drugs is worth it to them, and if so what drugs they will use.
I wish more accurate information was offered in school so that people could make educated decisions about whether to use drugs and which drugs to use. Of course marijuana can have bad effects since it is a drug. Caffeine can cause addiction too. However, I do think there is a big bias against marijuana simply because it's illegal whereas alcohol use is pretty accepted. I haven't heard of anyone overdosing on marijuana or becoming violent while on marijuana while alcohol is blamed for many deaths and much violence every year. It scares me how carelessly people binge drink.
P.S. Just for the record, nicotine is not what's in cigarettes that kills you -- it's all the other stuff that comes along with smoking that does. Nicotine is just what makes you want to keep smoking enough that the bad stuff builds up enough to hurt you.
Uh yes, in the following post, that is why I mention smokeless tobacco, a form of tobacco harm reduction. It's not the nicotine that kills you, it's the smoking that has so many chemicals and toxins.
Sorry, that was basically a response to the "drugs out there much less harmful than nicotine" comment.
Gopher, I have an anxiety disorder, too, and used cigarettes for a long time to avoid/stop panic attacks. When I decided to quit, I went to one of those smoking cessation courses run by a nurse and she told me something very interesting: It isn't the cigarette that makes you less anxious. It is the breathing.
Smoking makes you take deep breaths in and controlled ones out. The only problem is that you are taking in toxic smoke while doing it. Once you quit that and get over the physical aspect of the addiction, you can still do the breathing to head off or fix a panic attack. I found it useful to learn Pranayama (yoga breathing), but it certainly isn't necessary.
So that would be my first bit of if-you-want-to-stop advice for Vanessa, too. The second is choose a date in the future, and finish all of your cigarettes the day before. Wake up as a non-smoker (I stopped smoking on Thanksgiving four years ago). Third is much more practical - if you smoke in your house, throw away all ashtrays and do a complete cleaning of your house. If you smoke in your car, get it detailed. I found that it was much more difficult to start up again when I knew that I would be ruining something (a clean house/car) that it took me time or money to get. Good luck!
If you can, they make some really good drugs specifically for anxiety. They'll be cheaper in the long run.
I have recently found out that smokeless tobacco, particularly wet snuff is 50 to 100 times less harmful than smoking cigarettes. The Swedes makes a form of wet snuff called snus which is supposed to be even less harmful. It may be sold in America soon. It has some risks but will not give you lung cancer. It is not chewed but in a small pack which is placed between your upper lip and gums. I wonder what options America has at the moment for smokeless tobacco. Swedish men use the same amount of tobacco as the rest of the EU but smoke way fewer cigarettes and thus have way fewer incidences of lung cancer and other cancers. Very interesting.
Yeah you can get less harmful cigarettes in some health-food shops.
Vanessa - no matter how many times you quit and then fail, don't give up trying! The only way you can fail is to quit trying! Even if it only happens after the 80,000th time!
Now that's interesting. I've never read evidence that "less-harmful cigarettes" are actually less harmful. Even if they put slightly fewer chemicals into your body, they're sold at a health-food store???
I remember seeing a couple of "health food" (i.e. hippie grocery/convenience store) places years ago sell bidis, and I remember some of my hippie-ish friends thinking that they were "healthier" due to being "natural" or some such, but as far as I know they're actually worse for you...
Smokeless tobacco and chew, though, that go between the lip and gum have an increased incidence of oral and throat cancers.
Many studies have shown snus to give no higher risk of oral cancer. Some of the stuff that used to be chewed gave a higher risk of oral cancer, yes. Look it up. I'm not saying it's risk free but better than smoking.
This is pretty interesting -- I had no idea what "snus" was (were??)... I have seen signs for "Camel Snus" at convenience stores in NYC somewhat recently, so presumably it is available in the U.S. as well.
Yes, I read a pretty recent article that said it had been approved for sale so I wondered if anyone's seen it there. Interesting fact: Depsite many studies not finding any link to oral cancer, the EU has banned the sale. They had to make an exception when Sweden joined the EU.
People say it's gross. Probably but isn't smoking pretty gross when tried for the first time?
I didn't find smoking "gross" exactly, but I did find it, I don't know, weird. Now, I find a lot of mass produced cigarettes "gross" because after switching to additive-free tobacco, I can really taste the chemicals -- it tastes like inhaling exhaust fumes or something.
I agree with the commenters that say the routine and habit part is a lot harder to break than the physical addiction. I quit about five years ago. It took me three months. At first I allowed myself an "emergency pack" that I was to keep in the freezer, unopened, in case I was really desperate. Problem was that my smoker friends kept ending up convincing me to open the pack when they ran out at my place. And once the pack was open, all bets were off. So, I stopped purchasing emergency packs and went cold turkey. It then became solely a matter of self-control - trickiest when out drinking. After the first year, I stopped being tempted even while drinking. And now I truly find the smell of cigarettes revolting.
Also, I had a tragedy a couple years after I quit. My ten-year-old cat developed cancer in her face. I had to have her put to sleep. I suppose I will never know what caused the cancer, but I will always wonder if it is my and my then-boyfriend's fault, for smoking in our apartment. That guilt alone would probably keep me from ever considering picking up the habit again.
I know most people do not get over their smoking habit as readily as I did - in fact, I have talked to people who quit 30 years ago and still say that not a day goes by that they don't want a cigarette. But be strong, Vanessa - if you really want to quit, I believe you can do it.
Whoops - sorry, Lyndorr, I intended my comment as a reply to the original post, not to your comment.
I quit (for the last time) smoking almost three years ago. I had been smoking for 10 years, since I was 15 and tried quitting many times. What worked this time I think is that I was just fed up with being a slave to nicotine.
I quit cold turkey, no decreasing for weeks and weeks. I just stopped. The first week I chewed the gum but I quickly discovered I didn't need them. And they taste nasty.
What really helped me was that whenever I had a craving for a cigarette I would say to myself "If I still feel like smoking in 30 minutes I will have a cigarette then". That's how I would think everytime I had a craving and before I knew it days/weeks/months had gone by. I think this really was the key to my success.
I have smoked after quitting, but I can count the times on my 10 fingers. And it has always tasted gross and made me realize how happy I am that I quit. Once you quit, don't ever buy a pack, cause you will end up smoking it. That's how I always fell back into smoking while trying to quit previously.
And lyndorr, I am Swedish and very familiar with snus, a lot of my family members use it. It is not as dangerous for you but it is just as addictive and almost harder to quit from what I have heard. Plus it's gross. The best way is to stay completely nicotine free :-)
Good luck with quitting Vanessa and everyone else!
I'm sure everyone knows all the health hazards of smoking, but there are some other repercussions. Smoking makes it harder to get insurance. And it makes you a poor surgery candidate if you ever need one.
http://www.grahamazon.com/over/2005/07/the-other-danger-of-smoking/
The physical addiction only lasts a few week. I quit a dozen times before I finally quit and each time I went through that month or so only to cave to the psychological.
The real shit of it is that the physical is the hard part.
I got a big boost though because Ca radically increase the per pack tax and I started putting the money away every day for something I really wanted (a computer). I quit in 94 and was on line with the money I saved about a year later when computers still cost close to 2K.
I had my last cigarette two years ago. But it took me the two years prior to that to quit. I was on and off the patch for that long. It was torture, and sometimes I would just throw up my hands and decide that if I couldn't smoke I didn't want to live anyway. But I didn't really mean that, and I'd go back on the patch within a couple of weeks. On and off and on and off, and two years of people saying "I thought you quit?" in that "ha ha" tone of voice.
Conclusion: Don't ever stop quitting, don't ever give up. You're going to get there, as long as you never stop trying. Today, if I smell a cigarette I literally feel naseous. Finally, I can know that I will never, ever, go back. Zero desire. And nobody enjoyed smoking more than I did. Maybe as much, but you couldn't enjoy it more. Cigarettes were like a lover to me, I enjoyed everything about them.
Get pregnant. :) I was finally able to quit while pregnant because everyone REEKED and generally pissed me off.
What I found worked was keeping my one "security" smoke. I carried it for about a month, and then finally turfed it. Just knowing it was there worked for me. After then surviving waiting in the rain for an hour with my then 1.5 year while hormonal without having the security smoke...I knew I was good.
That was four years ago, and even while sitting in smoky bars, I haven't wavered. I know if I have one, that's it. I'm done.
Good luck! It's worth it, until you're around smokers and you realize how smelly they are. :)
I smoked from age 13-24, and quitting was shitty. However, these little nuggets of information that I came across really did something to strengthen my efforts:
20 Minutes after your last cigarette:
Blood pressure decreases
Temperature of hands and feet increases to normal (because of improved blood circulation)
8 Hours after quitting:
The carbon monoxide level (that's car exhaust and it's in cigarette smoke!) in your blood drops to normal
24 Hours after quitting:
Chance of a heart attack decreases
2 Weeks to 3 Months after quitting:
Blood circulation improves
Lung function (how well the lungs are working) increases up to 30%
1 to 9 Months after quitting:
Coughing, congestion, fatigue, shortness of breath decrease
The cilia (small hairs that line the airways) go back to working normally, meaning that your lungs get cleaner and function better overall
1 Year after quitting:
Excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's
5 Years after quitting:
Risk of stroke is reduced to the risk of a nonsmoker (between 5 and 15 years after quitting)
10 Years after quitting:
The lung cancer death rate is about half the rate of a smoker who has not quit
The risk of oral and throat cancer, bladder, kidney, and pancreatic cancer decreases
15 Years after quitting:
The risk of coronary heart disease is equal to a nonsmoker's risk.
I remember this list from when I quit. I found it very helpful to keep me on track. I would remind myself of all the good I achieved and what I would be undoing, if I had a cigarette.
I used the patch, and it gave me a huge, patch-shaped welt on my skin that itched. I almost stopped using the patch. But I told myself that the patch was just for six weeks or so, and I realized I could put up with it if it would help me quit. In fact, soon it became that every time I wanted a cigarette, I would think of that welt, and the welt would give me strength to resist. After all, I was willing to endure that welt in order to quit!
Finally, how to stay "quit". Every time you have the urge for a cigarette, remind yourself of how DAMN HARD it is to quit. You don't want to have to go through all that again, do you?
Best of luck to you. It took me three tries, but I finally did it, eight years ago. I'll be rooting for you!
Even reading lists like this one didn't do much for me when I was in the thick of smoking. I started at 17, snowballed into a pack-a-day habit at 18, which continued until I was 22. I attempted to quit several times, usually prompted by PSA scare tactics (That voice box cowboy singing in Times Square commercial? Anyone?), but eventually come running back to the pack. What finally did the trick? A visit to my doctor saying I had severe cervical dysplasia from HPV, exacerbated by my habit (and bad medical upkeep). You can be told a million times that in the future you may get lung cancer or have a heart attack, but the future's a mystery. I was able to make excuses. When it hit home in the present, that's when I couldn't ignore it anymore. After several treatments and significant changes in my lifestyle, three years later, I have a clean bill of health.
It's difficult for former addicts not to condescend to those they see as victims of something they have conquered. This isn't a question of moral fiber. Some people quit, some don't. I still look longingly at friends and strangers smoking, and fight the urge to ward off my cravings with holier-than-thou thoughts. I loved smoking, not because of the taste or feeling or culture, but because I did it at a time when I thought I was invincible. When I smoke now, I don't get that feeling anymore. I'd say the best advice for quitting is listening to the stories of others--those who smoke and those who quit--but above all, listen to yourself.
JPlum: congratulations on quitting smoking for your nephew. I think that's a great approach - quit smoking not for your own sake, but for the sake of someone you really care about. I quit smoking when my goddaugher was ten years old: she really looked up to me in every possible way, and I knew it would be just a couple of years before she was offered her first cigarette. I didn't want her to think smoking was cool because I did it, and I didn't think I could manage to hide my habit forever (she has a nose, you know), so I decided to be honest about it and quit for good. When I had really bad cravings, I visualized myself having to tell her that I was dying of a smoking-related illness. So I kind of guilted myself into quitting, but it worked great and I'm happy I did.
After trying to quit a few times and failing each time, I took a step back and looked at the REASON I smoked. In my case, I started because I thought that's what the cool badasses older than I did, and I wanted to be like them. I quit when I realized I was actually a healthy, self-confident, and mature adult. Smoking simply failed to align with who I was/am. Every time I want one now, I remember that and the craving goes away.
I also started paying attention to WHEN I wanted to smoke. Again in my case, it was when I felt social situations were getting too intimate and I wanted to hang back. I realized I could handle intimacy in more productive ways than smoking.
Other than these psychologically-based methods, other things that worked included:
1. eating things that didn't go well with smoking (orange juice, bubble gum)
2. chewing on Thursday Plantation Tea Tree Australian Chewing Sticks (I still love them)
3. avoiding my favorite bar for 3 months
4. stopping beer for 3 months (drank wine and fancy liquor drinks instead)
5. stopping coffee (5 years later I was able to resume with no fear of smoking again)
6. hanging with healthier friends who didn't smoke (good in so many other ways too)
7. getting rid of triggers around my apartment - ashtrays, lighters, matches, candles.
Best of luck and strength to you - you can do it!
I started smoking when I was 17 and quit 2 months before my 20th birthday. Quiting for me was easy. I was really suprised. (But, I have really good self control... I've been a vegetarian since I was 14, so maybe that helped.)
My mom is an oncologist and she gave me crap for smoking and threw statistics at me every day, but that never worked. Then she offered to pay half the cost of the new car I had my eye on for my birthday, but only if I quit smoking that day. Of course I agreed to it!
I quite cold turkey. All my cravings went away after about 5 days.
Here are my tips:
1. Chew lots of gum.
2. Substitute Nicotine with dark chocolate.
3. Avoid all of your smoking friends for a couple weeks.
4. Bribe yourself.
It's been a year since I quite and me and my cute little orange Chevy Aveo are very happy. :)
I have quit twice. Once for about 7 years, and I started again mostly due to having to take the MCAT again. I quit again.
It really takes mental determination. It is sort of like going through labor. I can drink and stand right next to a smoker in a social situation and not want a cigarette, at all, because I told myself that I don't want to go back. I know that if I smoke once I can convince myself more times that it's OK. So, you really have to have a zero tolerance policy for bumming cigarettes. That is the key part. I heard somewhere if you have one cigarette, you have an 80% chance of returning to smoking.
My husband used the ear magnets and said they worked well for him. I didn't use any quitting aids.
I quit smoking for good three years ago after smoking for 10 years. I tried many times, so don't give up. One thing I learned was that the "scare tactics" did not work for me. Everyone knows the risks. Ultimately, a guy a friend of mine dated recommended the book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking." It worked for me, and I will always be grateful to that guy for changing my life. My advice is to read the book and keep an open mind.
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Way-Stop-Smoking-Non-Smokers/dp/1402718616
People are not going to like this comment, but... what does this have to do with feminism/feministing? I mean, it's nice to talk and all, but I'd be really interested to see what the motivation was behind posting this particular content in this particular space. It's not that I don't think there might be a very very good reason, it's just that I honestly don't see it clearly and would like someone to lay it right out for me if they can.
Full disclosure: I am a smoker of about 6 years, at my worst a pack-a-day smoker but currently maybe a pack-a-week smoker. (I am also a vegetarian of 10 years and by all accounts very healthy, for what that's worth). Here's another unpopular thing to say: I smoke because I like it. I realize there are health risks and will probably quit in not too terribly long because of them, but really I think all that is probably none of any of your business. To be completely honest, I am really sick of seeing ZOMG HEALTH DANGER DANGER stuff everywhere about smoking, as if I am someone's child who simply needs to be taught the right way to do things, or as if I'm doing this out of pure ignorance. I'm not, I assure you. I am also very skeptical of stop-smoking campaigns aimed specifically at women, because in my experience at least, they're often a stone's throw away from this kind of stuff (previously discussed). That is obviously, obviously not what is going on here, but I think it's important to be careful when doling out health "instructions" to women (e.g. "Note to women smokers: Quit smoking") to be aware of that context and distance yourself from it if you can...
LOL You are totally defensive. I used to be like this too.
Someday you'll quit and then you'll laugh at people like yourself too, don't worry.
Jeez, not so cool -- come back when you have more content and less condescension, please?
Well, I wrote above about how I quit and how the original poster can quit too. As for my answer to your post, it wasn't meant to be offensive. I used to smoke, you're very defensive, I know why, and someday you will too. No need to get jumpy. I hope you quit soon. Not only is it really bad for you, it's stinky and no one wants to be around it. I know this is hard to accept, but we're not going back to the Madmen days, and this is just the way society is now.
I still think this is an incredibly condescending comment, even if you're not consciously intending it as such -- I thought JJHuggnstuff's comment above did a really excellent job of describing what's going on, too:
It's difficult for former addicts not to condescend to those they see as victims of something they have conquered. This isn't a question of moral fiber. Some people quit, some don't. I still look longingly at friends and strangers smoking, and fight the urge to ward off my cravings with holier-than-thou thoughts.
I think that's a really understandable position to be in, but it's still important to me that you don't regard me as some version of a former, less perfect you.
Your comment was immature and defensive and it was met with a condescending comment because you are defending dis-ease and sound like an addict in worst form.
If you're going to insult me numerous times in one thread without even waiting for me to respond, as much as even making a vague passive-aggressive post on your LJ to the effect that I'm an "asshole" after linking me to it, the least you can do is explain why you think all these terrible things about a stranger just because she wants to be able to smoke a cigarette now and again, instead of basically just calling me names.
read the comments there and be enlightened.
You don't know me.
It's an asshole behavior.
I don't know you, but, i know asshole behavior and smoking, then defending it to top it off -
is asshole behavior.
I'm sure you think the same about me and that's fine.
I've been know to be an asshole.
Let's not defend asshole behavior though.
The big difference between smoking and most other vices is that smoking hurts people around you, too. If you want to put harmful things in your body I think that's your right, but you don't have the right to put them in my body too. So if you want to, like, chew tobacco, well, I'll think its gross and bad for you but I won't try to force you to stop. But I will try to force you to stop smoking. The only way to do it without hurting other people is to smoke in some private space where no one else goes, and then take a shower and put on clean clothes before you go near anyone else.
Unproven. In fact, the dosing of nicotine you get from secondhand smoke is vastly below the carcinogenic threshhold.
There has been no truly conclusive proof of cancer caused by secondhand smoke.
None. It's scare-tactics.
(a) Yeah right.
(b) Even if you're right and its not PROVEN to be harmful, people still have a right to not be forced to consume something that they reasonably think is harmful to them.
(c) Even if it were not carcinogenic, it smells bad and causes short term health effects such as headaches, sore throats, stinging eyes (especially for those of us with contacts), and lung/breathing problems (especially for people with asthma).
I'm sure you won't accept any of this so I probably won't bother arguing after these points, but there is a very fundamental difference between your right to a vice that only harms you and your right to a vice that harms other people, whether or not you think it harms them in a significant enough way for you to care.
I doubt that. There have been cases of heart disease going down after a place makes public places smoke-free. Might be chance but who knows. And yeah, people exposed to smoke do get more lung/breathing problems. Health of workers has improved after work places were made smoke-free.
Listen, the people who are now claiming that there is no "proof" that second hand smoke is harmful, are the same ones who for decades insisted that there was no "proof" that smokers suffered higher rates of lung cancer.
In both cases, there's a lot of evidence, and the only people dismissing it are those paid to do so by tobacco companies, and defensive smokers who want to claim they have the right to hurt themselves.
Your right to swing your fist stops at my nose. Luckily, society agrees with me, and I don't have to wait for you to be satisfied with all of the scientific studies showing a link between second hand smoke and cancer.
I really like that "Your right to swing your fist stops at my nose" quote, fwiw.
Find me a report of someone diagnosed with lung cancer, wherein it was conclusively agreed that they contracted it because of second-hand smoke.
I'll wait here.
You can pretty much never conclusively say what caused a specific cancer in a specific person, since that's not how cancer works. What you can do is look at statistics and show that people exposed to secondhand smoke are significantly more likely to get things like cancer and heart disease.
Besides the long term issues, I can point to immediate, real health consequences ranging from annoyances (smell, stinging eyes) to serious health problems (asthma attacks) that are clearly caused by breathing smoke in the short run.
Of course that doesn't mean every person exposed to secondhand smoke will get sick, and it depends a lot on what levels, but it is a very reasonable health concern and its extremely selfish of you to just dismiss it. If you aren't concerned with your own health that's fine, but you can't tell other people not to be concerned with theirs.
How about second-hand smoke stinks, makes it hard to breathe, and hurts my lungs? It doesn't have to cause cancer to be a public nuisance... I don't mind there being some adult public spaces in which smoking is OK, like bars (although I would be bothered if there weren't any smoke-free bars), but when I'm trying to eat, for example, it's really upsetting to have to put up with someone else's smoke in my face.
Roy Castle famously died from the effects of second-hand smoke, while having never been a smoker.
I grew up with his TV show "Record Breakers" in the 1980-90s, and I dare say most Brits in their 20s would recognise his name.
I don't have lung cancer and it hasn't been proven that the fact that my mother smoked during her pregnancy with me (and not my siblings) and around me (and not my siblings) caused me to have asthma (and not my siblings).
But,
it is very obvious that cigarette smoking causes my lungs problems in the very moment that they are exposed to them.
That in turn hurts my mind and spirit. It hurts.
It actually hurts to not be able to breathe well. Sadly, you'll understand what I am talking about soon enough. I wouldn't wish suffocating on my worst enemy.
I realize that my lungs and my health are not your problem. I just want you to have that information and realize that the asthma rate (regardless of cause) has risen 500% since my birth 42.8 years ago in this country.
I understand and absolutely respect the right of those who do not want to inhale my cigarette smoke second-hand, and I *always* ask the friends I'm around if they mind before I light up. I don't smoke in my own apartment and I literally *can't* smoke in most bars any more, which I think is kind of a shame -- non-smokers should be able to avoid secondhand smoke, but I don't think that should necessarily make it illegal across the board for me to be able to have a cigarette while playing a game of pool in a dive bar somewhere :( Er, anyway, I will absolutely put out a cigarette if anyone around me asks me to (and I generally ask them if they mind before I even light up), and I don't smoke in circumstances where it seems inappropriate at all, *but* I don't have much sympathy for those who claim that my secondhand smoke is hurting them when I'm literally *outside* and they're not right next to me. If we're standing along a street (or even in a city at all), the car exhaust is probably doing much more to you than my cigarette is.
I think the rationale behind making smoking illegal in ALL bars was more about the employees than the other customers. But yeah, I love that its illegal to smoke inside anywhere in California, but I think making it illegal to smoke outside is taking it a little too far. Most colleges I've been at say you can' smoke within 20 feet of an opening to a building, and that seems good enough.
Still, I can totally tell when someone walks by me if they smoked earlier in the day. Smokers don't seem to realize it because I guess you get used to the smell, but it doesn't go away that easily. It stays in your clothes and hair until you wash them. It definitely actively bothers me if someone goes outside to smoke and comes back reeking of cigarettes, but I'll admit that its probably not that much of a health hazard (I dunno, it might still affect someone with asthma).
You have obviously not ever had an asthma attack or experienced the symptom of the emphysema you already have as a smoker.
Quit before the suffering starts and enjoy good health.
I agree idiolect. I think it's okay to educate people and offer help to those who want it. But I think there's a fine line between offering help to those who want it, and coming off as lecturing or pushing on to someone what you think they should and should not be putting into their own bodies. Thus, I personally think that a lot of the new anti-smoking laws, (for example not being able to smoke in any public places like a park, sidewalk, etc.) are unfair and cross over into this idea of government making decisions for us in our private lives (aka nanny state). Although I have to admit, I was happy about the restaurant bans, only because I have severe asthma and I was unable to go into many establishments because of the smoke...if I did go in, it could pretty much be expected that I would be leaving in an ambulance.
Still, I'm very anti-prohibition (anti drugwar) because I think people should have a right to choose to do drugs, self medicate, recreational use, basically whatever the reasons, people should have a right to put into their bodies whatever substances they choose. [disclosure, I don't smoke and I never was a a smoker, but I have used other substances in the past]
As an asthmatic who suffocated to death (1 min. 50 seconds pronounced before coming back) and has been intibated and unconscious for up to 12 days due to lack of O2 intake
I gotta tell ya
While it isn't the only thing doing it- Your smoking is polluting the air and the ground. Your butts are everywhere and they are not going away any time soon. The pack itself, the plastic wrapper, the factories...To top it all off,
you are funding the original slave owners and buying into your own slavery one pack at a time.
And you ask what this is a feminist issue?
Are you high?
Virginia Slims ad high?
Go tape your mouth around a coffee stir straw, tape your nose and go about your day with less air, see how your quality of life decreases when you can't fucking breathe.
While you're at it -
look up the stats on increased lung problems in our society, starting with the children exposed to smoke from family and neighbors.
Quality of life is a feminist issue you have issues with.
What I find so incredibly arrogant about this comment is the phrase, "I smoke because I like it." Good for you. What I DON'T LIKE? Is having to walk to work surrounded by a toxic cloud of YOUR EFFING LUNG CANCER.
How about that?
Yes, I get angry. My Grandmother died of lung cancer after smoking for 50 years. My Grandfather died of emphysema after smoking for close to 70 years. One of my best friends gave her daughter massive lung problems from smoking in the house with her for 2 years. I remember the doctor shaking his head in disgust and saying, "No one should be smoking around this child. I hope you are proud of yourself."
I hate smoking. I hate everything about it. But what I hate most? Is smokers acting like it only affects them, so wah wah, let them do it if they want! No, it is NOT just your body. It is everyone's bodies, and every time I walk to work, I have two choices:
1) Hold my breath
2) Inhale
And it sucks. And it's a choice, but an unavoidable one, and I am so sick of having to make it.
I am not the smokers you hate. I am just a smoker, and I don't force my smoke on other people (and neither do most smokers, in my experience). I've talked about this numerous times elsewhere in this thread. I take your right not to have to breathe in secondhand smoke very seriously, which is why I have never ever lit up a cigarette next to you (you know, aside from the whole matter of you having never met me and all).
As a former smoker, I am really horrified at how much I used to rationalize and defend what I did.
I am in medical school, and scarcely a day goes by that we don't hear about how smoking has links to higher risk of whatever disease we are learning about that day. Discussing the risks o f smoking is more nuanced and serious than just a simple finger wagging.
As for the feminism angle, I had a pathology teacher blame the increase in lung cancer in women on feminism. He said that the quest for equality has led women to want to smoke as much as men. I had some problems with his logic. I can understand discussing how smoking may be more socially acceptable now than it was several decades ago, but he spent a lot of time specifically blaming feminism as if it actively promoted smoking as a sign of equality.
I don't see it as a choice issue any more than doing heroin is a choice issue or not exercising is a choice issue. I can defend my choice to sit on my ass until the cows come home, or come up with 100 excuses as to why I don't exercise (No pun or insult intended), but I think it would be pretty silly to shake my fist and pretend to be offended if I read an article about women getting more active if it contained accurate information on the health benefits of exercise.
I totally agree with you, and I really don't want to give the impression that I'm defending smoking as somehow not bad for you. It is really bad for you. All else being equal, one shouldn't take it up. The only thing I'm at least intending to "defend" against here is a certain attitude of condescension towards smokers, as if we are just stubborn children to be pitied and disciplined.
In other words, I think anti-smoking campaigns, and more personal one-on-one interactions regarding smoking and quitting, would work a lot better and create a much more comfortable environment if they were conducted with an air of mutual respect and genuine concern. I mean, it seems a lot more appropriate to me if a friend or family member were to approach me and say "You know, I really care about you, and I am concerned about your health, let's talk about this..." as opposed to some stranger on the internet calling me an asshole or going on about how much I must smell and how no one will love me or something (which is clearly not what was going on in the OP, but became what was going on in the comments I guess).
But yeah, I guess I do sort of wish the OP had been a little more personal (and a little more obviously feminist oriented) and nuanced than talking about a "shameful" and "gross-ass" habit and then listing bullet-pointed factoids which, while important information to know, basically communicate something which was definitely no secret: that cigarettes are bad for you. I guess what I'm asking is this (not merely rhetorically): why is this discussion happening here and now, and why should I pay more attention to it than I do the advertising and whatnot that I am already bombarded with every day?
Right, it wasn't happening in the OP. So, what you replied was a bunch of rationalizing-type complaining about how downtrodden you are.
Please, tell me exactly what I've said that is "rationalizing tripe" and exactly how it is so. I am serious. I at least feel awfully genuine when I am writing this stuff and I honestly just don't see it, so help me to see what it is you're trying to tell me.
I think we should absolutely support each other in trying to quit, but at what point do we say hey, it's your life, your decision, and everyone has a vice? I have to say I object to the title of this post.
This does apply to women and feminism. I'm a public relations major and what I learned in PR 101 was some history about the formations of the field and how this has influenced modern ideas. Smoking became popular for women in 1928 when Edward Bernays (who was Freuds nephew), was doing promotion for Lucky Strike cigarettes. He was assigned the task to get women to smoke. During those days women werent supposed to smoke as it was considered unladylike. Because this was the later 20's you still had women invigorated from passing the 19th amendment and they were still a collective movement trying to push for more progressive change for women. A psychoanalyst that Bernays sought out for ideas on how to manipulate the female mind, told Bernays that women considered anything men did to be liberating. Bernays took advantage of this and hired some models to ride on the Easter Parade float along with all of the suffragettes while smoking some Lucky Strike cigs. The models wore banners that described the cigs as "torches of liberty." The media snapped it up and these images spread around the country and promoted the idea that smoking for women was avant garde and freeing.
Just as a total, OT aside -- did this Bernays guy seek out some other psychoanalyst than his uncle Freud??? Hahaha...
More on topic: I think this story is really interesting, but so far basically what it tells me is that there was marketing that worked at the time?
Hmmmm, I hate to think my path teacher had a grain of truth in what he was saying! I still blame the patriarchy for trying to cast smoking as feminist.
My last post was supposed to be aimed at idiolects inquiry. Bernays was also responsible for extolling the idea that the proper breakfast was bacon with eggs after he was assigned the task of selling bacon.
All I know is I've NEVER wanted to be knocked up by my father, OR had penis envy!
Psst -- the comments ought to nest if you click the little "reply" link right under my comment. This comment looks kind of awkward out here without context, haha
Saving Money!!
I started smoking when I was in college because all of my friends did. It started off as a social thing and then developed into behavior like leaving class for a few minutes to smoke because I was going stir crazy!
Anyways, after seeing how much money I was burning through I quit cold turkey. I have a stubborn personality so I can't say I had much trouble quitting. Now I only smoke when I am out ahving a few drinks, which is rare enough these days with grad school. A pack will usually still be around half full after over a month.
I used to chain smoke, for about 2 years. I quit unsuccessfully once before I truly quit. First, you have to want it. One of my professors was diagnosed with lung cancer while I smoked, and watching his deterioration was enough for me to get my mind straight. After that, chew lots of gum. Also, I used to sit outside and smoke. If you feel the impulse to go outside and have a cig, just go outside and take a walk, or talk on the phone. I also started exercising every single day (and 4 years later, I still do!). Exercise is fun, and but it is less fun with smoker's cough. So in my mind, I told myself I couldn't exercise AND smoke, so I learned to love exercise more than smoking. I am so much healthier for it. I replaced my smoking addiction with an exercise addiction, and I lost 40 pounds and I've never felt better.
Remember, the first week is the hardest! You'll lose a taste for it faster than you think. If you can get past the first week or two, then it is all downhill.
Happy Quitting!
So we're only supposed to care how smoking affects women, instead of everyone?
I find this post sort of odd. Rather than "Attn: Smokers: Please quit", it's JUST women?
Interesting.
Anyway, no, I won't quit.
The leading cause of death is being alive.
This might seem a news flash, but: You are going to die. It might be soon, it might not be, but you're going to die, one way or another, and you can't escape it.
Eating vegan food, watching everything you do, never imbibing alcohol, or smoking cigarettes, driving extra carefully, exercising, and doing everything "right"...won't stop you from dying.
Though, constantly restricting yourself in such a way just might make you miserable.
So, given that my options are: "Force myself into miserable lifestyle that I don't enjoy, and die anyway", or "Do things I enjoy, enjoy my life, and die a little sooner, potentially beating out dementia, etc"...
Yeah, I'm going to go with "Enjoy my life".
I'll quit smoking when I quit breathing, and not one damn thing anyone says or does will ever change that. Never, ever.
That's fine. But you will more and more, be restricted to doing so in your own home, and it better not be an apartment or condo, because more and more of those places are saying NO to smokers. I live in a condo, and my old neighbor smoked and it came through my vents. It was disgusting and an invasion into my home. She's gone now, the new owner is a non-smoker, as will ever new owner be, due to a change in the bylaws. One I cheered.
So, my advice to you is, buy a house, and don't plan on dating a lot.
You're being a jerk here too, especially with the "dating" comment. I mean, clearly we should muster all the energy we can in order to change lifestyles we've willingly chosen if it means that we'll be more successful at getting a man (or for that matter, a woman).
If you're going to rally for policing what people can and can't do with their own bodies and lives, at least do it by arguing about the immediate matter at hand, don't make these snide side-comments meant to make them feel like inadequate lovers or something.
It's just the facts. Society has moved on from this argument. The poster asked for advice on how to quit, or at least, for quitting stories to help her.
The poster snark is waging a battle in a war that has already been won.
I'm not defending Snark at all -- I think you're both being unproductive, smug jerks to each other and to everyone else. *And,* to be more clear about my previous point, I think it is decidedly unfeminist to tell women to stop smoking because it will increase their dating pool...
From the tone of their posts, I pictured snark as a male. And I'm not telling women to stop smoking to increase their dating pool. I'm stating the fact that society has moved on from smoking, and smokers are quite simply, not desirable mates to both genders, and to both orientations.
You want to twist it into something anti-feminist, because you're a defensive smoker looking for reasons to escape the facts of the situation. But you just sound silly to me. Oh, and defensive. :)
Hey, all I'm saying is that I shouldn't have to change my willingly made lifestyle choices just because it may or may not affect my ability to get a man (or "attract a mate" as you would have it), and I think arguing to the contrary, which is what you are currently doing, is unfeminist. If you respond, please actually respond to this comment with some legitimate content of your own (even and especially disagreement if you're so inclined), instead of just trying to aggravate me with vague personal comments.
I think you have ignored everything I have written in order to obsessively focus on a comment that in no way meant "change your life and do anything to get a man". And I think you did it because you don't want to think about the real issue. And you and snark have managed to change the topic of this thread - how to quit smoking and stories from people who have done it, to some silly, old battle that no one really cares about. I'm finished with it, but you and snark should feel free.
FINE. If you want to be like that, here is the real truth of where I am coming from: I have ignored your posts because your posts, aside from one or two to the OP, have been TOTALLY USELESS. They are, for the most part, scare tactics about how if we smoke we will be kicked out of our homes and rejected by potential lovers, and bizarre comments about how "society has moved on," as if I am somehow just not hip enough to "get it," all after having already decided that I am not any more worth listening to than some previous self of yours that you have "overcome" by quitting and that you can now only interact with by babying at best. And now you're trying to "recover" by tacitly encouraging people you disagree with to go kill themselves?? Classy. I asked some genuine questions and have provided some experiences of my own in what was originally a real attempt to understand where everyone else was coming from, and how I might understand something very immediate to me -- smoking, and quitting smoking -- in a feminist context. I am "obsessing" over your bizarre exhortation to quit smoking lest we have problems dating because that is really the ONLY comment you've made where I can see a feminist-relevant point waiting to be made.
And now, I am "finished with it." Enjoy.
There's nothing more obnoxious than a former smoker. I've heard this statement, and others like it, for many years, and it still holds true.
No one is as obnoxiously preachy, zealous, and hard to be around, as an former smoker when they're trying to insult current smokers.
Not helping. *sigh*
may you join the ranks of those whose opinions are obnoxious, but, their fumes are not noxious.
keep on defending an environmental health hazard- woohoo!
smoking is such silliness...
neither you or the OP are making much sense. Or any legitimate arguments. You say it's a FACT that "society has moved on"?
"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cigarette smoking results in more than 400,000 premature deaths each year about 1 in every 5 U.S. deaths."
One in five deaths related to smoking; that's pretty significant. It seems society has NOT moved on from smoking...your initial assertion that we have moved on was an opinion, not a fact.
btw, yes the "dating" comment was insulting. To both non-smokers and smokers...Implying that anyone should change habits to increase their dating pool is an unfeminist argument.
As an aside --
From the tone of their posts, I pictured snark as a male.
??? Hmm...
Could you BE any more condescending?
FYI: I live in a townhouse. I own my section of it.
The rest are renters.
Which one is more likely to be evicted? Oh, that's right. They CAN'T evict an owner. Not unless they plan to pony up and buy me out, which, my house has quadrupled in value since I bought it. I doubt they can manage the money to buy me out.
It's not up to you, or anyone, to dictate what I do in my own home.
If you want to talk about an "invasion" into a home, telling me what to do in mine certainly is.
To say "You cannot live here because you are a smoker" would rather fall under being against the law, due to fair housing laws. It's discrimination. If someone can pay the bills, it's quite illegal to deny them a place to live.
Also, as far as dating? Who the hell do you think you are? That's not only condescending, but disgusting and shallow. To you, I heartily say "Fuck you".
FWIW, I have no idea about the illegality of this, but I know I have seen many apartment rental ads in my life that specifically ask for non-smokers, and have lived in a number of apartments where the landlord explicitly stated that we were not to smoke inside the apartment. I imagine it's probably legal to do that, though, since smoking does actually damage things in the apartment that the landlord is responsible for (paint, carpet, etc).
I've lived somewhere where we were not allowed to smoke inside. No big deal to me since I don't smoke nor have I ever smoked.
The landlord told us it was a safety issue so people wouldn't smoke in bed or otherwise burn the building down.
LOL. I see, you are the only owner in your complex, the others are all renters. Ok.
Snark, I'll tell you what? Why don't you just keep on smoking? That'll show me! :)
Have fun.
Actually, yes, I am.
They only briefly sold properties on my block (it's not a "complex", this isn't an apartment.) and then rescinded that.
They no longer sell them, and the only people who are allowed to sell are the existing owners, of which there are very few of us. The majority are renters.
Regardless, point is, you're a condescending ass.
Smokers are not a protected class (race, class, nationality, disability, etc... gender and sometimes sexual orientation, depending on your state). It's OK to discriminate against smokers, legally speaking.
It's a narrow distinction but you should say: it's okay to discriminate against the ACT of smoking. (usually that's how the laws are phrased, since smokers are still people, and you can't discriminate against people, but you can say for example "no smoking here"- it's the use of the action:smoking as opposed to the person:smokers)
AS to this post being directed at women, I'd say there is a good reason for that, other than the obvious one - this being a feminist site, largely consisting of, women.
Women's risk of lung disease, and heart disease (still coming in as the Number One Killer of Women), is largely underplayed in the media, and alas, in our doctor's offices. Studies show time and again, that doctor's do not take women's complaints of chest pain seriously.
Women are encouraged to raise money, walk, run, talk about, and advocate for, one disease and one disease only. That is the doctor, media, and society approved, "woman's disease". Breast Cancer.
Meanwhile, women are dying of lung cancer, and heart attack.
So yeah, this is a feminist issue.
Amen amen amen amen! This should be a post of its own!
Have you ever had a relative die of emphysema or lung cancer. It's not "enjoyable". It might be your opinion that you would just rather enjoy yourself, but apparently this is not how many other Americans think, since there has been a huge downward trend in the use of smoking. People are quitting in record numbers, and it's most likely due to education about the health risks of smoking. I think people should be able to put whatever they want into their bodies, so I'm not criticizing you, I'm just pointing out that given the trends in quitting, I think a lot of people would disagree with your argument.
I'm really uncomfortable with the post. While I appreciate statistics and how the health concerns effect me, in my mind it comes down to my body, my choice. I fully acknowledge the hazards in smoking a cigarette; I'm not doing this out of ignorance, and this list does not surprise me.
Whether or not it was intended, even the title comes off as discomforting. "Note to women smokers: Quit smoking." But what if I don't want to quit? What if I like smoking? I always ask fellows around me if they mind, because while I may enjoy the habit, I fully acknowledge that other people do not. I'd prefer to be offered the facts than told what to do with my habits.
I haven't had a cigarette in 11 months. Because it is a crappy habit, it was disruptive of my life and also gross. But I agree with Dodes that the rhetoric of many anti-smoking messages is annoying and pedantic. I don't care if people around me smoke; anti-tobacco evangelism is as tiresome as any other kind. It is an addiction, but still an act of free will.
But if you WANT to quit, as Vanessa has expressed in the post, here's what worked for me this time:
1. I don't say "I quit." I say I'm not smoking now. May be semantics, but it takes away that forbidden fruit aspect of the cigarette, particularly when you are under stress and want to do something destructive.
2. Do something physical. Particularly something that changes your routine. The first time I quit cold turkey was during a week-long hiking trip, and I had zero physical withdrawal symptoms. Changing up my metabolism really helped with the shakes, the aggravation, the withdrawal fog.
3. Find something else oral and tactile to play with while you walk down the street, drive, drink, etc. Chewing on a toothpick makes you look badass. If you can keep your lighter to flick and play with (but not smoke with), it's a comfort.
4. Don't let anyone tell you there's only one way to stop. I freaking hate it when people smugly say that cold turkey is the only way to go. F*ck that -- I used the gum and it worked. Particularly if, like me, you have serious physical withdrawal and can't afford to take a week off of work to get through the spacey, lightheaded, irritable phase.
It's been totally worth it, though, especially since cigs are up to $10 a pack in my neighborhood...
I understand what your saying here. I also hate it when people say you should "do this" and "don't do that"..."Drugs are bad" arguments. However, I think, in general the anti-smoking campaigns are just simply education campaigns. And they have been extremely effective. Because of the decline in smoking, we will have much fewer cases of cancer, lung disease, emphysema, etc. What I'm trying to say is that, while I understand your argument, I also consider the quit campaigns to be hugely beneficial to many many people. They are so beneficial in fact, that this outweighs any negatives brought up in your post.
I do find it odd that this post is only directed at women, but I guess that was the attempt to make it relevant to this site.
Anyway, I see a lot of people saying they just don't want to quit, everyone has a vice, etc etc. See my posts above about the difference between a vice that only hurts you and a vice that hurts other people.
I thought of an interesting analogy. What do you think of this? Some people are extremely allergic to peanuts, so much so that even breathing in a little bit of dust from a peanut can seriously harm or kill them. Now, that shouldn't affect my right to eat peanuts, since eating them really only affects ME. But, should I be allowed to grind up peanuts into dust and go around blowing that dust into people's faces? Sure, statistically it won't hurt most people, but eventually it'll hurt/kill someone.
Well, do you drive a car? Your driving a car pushes way more pollutants into the air, and could directly impact my health. I demand you stop driving your car. What right do you have to drive a car? You will eventually hurt/kill someone!
See how that sounds? Unreasonable as hell, right? That's what you're asking me to do, in so many words.
The carcinogenic threshold of second-hand smoke is so far below that of first-hand, and has no direct proven established link. There are no cases of lung cancer that can be directly traced to second hand smoke.
It's impossible to actually fully prove.
Besides which, casually passing through someone's cloud of smoke as you enter a building they're smoking outside of will not harm you.
If it takes years upon years of concentrated smoking to finally kill a smoker, 10 seconds will not do you any noticeable, measurable harm.
Considering even with being exposed to it in a bar or restaurant, you're still inhaling far less than an actual smoker, for much shorter periods of time, and not nearly as much of a regular basis.
That said, you're exposed to far worse things on a daily basis.
On one hand, you could simply avoid smokers. On the other, you're demanding we not smoke because YOU don't like it.
Which one is more reasonable?
Its true that exhaust from cars can cause lung problems, and it is definitely something worth talking about. In fact, most societies are definitely trying to make cars that don't produce such pollutants, etc. I DO think people should make every effort to avoid polluting if they can help it, but most people are in a position where they really do HAVE to drive a car or take some sort of transportation that produces some sort of fumes. We do the best we can about this.
But the main point is that no one is pointing their car exhaust pipe directly in your face. As I've said above, if you want to smoke on your own outside that's fine (you will still smell bad, but its probably not a significant health hazard to anyone around you), but smoking around other people definitely impacts their health.
"Besides which, casually passing through someone's cloud of smoke as you enter a building they're smoking outside of will not harm you."
Actually this does in fact make me cough, if I breath in even one breath of it. And I know people with asthma who are affected much worse by it. If you smoke in a wide open outdoor area that's fine (as I've said above) but if you smoke in an area where people HAVE to go by you and breath it, let alone an indoor area where they have to keep on breathing it, it does definitely harm people.
I'm not demanding you don't smoke, I'm demanding you don't smoke in areas where nonsmokers (or children) have to be around you.
Chewing tobbacco is also a disgusting habit but since it doesn't force itself into everyone else's lungs, I'd rather people switched to that.
I have a question for the smokers here. Do you admit that you smell bad to everyone else, and you just don't care? Or do you deny that you smell? I'm actually curious.
I'm very happy that you can't smoke in bars and clubs in most places now. A few years ago you could still smoke in clubs in Paris and after a night out my hair and my clothes would reek of smoke, and that was just from being in the same room, not even directly hanging out with someone who was smoking.
Regarding the smell question -- What I admit is that there are a lot of people who don't like the lingering smell of smoke on my clothes. I can actually smell it a little (although surely not as acutely as those who don't smoke) and weirdly, I actually kind of like it. I like the smell of certain cigarettes better than others. I like the way cigarette smoke mixes with certain people's natural scents better than others. When I'm going into a formal environment where I will be meeting lots of strangers in a very polite context (e.g. a job interview, some social gathering with my parents, etc) I will shower in the morning, wear freshly washed clothing, light perfume (although I do this every day -- also just because I like it, not to mask anything), and not smoke before the event if I'm trying to make a really good impression because I realize some people really don't like it. However, in my every day life, where I'm just going about my business and I don't particularly care about the impression I'm making (beyond, you know, just being a generally decent human being, which one ought to be able to expect of everyone) then yeah, I know some people don't like it and I don't really care. I'm not about to start worrying about the wide variety of things about me some stranger on the street might be bothered by when they encounter me. I'm sure some of them don't like the smell, others think my glasses make me look like a nerd, others think the piercing in my ear makes me look trashy, others think I ought to get a better fashion sense instead of wearing slouchy jeans all the time, etc. These are all things that I'll just let those strangers on the street spend time worrying about while I go on my merry way.
While we're asking questions -- I mean this totally genuinely, no snarkiness involved: what's going on with the repeated image of smokers blowing smoke "in your face"? Are there actually smokers out there who are walking up to non-smokers and blowing smoke in their faces? I honestly don't get this. I mean, if there are, then there's way more offensiveness to it than just the smoke -- that would be a really aggressive gesture, right? I just honestly have never seen that happen. I mean, I would be pissed off if someone blew smoke in my face. Other smokers apologize to me if the wind changes and their smoke blows into my face while I myself am smoking. Maybe there's just not as polite of a set of unwritten smoker laws (and oh, there are many of them) wherever it is that you are?
Its more that they blow smoke out and then it drifts in your face or the wind blows it there. I didn't think I was using "repeated" imagery of that-- maybe once, with the peanut comment. But the fact is unless you're in a wide open field or a closed off room away from anyone else, the smoke does blow into other people's faces.
Oh, it's not that you're using "repeated" imagery, it's just something I've seen a lot of times, even within this thread maybe 4 or 5 times, so it seemed like it might be sort of a common image and I was curious what was going on with it.
Ok, I see where I said something about an exhaust pipe pointed in your face.
What I'm referring to is not generally smokers walking right up to someone and blowing directly in their face-- yeah, I don't think that happens much and if it does its probably purposely meant to be rude. But what does happen is that you'er in some sort of area where people are standing around-- a restaurant, some outdoor tables, an alleyway, whatever. And everyone's heads are at roughly the same height, and someone is smoking a few feet away from you, and they might not mean to blow out the smoke directly at you, but its hard to avoid blowing it in the general direction of someone. And if they don't, then the wind picks it up and it drifts over to you. I can definitely tell when I'm breathing smoke just when I walk by someone who's smoking 5 feet away. Often I hold my breath so I won't start coughing. I can also tell when I go into a hotel room if someone has ever smoked there before; sometimes we have to ask to change rooms even if it was supposed to be a nonsmoking room because the smell gives me a headache (my mom has the same thing, and she grew up with parents who smoked and used to love the smell of secondhand smoke).
What I mean is smoke being exhaled in a way where its impossible for me not to noticeably breathe it in. Yes I realise we're all probably breathing tiny bits of car exhuast all the time, but its generally pretty easy to avoid breathing it directly within a few feet of the back of a car. And I DO think we should be working on making cars less stinky, for sure.
Ok, I see where I said something about an exhaust pipe pointed in your face.
What I'm referring to is not generally smokers walking right up to someone and blowing directly in their face-- yeah, I don't think that happens much and if it does its probably purposely meant to be rude. But what does happen is that you'er in some sort of area where people are standing around-- a restaurant, some outdoor tables, an alleyway, whatever. And everyone's heads are at roughly the same height, and someone is smoking a few feet away from you, and they might not mean to blow out the smoke directly at you, but its hard to avoid blowing it in the general direction of someone. And if they don't, then the wind picks it up and it drifts over to you. I can definitely tell when I'm breathing smoke just when I walk by someone who's smoking 5 feet away. Often I hold my breath so I won't start coughing. I can also tell when I go into a hotel room if someone has ever smoked there before; sometimes we have to ask to change rooms even if it was supposed to be a nonsmoking room because the smell gives me a headache (my mom has the same thing, and she grew up with parents who smoked and used to love the smell of secondhand smoke).
What I mean is smoke being exhaled in a way where its impossible for me not to noticeably breathe it in. Yes I realise we're all probably breathing tiny bits of car exhuast all the time, but its generally pretty easy to avoid breathing it directly within a few feet of the back of a car. And I DO think we should be working on making cars less stinky, for sure.
I have a friend who smokes, and she knows I hate it so she tries not to smoke around me, but I can still smell it on her clothes a lot of the time. She insists she's only a social smoker, butsometimes she still just HAS to smoke when we're hanging out, and she always tries to stand downwind of me, but I still definitely smell it. And what about the other people on the street who are now downwind of her? Its very very hard to avoid the smoke going into someone's face if you're in any sort of public place.
Why can't people just eat/chew/inject/snort tobacco? Can they make a tobacco-laced drink or lollipop? Any of those things would likely be healthier than smoking anyway.
Started with the occasional cig at 15 ended as a two pack a day smoker who wasn't going to quit for the same reason I started--peer pressure. Tried several times to quit, but returned to it at the first sign of pressure or stress. My longest time away was three months, and the first cig back made me cough, gag, and almost lose my lunch, but still it was like coming home. When I turned 49, I decided I was not going to turn 50 as a smoker. Still, I procrastinated because I really enjoyed smoking, and as a work at home I could smoke at my desk if I wanted to. In September I decided that I would no longer buy cigs by the carton, or even keep an extra pack in the house. I would have to make a conscious effort to get the next pack of cigs. That meant a one mile walk for every pack of cigs I smoked. In October I decided to keep the cigs in the fridge. I would have to stop whatever I was doing and go to the kitchen for a cig. At the same time I put a sign on the fridge "I AM NOT A SMOKER". It turned out to be a very cold winter, and walking in the cold was a disincentive to go out for a pack of cigs, and the sign on the fridge seemed more and more like an accusation. By mid December, I was making the pack of cigs last two or even three days, by Xmas I would finsh a pack in the morning and put off walking to the store till the next day or even two days on. I walked for my last pack of cigs on December 28 at the start of a stretch of thirty below with wind chills in the forty belows. It was the last pack I bought. In three years I backslid once when in a strange city I had to drive a friend to the hospital and got lost going back to her house alone. When I got back to her house I lit up one of hers, coughed, gagged almost lost my lunch, recognized that it still felt like coming home, but that it wasn't a particularly happy home and one that I'd rather just stand outside of thank you very much. Three years later I still get the urge now and then, but it passes. Sometimes when I see people standing outside smoking on their breaks, I'll go out of my way to walk through and inhale. Other times I'll get a whiff of stale smoke on someone's clothes and think "OMG, did I used to smell like that?" The moral of the story: know when your ready and just keep on trying as a gift to yourself.
Yeah, I think one of the things that will really keep you off of smoking once you quit, is smelling other smokers and the horror you feel when you realize you used to stink like that.
You really don't smell it until you quit. That's when you understand why very few non-smokers are willing to become involved with smokers. You just couldn't stand the smell.
Anyway, for Vanessa - don't quit quitting. It may take a lot longer than six weeks, or even six months, but if you keep on keeping on, you will be a non-smoker.
That's the point.
This other silliness with people determined to spite anti smoking laws and people who support them, by killing themselves with continued smoking! (LOL), is such a silly distraction. Go ahead! Not only will you probably die younger, but your quality of life will suffer each five years that goes by. Because your lungs will incur greater and greater damage. You won't be able to go for a hike, a bike ride, or at least not far. Soon, you will struggle to get up a flight of stairs. And your skin will age prematurely, period. Maybe it is "anti-feminist" to be concerned about one's skin, but frankly, sallow, wrinkly, smoker's skin doesn't look good on men or women. So knock yourselves out "spiting" me. :)
For Vanessa - good luck! I know you can do it.
As a general aside, not exactly as a direct response to the OP, I am really sick and tired of being told as a woman what I can and cannot do to or put in my body, whether it's cigarettes or food or clothing or a baby (or lack thereof) or sex or whateverthefuck else. I feel like there really is a major feminist issue somewhere in there, in this general notion that women's bodies are important in a public sense, that what we do somehow needs more oversight from the rest of society. There are such prevalent but insidiously subconscious notions out there of what is appropriate for a woman's body and what isn't, and that somehow it is appropriate and even perhaps a public duty for everyone to make sure that the women they know are abiding by these normative standards, at least as much as they can within reason. I think it would be a lovely thing if women could come together and support each other in the difficult choices they might make regarding their bodies (including, but certainly not limited to, quitting smoking), but I also think that it is extremely important, in all this context of the terrible invasiveness of this sense of public ownership of women's bodies, that we respect individual women's right and ability to actually make those choices privately.
The problem with smoking is that you are not only "putting it in your body", you are subjecting others and the environment in general to your poison of choice.
I haven't chosen it, so in the bizzare chance that you are ever in my presence, please don't smoke around my lungs. Or my sons lungs. Or my mothers lungs. etc.
etc.
etc.
I have said numerous, numerous, head-spinningly numerous times here that I never ever smoke when I think it will be a nuisance to those around me. I definitely never smoke in front of children, even when outside. I take other people's desires very seriously. However, amazingly enough, I *do* actually have some amount of privacy on occasion, and/or I am actually outdoors with a decent radius of space around me, and/or I am actually among other smokers, so just because I smoke on occasion doesn't mean I'm running up to your child and shotgunning my cigarette into their lungs. Jeez.
Your smoke is unnecessary pollution.
Less necessary than transpo (which we hope to make less noxious). It isn't the only one, but, we're not defending other pollutants here and now, are we?
It's toxic shit for what purpose exactly?
What is the reasoning behind the " informed choice"
you claim to be making?
When I am on prednisone and when I was pregnant I could smell it from blocks away.
Your position wreaks from a mile away.
You wont win a point with me on this - I have suffocated, my choice to not smoke is informed.
In this day and age, with the info available and the experiments with breathing and the knowledge of how marketing and conditioning work, how every dollar spent is a statement for something-
Smoking cigarettes is an asshole thing to do.
When you stop, if you stop while you are still conscious, you can look back and say, "Wow, that was an asshole thing to do".
Wow. I am not trying to make you smoke or anything, and I do recognize it as a less than ideal situation. However, I have my priorities, and you have yours. I think calling me an asshole for it is out of line.
By the way, if you are so terribly sensitive to air pollutants, how in the world did you live in NOLA for a while without, you know, dying? (Yes, I did actually bother to read a little of your LJ after you linked me there, especially the NOLA posts, since it's where I grew up).
WHat is the point of smoking?
What is the informed choice about? How does it improve your life and the life of others?
Is it a neutral thing to do or is it destroying your lungs and the environment, coptributing to lung dis-ease in on the entire planet.
What are you really choosing and why?
I don't care if you self destruct. But,
can you please self destruct in a way that doesn't affect the air we all breathe?
I am endlessly amused by the people posting here trying to link the choice to smoke with the RIGHT to choose to abort a pregnancy that we fight for.
There is no justification for smoking and padding the pockets of those corporations who are deciedly unfeminist. Targeting women, children, minorities with their marketing and products that are POISON. You may think it's fine to do whatever you want with your body but unless you are rolling your own cigarettes you are supporting one of the most subversive and racist industries in our country.
I'm happy that you can sit there on your pedistol and wax poetic about how it is your feminist choice, how liberating it is to be addicted to something that is killing you, taking your money and targeting the poor and the underprivileged to make insane profits and spread around disease and death.
I don't care if people smoke, but I do care if they do it around me. I would be offended as hell if someone decided to blow smoke in my DOGs face let alone mine or my families or my (nonexistant) children.
I don't spill my drink on you if I choose to consume alcohol, I don't make you taste the food I choose to eat.
Someone had a post about illnesses that were allowed to be "about women" and that basically it was summed up with breast cancer. Isn't the number ONE cause of death in women heart related illnesses? Isn't smoking scientifically proven to increase these risks astronomically?
How is it NOT a feminist issue with these huge corporations are targeting children and women and minorities and the poor with misleading advertisement and preying on them to pad their pocketbooks while people get sick?
How in the world do you know that I'm not rolling my own cigarettes, and what business is it of yours to police whether or not I buy the "right" products in the first place? I totally agree that women's health issues are obviously a feminist issue, and that it is outrageous that breast cancer seems to be the only acceptable women's health issue for discussion these days. I also agree with you that it's important to keep track of what corporations are doing and how they're using their power and money to shape or even prey on society, and that in that sense there are better and worse places to channel your money.
I still, however, really don't understand the kind of rage that comes out of people whenever anyone, and especially whenever a woman, says "Hey, I actually kind of enjoy smoking." I do. I enjoy it. I don't really know what to tell you. I don't think that makes me a bad person, or even a stupid person. I just have different priorities from you, I guess.
If you do think it makes me a bad or at least a stupid person, I really genuinely am all ears, and would like to hear why, because I honestly am kind of baffled by all the anger that surrounds this issue and I honestly don't understand why it isn't okay for me to just partake in something I enjoy as long as I make sure I'm not bothering anyone around me.
Well, the willingly loosing a decade and a half of your lifespan seems pretty stupid... not that I think that makes you a bad person or you shouldn't have that choice. But it is stupid.
I mean, fair enough, but I don't think it's quite that simple. I know this will sound like excuse-making, which is not what I'm meaning to do, but I think it's worth pointing out: it is simply not the case that my smoking now, or my having smoked, will shave 14.5 years off of my life. What is the case is that "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking-related diseases caused the deaths of about 174,000 women in each year from 2000 to 2004. On average, these women died 14.5 years earlier because they smoked[1]."
But aside from the numbers thing, maybe it is stupid to overlook potential health hazards for the sake of anything else ever. Obviously I don't really agree with that, but I can see how someone might make an argument for it...
Be real and realizze how ridiculaous it is to defend smoking
c'mon, it's 2008, you don't have to smoke to fit in be cool or be as liberated as a man (Virginia Slimes)
You are not growing your own tobacco and if you are, please stop, cause the smoke is suffocating someone somewhere.
I never said you didn't have the right to smoke. You can go smoke your life away if that's really what you want to do.
As long as people make informed, educated decisions about what they put in their body I think they should be entitled to do so.
It doesn't mean I think you have the right to expose others to your cigarettes and that if this is your choice you have a responsibility to be courteous and keep others from breathing in your smoke. This is about their health, this is about common decency that people who have allergies, asthma, or just hate the smell/taste have the right to go about their lives without you forcing your choice on them.
I hope you do roll your own cigarettes, I never assumed you didn't, but if you DONT then you are supporting an industry that is doing ASTONISHING amounts of damage to our communities. You are giving money to an industry that is designed to create addiction, exploit the poor and spread disease and death.
I can't think of a comparable corporation that is so large and so powerful and created for such a damaging and hurtful purpose.
Part of being a feminist, in my opinion, is to evaluate our choices from different perspectives. You can smoke if that is your choice, but it doesn't mean that others should be subjected to that decision in their personal space or that the smoking industry and cigarettes aren't specifically bad for women.
I have said in numerous, numerous comments elsewhere in this thread (I think some maybe even to you directly?) that I always take the utmost care to make sure I am not bothering those around me, and that I absolutely respect the rights of others not to have to breathe secondhand smoke if they do not wish to. Frankly, I still don't understand where you guys are all getting this idea of the Evil Aggressive Smoker (see also comments about "blowing smoke in your face" above) from, and why you are assuming that all smokers are like that.
I can't speak for others, but, let this help you understand why I am against anything that leads to lung dis-ease
http://metahara.livejournal.com/394176.html
Why can't I just have a cigarette, say, in the middle of a gigantic field somewhere where it's windy and far away from you? I am not the cause of all your problems and I don't appreciate being called an "asshole" just because I am some anonymous person who has made different choices from you.
Ah the image of the last 3 fires set by cigarettes in California, during the Santa Ana's just came to mind.
Seriously, I think you (the general you) are acting like an ass every time you light up.
I wish you the best lung health possible and I hope you wont ever have to experience the humiliation of being dependent on family, friends and the gov.
because you can't breathe well enough to wipe your own ass.
I breathe well now (thanks to new meds, alt. healing modalities and air filters) and can work consistently.
I cherish each breath. Not one is taken for granted.
You do not have the information I have.
If you're interested in learning more, really going there, stop by my site.
I have exercises that can help you gain understanding.
"Seriously, I think you (the general you) are acting like an ass every time you light up."
DRAMATIC IRONY!
You're practically scapegoating all smokers, no matter how reasonable they are. You are a giant asshole all throughout here; the fact that you have society's standards on your side doesn't change the fact that you're ridiculously melodramatic and irrational about it.
Smoking is an asshole thing to do.
not nearly as dramatic as suffocating from poor lung health, as Hara has stated clearly is part of her experience, more than once. I think it should be obvious why she hates smoke and thinks it's an assinine thing to do.
This is the first of your comments I've read that I agree with.
I choose to eat more than I need to. Part of it is habit, part of it is laziness, part of it is anxiety, and part of it is because I really like junk food. And most people here would defend my right to make that decision. We're all adults, and we can make the decision to smoke and overeat and be fat, and no one is a bad person for having a vice, even if it means they risk disease. More than that, there's a big difference between smoking in general, and the kind of smoking that can hurt others, and I hate seeing the two used interchangeably. Life is for living, and if you don't enjoy things that potentially damage your health, that's cool and your right to not partake in them. But if you do, you're not a bad person, not stupid, and not an asshole.
I'd expect a bunch of feminists to be less judgmental.
Thank you, that is basically where I'm coming from as well. If you don't mind, I'd be curious to know what about my other comments you might not've agreed with (if this is the first one)? I'm honestly curious, and I don't feel like very many people have really articulated their objections to my posts very coherently, and I really do want to get a better understanding of where everyone else is coming from if I can.
early death is not the worst part of it
it's the suffering it causes before that death
and the irresponsible destruction of the environment
and suffering for others it causes
not to mention that it is paying the original slave owners descendants for slavery
Vanessa,
Thanks for stopping the habit.
Here is a small list of things that have worked for people I know, who stopped smoking:
Pranayama for as many minutes as smoking a cigarette takes
Knitting
Keeping a bottle of water with you at all times for drinking
Using a straw to drink water
sketching
writing
bead work
Yoga
crunches
singing
Mantra's that remind:
realizing that you are not a smoker. You are too intelligent and too invested in your good health to be a smoker at this time. It served a purpose at some point in your life, but, it was like an abusive partner and must be let go of now.
You are not a smoker. You are not going to pay for self abuse in such a blatantly obvious way ever again.
Good luck and thank you.
last comment on this:
Smoking cigarettes is an asshole thing to do.
I've seen allot of comments insulting smokers: calling them stinky, laughing at them for their added medical risks (WTF?!), saying they are a harm to everyone else (some said this is true even if they aren't smoking around anyone else but still have stinky cloths), and basically treating smokers like naughty children.
I think this is because some people taking their feelings on those who smoke around others where they are trapped (forced to work in smoky bars, children inside homes, other indoor areas) and generalizing it to all smokers. I live in California where it is illegal to smoke in a workplace (including restaurants, bars, etc.). I think this is an awesome law because no one should be forced to take unnecessary health risks at their place of work. This means that most smokers in Cali don't hurt anyone with their smoke cause they have to do it outside or in their own homes. So why all the hostility? I don't smoke but I get really tired of people trying to kick smokers out of the planet.
At my university, they are trying to make the entire campus smoke-free, why? Smokers already can't smoke in classrooms (good) and have to stand twenty feet away from any door (also good), so why try and kick them off the entire campus? That sounds unreasonable and kinda ridiculous.
Anyway, if you want to insult someone who smokes next to you in an enclosed area against your will, fine. But I think we should not assume every smoker does that and we should treat smokers with the same respect and courtesy that we treat everyone else with on this site.
Laughing at people for medical risks is in poor taste, I agree. But is it an insult to say someone smells bad if they DO? If you don't want to smell bad, don't smoke, but don't expect people to pretend you don't smell. (And that's a general you, I saw that the person I'm replying to said they don't smoke).
>some said this is true even if they aren't smoking around anyone else but still have stinky cloths
For the record, this can be true. Its not likely in all situations, but I know someone who definitely made his 2 year old daughter sick from smoke even though he only smoked outside away from her. She had lung problems and coughing just from breathing the smoke particles from his clothes. Very good motivation for him to finally quit.
Plus, I think a lot of people were saying smokers still smell like smoke even if they aren't smoking right near you, and that is true whether or not its a health risk.
Thank you.
Here's the thing, I understand that you want your right to smoke. You have a choice about when and where you light up, and I have to give you kudos for being a relatively considerate smoker. But- my mother doesn't have a CHOICE about having copd and asthma. She also doesn't have a CHOICE about walking down a street on her way to work or out shopping or living her life. I also think that she should have the freedom to eat in restaurants with friends. She can't be around smoke. Ever. You can smoke when you leave a bar, but she can't stop having health problems when she enters it.
It's hard for those of us who understand the importance of breathing and how it affects quality of life to be patient with people who take their breath for granted. Why someone would choose a habit that destroys ones ability to breathe, a little bit at a time usually, is worthy of feminist discourse. Do you hate yourself? Do you give in to the Virginia Slim ads? What motivates that self destruction?
On a site that speaks of INFORMED choice, it seems they don't really have a clue.
You've seen your mother suffer and I personally have suffered, but they are clueless.
I'll bet none have ever tried the breathing through a coffee stir straw and nothing else for even 1 full minute and yet, they claim knowledge and full consenting choice.
People who smoke aren't making an informed choice. or if they are, they are in deep denial, trying to prove some bizarre point or just not that bright.
This is not merely a rhetorical question: what's it to you if I smoke? Really?
You are polluting the air we share. You are supporting a company that markets more of the same, so that more people will pollute the air we share.
It's useless pollution for what?
and please stop saying it's an informed choice if you choose not to believe the information, you are making an ignorant choice or one based in denial.
You bought the marketing over the science and are defending that here.
What information am I choosing not to believe? I don't think smoking is good for me, for fuck's sake. I don't think it's a good thing and I don't encourage doing it, all else being equal. I also don't think smoking makes someone a terrible person, though. I just have a different set of circumstances and priorities from you that mean that I have an occasional cigarette, and I don't really feel terribly bad about it as long as I'm not bothering anyone around me. I don't see what in that gives you the right to call me an asshole or stupid or condescendingly offer me "understanding" or even "enlightenment."
Your cigarette bothers people. You choose to be in denial about that. I don't have to be within 10 or even 20 ft of cig smoke to be offended by it...not to mention the damage it causes to the environment in general.
It's not a worthwhile cause to defend.
For the record, I am all in favor of a world where anyone with health problems never has to be in a situation where they are aggravated by cigarette smoke.
I agree with this poster's comments:
"As long as people make informed, educated decisions about what they put in their body I think they should be entitled to do so."
"It doesn't mean I think you have the right to expose others to your cigarettes and that if this is your choice you have a responsibility to be courteous and keep others from breathing in your smoke. This is about their health, this is about common decency that people who have allergies, asthma, or just hate the smell/taste have the right to go about their lives without you forcing your choice on them."
I also agree with this poster's comments:
"Anyway, if you want to insult someone who smokes next to you in an enclosed area against your will, fine. But I think we should not assume every smoker does that and we should treat smokers with the same respect and courtesy that we treat everyone else with on this site."
I do not smoke. I do not like smoke. I detest the smell of stale smoke in my clothes, or in upholstery and carpets. As someone interested in health, I am well aware of the health risks involved in smoking. But they are risks. I cannot point at any young person, even as a nurse, and say, "you ARE going to develop cancer" or "you WILL have a low birth weight baby" or "you ARE cutting x amount of time from your lifespan." I can't even say, "YOU caused my dad's cancer," because if people could, there would be serious money to be made off smokers, who unlike tobacco companies, do not have personal multimillion dollar legal defense teams.
Why not? Because they are individuals, and even among smokers there are other factors, such as genetics and other aspects of lifestyle that determine risk. Other people, like my grandfather, can smoke a harsh brand of cigarettes and die at 90 and beyond, when men of his generation had an average life expectancy in the mid 40s.
Otherwise, I consider smoking for the average person who can respect others, to be akin to eating foods containing high amounts of sodium, cholesterol or "bad" fats; using motor vehicles instead of human power, or sitting at a desk instead of doing manual labor 12 hours a day. You don't want to get into an argument about how people are responsible for damaging their own health, or that of others. Modern living, of which smoking is just one aspect (and in decline), has done quite enough detriment to health and the environment.
A smokers risk to self is not the only risk to health involved in smoking tobacco and supporting the tobacco industry.
If my next door neighbor was eating high sodium foods, I would not have to increase my asthma meds or move in order to breathe.
He would not be affecting my children's health as individuals.
Yes, it's true that what one does can affect the whole in a butterfly effect way, but, smoking is more direct than that.
I do want to get into a conversation about it.
I do think it should be easier to ride bikes and have solar wind and electric power instead of gasoline.
Yes, let's talk about it as feminists who are bent on improving quality of life.
You can hardly hold someone responsible for the actions of the corporations they buy from. Unfortunately, we have to buy from people we disagree with sometimes. We all do it, unless you're lucky enough to have a lot of options.
And the hypothetical neighbor? Please, the strawman argument is insulting. The smokers I know all smoke outdoors or in their own houses. If it affects you, you can look for apartments where they don't allow smoking. If you have to be around smokers, you can kindly ask them not to smoke around you. If they refuse, the problem is that they're assholes, not that they're smokers. The problem with living in a community is that the people around you are going to affect you. If that thing is smoking, so be it, and maybe your smoker neighbor will have insomnia and be annoyed at your noise. Eventually you have to realize it's not about you, and be reasonable of your expectations of others.
Seriously, your demonization of smokers has to stop. You are more than welcome to not like it, and not be around smokers, and have letter writing campaigns about their marketing, but making the decision to buy a pack of Virginia Slims does not make someone a bad person, it doesn't mean they would blow smoke in your face, or anything.
Unless you live in the country by yourself, have a minimal carbon footprint, and equally hate people who shop at Wal-Mart, that is.
If you have to be around smokers, you can kindly ask them not to smoke around you. If they refuse, the problem is that they're assholes, not that they're smokers.
This! Yes. (And the real assholes deserve whatever flak they get from you, too).
I consider smoking for the average person who can respect others, to be akin to eating foods containing high amounts of sodium, cholesterol or "bad" fats; using motor vehicles instead of human power, or sitting at a desk instead of doing manual labor 12 hours a day... Modern living, of which smoking is just one aspect (and in decline), has done quite enough detriment to health and the environment.
I am totally with you there. For the record, I do consider my smoking a bad habit, it's obviously bad for my health, etc etc. Hilariously enough, besides being a smoker, I am also a vegetarian who doesn't own a car, rides a bike, moves around a fair amount during the day, doesn't work for a giant corporation, lives in a very densely populated area, buys "greener" cleaning products, etc etc, who rarely drinks and never does drugs. I'm not saying this makes smoking any less bad for me or something, but it's not like all I am is A Smoker who doesn't have a bunch of other stuff going on...
We have all been a hypocrite at one time or another. It's silly to defend hypocrisy when it's pointed out.
You've gotta admit it doesn't fit with the work towards less toxic living.
Marketing wins? Really? It does not have to.
What is your deal with marketing? Seriously, I am trying to be civil here, but it is fucking wearing thin. I am not a smoker because I am just some instance of a "sheeple" herded into a behavior by advertising or something, Jesus. For fuck's sake.
I'm not "defending hypocrisy" or something, if anything I am admitting it and I am okay with that. I'm sure you do hypocritical things too, as does everyone else in the universe. The issue is not whether a certain behavior is hypocritical at all, but rather whether it is major enough to conflict so significantly with our core values that we just cannot stand to do the conflicting things at once. Obviously then, for you to smoke would be unacceptably hypocritical, but it isn't really so with me, and that is my own damn choice to make, so back the fuck off.
Firstly, thank you all so so much for your feedback. The support here alone is enough motivation to quit; it's greatly appreciated!
Secondly, some of the language on this thread is getting pretty condescending and hostile, can we please take it down a notch and focus on ways to quit rather than placing shame on folks or being abusive? I really don't want to have to start deleting posts or banning people.
Hi, I just wanted to say I'm really sorry if my posts have contributed to the hostile tone. I really didn't intend for all this controversy to happen. I wish you and everyone else very good luck with your quitting process, and some of the advice given here sounds really helpful (and stuff I will definitely keep in mind when it does come time for me to quit as well).
Apparently withdrawal symptoms are more severe during the second half of the menstrual cycle.
Oh, and I forgot to say, getting pissed at myself for paying multinational corporations to addict me and kill me was helpful when quitting, too.
That's what did it for me: I woke up one day with the realization that I no longer wanted to pay RJ Reynolds to kill me. And like a previous poster, I started as a teenager to be a badass, but I realized that as an adult smoker, I was no longer considered a badass, but a person with a liability, and I just felt sick of smelling stinky, burning holes in my clothes, having to run out and buy cigarettes at inconvenient times, spending all the money I would rather have used for other things, etc.
And once that "clicked" in my head, I was done. It's been almost 20 years and I still think wistfully about cigarettes a lot (especially in traffic, or when I'm stressed and looking for an escape) but I know they'd taste like azz (and they cost a fortune now!) and I don't want to be a person who smokes anymore.
Vanessa, good luck to you!!!