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Anyone Here Still Smoke Cigarettes?


Razors Edge

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7 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Quit December 7th 1990.  I just passed my 30th anniversary. 

Smoked a cigar to note the big anniversary?

Seriously, though, good on you for kicking the habit and sticking with it.  My mom was able to stop smoking about 20 yrs ago, but it took a lot of cigarette quitting aids like the gum and some medicine(?), but definitely good once she got past the withdrawals and broke the habit.

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I remember the last day because it was Pearl Harbor day.  I turned out to be a nicotine addict and when through hell for a few weeks with the creepy crawlies, the shits and a serious desire to go postal.  About the third week things began to turn around (the cravings would last for a couple more years though).  I developed a carrot and stick approach to the task of quitting.  Every day I would place the cost of a pack of cigarettes into a special fund and on Fridays after work I would stop at the hobby shop and buy myself a present.  The stick was in developing a personal hatred for what the nicotine had done to me.  Cold turkey was the only way I could break the habit after several years of trying.  The tablets or patches simply would have supported the nicotine addiction.

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3 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Every day I would place the cost of a pack of cigarettes into a special fund and on Fridays after work I would stop at the hobby shop and buy myself a present. 

As cigarette costs have gone up a LOT over the past couple decades, I wonder how much that has affected folks picking up and staying with the habit?  Back when they were a buck a pack or cheaper, kids could swing that easily.  At $5-$10 a pack, that calculus changes a lot.

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8 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

As cigarette costs have gone up a LOT over the past couple decades, I wonder how much that has affected folks picking up and staying with the habit?  Back when they were a buck a pack or cheaper, kids could swing that easily.  At $5-$10 a pack, that calculus changes a lot.

I quit at $1.25 a pack and that was sufficient to purchase one n scale train car a week.  That was a reasonable incentive for the carrot.

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

At $5-$10 a pack, that calculus changes a lot.

Yeah, no kid is smoking pot or doing other drugs because of a $5-10 cost, so surely cigarettes will fall out of favor!

Actually, I think all the kids vape their nicotine (and cannabis) now. 
 

I personally only know two people that I know smoke cigarettes. Work colleagues. No one I know outside of work.

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4 minutes ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

Yeah, no kid is smoking pot or doing other drugs because of a $5-10 cost, so surely cigarettes will fall out of favor!

Actually, I think all the kids vape their nicotine (and cannabis) now. 
 

I personally only know two people that I know smoke cigarettes. Work colleagues. No one I know outside of work.

I would love to see the cost comparison now between pot and cigarettes.  It has probably shrunk immensely in my life, and considering the difference in amount - pack a day vs a couple joints(?), that would be a factor.  Likewise, addictive properties and/or "coolness" factors?

But vaping seems to be way more popular than regular smoking - at least in public these days.

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Quit on 5/26/2010.  Cold turkey.  Went to work with 1 or 2 in the pack and when they were gone decided I wasn't going to get another pack.

The time from 24-72 hours was the worst, then a couple more weeks of pretty bad cravings.  Chewing gum and other oral replacements helped get me through.

Even the SO has quit now.  A year or two ago she switched to vaping.  For the last month or so, she has also "quit" that, though she says she still uses it in the car, which isn't really quitting, IMO, but still better than before.

Her brother was recently in Jail for a couple of years (can't smoke in there), came out, and started right back up!  Idiot!

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I started at age 14. When I turned 28 I saw the writing on the wall and quit before my 30th birthday. Used the gum for a week. Oral cravings persisted for the next year and then got easier over time. Smokes were $0.50 when I started and were $10 a carton @ Costco when I quit. 200 cigarettes a week at that point.  I remember the date because it was the weekend I went to meet the future in laws over the holidays. 

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I finally quit on Aug. 9, 1995, a couple months before my 45th birthday, after smoking up to 1.5 packs/day for 25 years and quitting off-and-on for 15 years.

My parents were the youngest of large families and I got to see, by then, that my aunts and uncles - by blood and marriage - who smoked were dying in their 60's and 70's and those who didn't lived into their 80's.  That helped me motivate myself to successfully quit.

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I never smoked, except secondhand.  I grew up in a family where everyone smoked.  I hated the smell.  Made me want to gag.  The worst was riding in a car with both of my parents smoking, especially in the winter with the windows rolled up.  I never understood the attraction to such a disgusting habit.   

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26 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

I never smoked, except secondhand.  I grew up in a family where everyone smoked.  I hated the smell.  Made me want to gag.  The worst was riding in a car with both of my parents smoking, especially in the winter with the windows rolled up.  I never understood the attraction to such a disgusting habit.   

Similar - to a lesser degree - but it ABSOLUTELY led to my never having even a moments desire to smoke.  I do like the smell of unlit cigarettes fresh from a pack, but that's about where any liking of tobacco ends for me. Well, I don't mind pipe smoke either, but maybe only certain pipe blends?  Still have no desire to smoke cigars, cigarettes, pipes, or even weed.

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2 hours ago, Road Runner said:

I never smoked, except secondhand.  I grew up in a family where everyone smoked.  I hated the smell.  Made me want to gag.  The worst was riding in a car with both of my parents smoking, especially in the winter with the windows rolled up.  I never understood the attraction to such a disgusting habit.   

I grew up similarly.  I remember after my dad passed (surprisingly not of lung cancer...) my mom took down the curtains & window coverings & washed everything.  Amazing how much soot collected in them and the house didn’t smell like smoke afterwards.

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7 hours ago, Reverend_Maynard said:

Her brother was recently in Jail for a couple of years (can't smoke in there), came out, and started right back up!  Idiot!

I quit about ten years ago...  I don't remember the exact date either.  At one point, I had a bit too much to drink and thought it would be a good idea to have a cigarette because I enjoyed it so much while drunk in the past. I lit the cigarette and thought I was going to die.  It was disgusting. Even though I put it out right away, I could smell it on my fingers for days.  

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2 hours ago, Longjohn said:

I smoked from the time I got my draft card until I determined they didn’t want me, about two years. When the doctors office ask if I ever smoked I should have said no. My medical records list me as a former smoker. Crikey, that was over fifty years ago.

Maybe you were too tall to get drafted? Can we squeeze him in a tank? Nope won’t fit...  Does he fit in a helo? Nope... Armored personnel carrier? Nope.... Shit 4F...

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I’ve never smoked as a habit, but I’ve shared a few cigarettes and swisher sweets with others. 
#1 recently switched from cigarettes to vape. It’s hard to watch her hit that Jewel every ten minutes. When she smoked cigarettes, she’d have three a day. Now she’s on nicotine all the time. 

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I started smoking at age 13, and by 16 I was hooked. The only way I could afford the habit was to roll my own, so I was well acquainted with the feeling of paper stuck to my lip and spitting out tobacco shreds.

 My trucking career began shortly after, and smoking was just a natural thing to do while spending hours behind the wheel.

 By the time I was in my early 20s, I was feeling the effects. Shortness of breath and all that. I made countless attempts to quit, but never made it through the first day.

Then, on April 1, 1977, having gone to sleep in my truck the night before wheezing and coughing, and vowing to quit once and for all, I gave away two full packs  of smokes to the kid who was loading my truck, and never touched another cigarette. 

 So after 44 years, I think I pretty much have it licked.

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Late WoScrapr quit a few years after our boy was born. He started asking her to quit. She had tried a few times but nothing worked. Then she did hypnosis & that did it. She had a tape that she played at night while in bed. Later if she had cravings she would put on the tape for a few nights

I always tried to get her secret word to make her cluck like a chicken. She never gave it up

I smoke a half dozen cigars a year. Mostly driving on road trips or by the fire pit on a summer night

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23 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

As cigarette costs have gone up a LOT over the past couple decades, I wonder how much that has affected folks picking up and staying with the habit?  Back when they were a buck a pack or cheaper, kids could swing that easily.  At $5-$10 a pack, that calculus changes a lot.

When I quit in 1995, I was paying $10.50 for a 10-pack carton of off-brand cigarettes in Maryland.  Several years ago, I was in line at a supermarket and the guy in front of me paid $65 for a carton.  When I was my turn, I asked the cashier, "Did I see that right, $65 for a carton of cigarettes?"

She replied, "Yeah, and $8 for a single pack!"

I said I was so glad I had quit about 20 years earlier from the money aspect alone - I was going through a carton a week or about 52 x $65 = over $3000/yr now!

In today's money, I'm sure I saved at least $50,000.

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I wish I could convince my son to quit. He's going on 38 and been smoking since his teens. He gets his smokes cheap by driving down to the Indian reservation and buying a big bag at a time. I'm sure they would be getting kinda stale by the time he gets to the bottom of the bag, but couldn't be much worse than when I used to scavenge ashtrays for butts that still had a few drags left.

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