Giving up?

Looks like plenty of reformed types here, me too gave up in 2001 after 14yrs(I started very young at 14)... sent SWMBO to the other side of the world(Italy)for the 1st month and was on holidays from work this helped greatly not being near any smoke or social pressure.
I didnt drink for 6mths... then a big shock to the system discovered beer taste's horrid!

I used that zyban worked for me, the only side affect I got was mild insomia but being a shift worker Im used to that... other than that it turned me into a health freak I went from a 105kg+(only 5'10")down to the high 70's then gymed it up to 89kg(12% Bfat)now hovering around the 90kg mark after 6mths off with a op on my back(back into it now).
I walk 1-1 1/2hrs a day and gym 6 days a week currently... but that'll change once I go back to work.

They say reformed smokers are the worst, I reckon so, while driving along the hyway I can smell if the car infront has a ciggi burning in it!
I dont think even the death penlty would stop a smoker if they banned it, as they all ready have one.

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Originally Posted by Harry72

They say reformed smokers are the worst,.

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That's smokers saying that and they are confused, what they really mean is reformed smokers are the BEST.


Funny thing about smokers who say they aren't addicted, they just enjoy it. Ask them why they can't just enjoy it once or twice a week and 'um...Well I enjoy it soooo much that I do it ever hour or so, I'm not addicted but, I can give up anytime"

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Originally Posted by Harry72

I used that zyban worked for me,

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Good to see the drug companies cashing in on the tobacco industries misfortunes, they have much better ethics ;) :p

Wouldn't suprise me if they had the same parent company.

Yer i'm off the smokes the grog n the drugs.........n Oh yeah thx to swmbo the sex to!!!!!!!!!

...............Now I do woodwork!!!!

Ha ahrrrrrrrr....................now the secrets out!!!!!!

:D:D:D:D:D


REformed LoutoYou!!!!!!

I'm a smoker, not particularly proud of it but not ashamed either.

This isn't a justification for smoking, I'm not even going to try. I've no intention of even trying to explain why I smoke. I'm informed. I smoke. It's my choice. You're informed? You vote liberal? Who's the bigger fool? :D

The funny thing is I can easily, and often do, go without a cigarette for 8 hours. Usually when I'm working on-site at a non-smokers' house; gotta have some respect for the customers. Don't even bother lighting up when I stop for lunch... then I've better things to do, like eating. I occasionally do without for a couple of days when I run out of tobacco, without feeling any "need," although admittedly my last stay in hossie (some 7 days) left me fangin' fer a fag.

And yes, I'm a fairly heavy smoker, have been for years. I don't know how many packs per day 'cos I smoke shed tobacco. Home-grown "Rollies" to the uninitiated.

Given the above, I can't help but wonder how much of the addiction to "cigarettes" and how many related diseases are actually due to the additives major companies put into their tailor-mades as compared to plain tobacco? All the results and all the testing I've seen has been done using tailor's, I've seen no figures whatsoever on pure, unadulterated tobacco. Filtered or otherwise.

And don't tell me there are no additives. Any rollie or pipe smoker'll tell you that plain tobacco will extiguish itself if you don't keep a draw going. Unlike a tailor: light it, put it in an ashtray and watch it burn twice as fast, almost like a fuse...

Just another thing that makes me go "Hmmmm...." ;)

Skew,

As you say, it's your choice to smoke. It's not illegal.
How do you know that there aren't additives added to rollie tobacco though?

All I know is that most people on this board spend significant amounts of money on systems that will hopefully prevent micron sized dust particles entering their lungs when thay are woodworking.

However you are voluntarily ingesting them. :confused:

As our American cousins say, go figure.

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Originally Posted by craigb

How do you know that there aren't additives added to rollie tobacco though?

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Rollie tobacco sold commercially? I don't, although I assume there is. After all, it is being sold by the same tobacco industries. Mine is home-grown shed tobacco. My home, my shed. Environmentally friendly stuff. Except for the occasional bit of cocobolo or lily-pilly in the sawdust I use for mulch. Oh... and the occasional bloodstain, but I'm convinced it's not infectious.

Trivia: boiled tobacco makes an effective, eco-friendly pesticide. Well... eco-friendly if you're not a pest. ;)

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All I know is that most people on this board spend significant amounts of money on systems that will hopefully prevent micron sized dust particles entering their lungs when thay are woodworking.

However you are voluntarily ingesting them. :confused:

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Yup. I'm also investing in one fairly soon. I should point out that they'll extract down to micron sized dust and woodworking generates quanta more particles than a cigarette. If smoking was the same as breathing in a handful of sawdust I doubt I'd have started in the first place!

And I'm sure that not having to sweep the floor after every session didn't have influence on their decisions. :D

Still, you've a valid point. Oh, the vagaries of children, pets and woodworkers!

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As our American cousins say, go figure.

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Our American cousins also have reported figures that air travel is safer than driving down the street. So why does anyone still drive a car? Go figure! ;)

Yes life is an inherantly dangerous pastime. You could go to sleep and wake up dead. Or trip on the bedside table, if you do manage to live through the night, and hit your head on the dresser and die.
If you make it out of the bedroom there's all manner of things waiting to get you. Porcelain bowls, sharp knives and potato peelers. If you make it past all this gratuitous horror and out to the shed, you're lucky everytime you get back. I need not point out the dangers of the shed.
Yes, life is indeed risky enough without adding to the danger for little or no reward. :p

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Originally Posted by DanP

BTW Alcohol causes MANY more social issues than smoking.

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Not according to Quit Victoria (unless things have changed dramatically in the last five years):

In 1998/99, the total social costs of tobacco use in Australia were $21.1 billion. This accounted for 61.2% of the total social costs of all drugs, including alcohol and illicit drugs.

From Smoking rates, diseases, passive smoking and costs, "Background Brief", Jan. 2005, p. 6 (see http://www.quit.org.au/index2.html > Resources > Background Briefs).

I didn't say social costs. I said social issues.

I’m a smoker. I wish I wasn’t but I am addicted to the %$#&ing things.

It is not good for me but I continue to smoke – doesn’t make sense to me either.

I have tried several times to give up but I have failed each time. I once went to a Chemist to get some patches but I was refused because I needed a doctor’s prescription!!!!! I don’t recall getting a doctor’s prescription to start smoking. Here I was determined to give up at that time but I was stopped. The determination to give took a big nose dive and I went outside the chemists and lit up after having a very heated argument with the %$#!head pharmacist. Are they fair dinkum or is it just another little game for them?

I could reach a conclusion that patches are more of health hazard than cigarettes. Or perhaps doctors are trying to cash in on people giving up due to lost income writing out death certificates. Maybe it is just the small minded people in the government who make up laws to stop the smooth flow.

Like DanP I think I am a considerate smoker in that I don’t try to inconvenience the fresh air of others. I even ask visitors to my shed for permission to smoke in my shed. I certainly don’t smoke inside the house.

Avid anti smokers do not help. They are most annoying and I generally end up telling them that I hope I die soon so I don’t have to put up with them anymore. Do they really think that smokers have not been made aware of the dangers already and that their rude remarks will suddenly make me see the light? Wrong, try and help me, don’t abuse me. I think they enjoy the new socially accepted sport of being nasty and rude to total strangers who smoke. They might be disappointed if there were no more smokers left.

The anti smoking ads on TV remind me of smoking so I walk outside and light up long before the gruesome pictures are beamed at me. They are sickening those pictures but they don’t help give up either.

How did I start? When I was younger, silly old fools with twisted ideas on other subjects told me it was bad.

In hindsight that was the only sound advice they ever gave anyone. The same people thought warnings about DDT were communist plots and that young people of today were hopeless and always would be because they had not experienced the Depression, the Beatles were crap, long hair and flares corrupted people’s minds etc etc etc How does that make someone defiant like myself react?

I would like to give up and hopefully I will before it kills me prematurely, makes me terribly sick and stops me from seeing my grand kids grow up and doing my woodwork. (See I am trying hard).

So if you are one of those people who think it is smart to be rude to smokers, ask yourself what it is that you are trying to achieve. Being rude to someone like me is not helping at all, it will result in a double dose of abuse back and me continuing to slowly commit suicide.

If I ever do give up, please put a bullet through my head if I become a nagging ex smoker because one death is not as significant as multiple deaths.

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Originally Posted by Wood Borer

I was refused because I needed a doctor’s prescription!!!!!

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Un-bloody-believable. You'd think they'd be freely available. The govenment should even subsidise them so they don't cost anything. The saving to society of not treating lung cancer must be greater than the cost of an anti-smoking course.

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Are they fair dinkum or is it just another little game for them?

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Presumably there are chemicals in the patches that are hazardous in some way. I dunno....

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Avid anti smokers do not help.

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Yeah; there's alot of self-righteousness involved...

WB: Any chance of trying to get hold of a prescription? I'd like to see your posts on this board for a long time to come.:)

Yep,

I have to visit the doctors on an unrelated matter soon so I will mention it.

You won't get rid of me that easily. :D

Jeez Borer,

After reading your story I had to find a hankie and blow my nose. How cruel are they attacking somebody who is already depressed.

Of course you are considerate to non/ex smokers and so is DanP 'cos with the tax on coffin nals being so high you guys are paying to keep our troops in Iraq etc.

Keep up the good work ( now who else can I encourage to pay more tax than me)

regards
Geoff