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Smokers - How/Why did you start?
Topic Started: Apr 13 2007, 08:59 PM (293 Views)
Jeffrey
Senior Carp
This question is provoked by an interesting discussion of why people smoke in The Tipping Point, a semi-scholarly book about social psychology by Malcolm Gladwell that's currently in all the stores.
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George K
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Finally
Started when I was 17 (1967). Used to hang out with a friend, two years older than I, and he smoked. Whenever we were together, he'd offer me a smoke, which I finally accepted when I was 17. By mid-college, I was up to about 1/2 pack a day. By the time I was an intern, a pack a day. Kept it up until 1985 - quit cold turkey.

So, that's how?

Why? It was cool to walk along with a smoke in your hand. There's something magical about exhaling and seeing 'yourself' fill the room.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
The only thing I smoked with any regularity was a pipe. And that was waaaay back yonder.

Why?

I liked the smell. I thought it made me look a bit older and wiser.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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George K
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Finally
Yeah! I smoked a pipe when I was in college. Definitely smarter when I smoked, and it was a chick magnet :smokin: .

Then, to look older and wiser, I grew a beard. I've had it (except for 13 years) since 1970.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
this will sound abit strange...

no i dont smoke, and dont intend to.

my father died of lung cancer when i was young and ive always felt i owe it to him not to be a smoker.

but...

im also not a rabid anti smoker, meaning, it doesnt bother me in the slightest to walk into smoke filled bars or restaurants, and i dont truly understand people who get apopletic when someone lights a smoke 50 yards away. i just dont really notice it and it doesnt bother me, second hand smoke notwithstanding.

i also know the times i have smoked i realize its something that i could easily fall into, and therefore ive never allowed myself to smoke to the point of getting at all hooked, psychologically or physiologically.

i know this is weird for a cancer doctor, and i know all too well the dangers inherent. but i also think, people r free to do as they please with their lives and if they want to ruin their health for some pleasure, then let them.

anyway, sometimes i think, if i live to 90, then ill start smoking, because by then, i will die of natural causes before i accumulate enough pack years to have them do me in.

this should in no way be taken by anybody as my approving of smoking. but if u want to smoke in a bar or at a ball game, i could not care less.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
To be cool when I was 13. But EVERYBODY smoked then, or so it seemed. Can you imagine how much money the tobacco companies were making?

How? By choking myself through the first few cigarettes, which tasted just godawful nasty, and throwing up once or twice from inhaling. Which is why I know that, since I quit in 1976 after 8 years, I could never, ever go back.

But I do enjoy a few good cigars a year.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Nobody's Sock
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Fulla-Carp
I started cuz I thought George and Mikailoh were cool, so I wanted to be cool too. :smokin:


They never bothered to tell me they quit long ago till recently those sorry sob's!

:lol: :lol:
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
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Riley
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HOLY CARP!!!
I agree with everything bach wrote.
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DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
boy, I don't :P

I sure notice the smoke from others. I do have allergies/asthma so maybe that's part of it. Both my much older brother and much older sister smoke, (16 and 18 years older) and I was around them quite a lot up until I was 5 or 6, and I hated it then, never smoked myself, and really can't stand the smell. When I was singing for the opera here, I used to pick up bartending jobs at the Hyatt. I eventually had to quit that because it made me hoarse to be around the smoke all the time.

These days, when my sister is around, I take benadryl and use my inhaler. I think it's obnoxious and disgusting. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it. My brother has COPD. That's not a very nice thing either.

Gives me a headache too. Yuck.
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Riley
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HOLY CARP!!!
I don't mind the smell, and I like the smell of cigars and pipes.
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DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
I like the smell of clean
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TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
I smike a cigar or so a week. I needed an excuse to boat to Havana and buying cigars seemed the optimum reason. (5-6 hour trip, we usually do a couple of overnights while we're there. Havana is a vastly exotic place.)

FWIW, I have no interest in cigarettes or any other kinds of cigars, but there is something really quite wonderful about a fine Cuban cigar (there's lots of crappy ones, too.) No other cigars even come close.
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Nobody's Sock
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Fulla-Carp
DivaDeb
Apr 14 2007, 06:47 AM
I like the smell of clean

I like the smell of your avatar.
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
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TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
Nobody's Sock
Apr 14 2007, 10:49 AM
DivaDeb
Apr 14 2007, 06:47 AM
I like the smell of clean

I like the smell of your avatar.

Did you see her pic in leather and whips? :thumb:
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DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
My uncle used to chew on a cigar all the time. My parents liked to recall that, when I was three, I crawled up into his lap and told him that my mommy and daddy said I was too old to need a pacifier anymore.
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Nobody's Sock
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Fulla-Carp
TomK
Apr 14 2007, 06:51 AM
Nobody's Sock
Apr 14 2007, 10:49 AM
DivaDeb
Apr 14 2007, 06:47 AM
I like the smell of clean

I like the smell of your avatar.

Did you see her pic in leather and whips? :thumb:

See it?

It's my wallpaper on my pc now!

:wink: :wink:
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
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Copper
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Shortstop

The first cigarette was in the second grade with a few school friends.

Everyone smoked back then, even baseball players and doctors made advertisements for smoking. It was a good thing and definitely cool.

In high school it made you kind of tough and being kind of tough was important. You weren’t allowed to smoke at school until you were a senior.

In college we could smoke in the classroom and lots of people did.

I gave it up after a pack a day for 30 years. I haven’t smoked for years now.

The health effects were of course getting to be a potential problem, too bad I really enjoyed smoking. Maybe I’ll take it up again if I get old enough to not care or if some terminal illness comes my way.
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Nobody's Sock
Apr 14 2007, 09:50 AM
I started cuz I thought George and Mikailoh were cool, so I wanted to be cool too. :smokin:


They never bothered to tell me they quit long ago till recently those sorry sob's!

:lol: :lol:

Well, George and I are still cool.

You? Not so much.... :lol:
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
George K
Apr 14 2007, 06:31 AM
Yeah! I smoked a pipe when I was in college. Definitely smarter when I smoked, and it was a chick magnet :smokin: .

Then, to look older and wiser, I grew a beard. I've had it (except for 13 years) since 1970.

Your nickname in college wasn't "Otter", was it? :devilgrin:
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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George K
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Finally
Jolly
Apr 14 2007, 11:49 AM
Your nickname in college wasn't "Otter", was it? :devilgrin:

Damn, finally caught!
Posted Image
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Jack Frost
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Bull-Carp
Mikhailoh
Apr 14 2007, 09:05 AM
To be cool when I was 13. But EVERYBODY smoked then, or so it seemed. Can you imagine how much money the tobacco companies were making?

How? By choking myself through the first few cigarettes, which tasted just godawful nasty, and throwing up once or twice from inhaling.

My experience exactly. I remember hanging onto a tree the first time I inhaled--I was so dizzy and sick.

It took me 30 years to quit.

jf

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Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
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