smoking

The deep freeze last week made me happy that I gave up smokes. The last time I tried smoking in single-digit temperatures on a trip to NY, it was absolutely not worth it.

shit now I'm a slave to an electric device that gives me nicotine. It has completely nullified my fiending for cigarettes but it feels like a backwards step compared to when I properly kicked the habit. Vaping is quite pleasurable though, but i just wish I hadn't been foolish enough to start the habit again.

I’ve never smoked. Should I start? My partner would probably break up with me but people sure look cool when they do it.

i've been at it 30 years and my advice to you, silby, is no

That’s what everyone says and I’ve taken their advice so far

silby, plz don't, thx.

it's a lot easier to start than is to stop. I've stopped 3 times in the last 30 years and it gets harder each time!

I’ve been meaning to start for at least 20 years now

try it, it's cool

I still find it impossible to drink/party without lighting one up. It's not ideal by any means, but I haven't smoked on a daily basis since my mid-20s (a couple of brief summer vacations notwithstanding).

I don't understand how people can just have the odd leisure cigarette without the creeping addiction, but my partner has one cig a week or something and often docks it half smoked. For me it's always a slippery slope towards 20 a day.

And by 'drink' I mean 'have more than 2-3 pints', otherwise I can abstain just fine.

xp

What 'helps' is that it automatically makes feel like shit. I can't cope with that for more than a few days at a time anymore.

If I'm drinking with friends, it's an 'ah, fuck it'-type scenario where I figure I might as well go the extra sacrificial mile, since I'm already messing up my liver. But otherwise it's all downsides for me.

yeah when aren't a seasoned smoker it really does often make you feel like shit. But when addiction creeps in you are still counting the minutes till your next fix.

I weaned myself off cigarettes by vaping, then eventually quit

I had a hard time with cravings after I quit, but years later I don't think about it too much. there is an ongoing dull desire, but it's not very strong at this point

That's def what it was like when I was younger. I was sick all the time because my colds would linger for a full month, sometimes more, and I just don't see myself going back to that ever again.

xp

Do you get cravings when you're drinking, Dan?

I don't really get cravings anymore. I remember on a remote level how pleasurable it was, and have always thought that if I am ever diagnosed with a terminal disease and it doesn't matter anymore I will take it up again. I can go for the rest of my life without it though

Smoking is going to be my end of life treat. If I’m given six months to live or an Alzheimer’s diagnosis I’m going two packs a day.

I'd probably do the same tbh.

One of the things I like about vaping is when I'm drinking and doing the vape equivalent of smoking too much - you don't feel so deathly the next day. Like as if you have been huffing on an exhaust pipe with a massively enhanced sickly hangover,

One thing I don’t miss from my intermediate stage of smoking when I drink but not otherwise is going to bed with my heart pounding because I had a pack’s worth of nicotine in four hours.

Oh yeah, it makes a huge difference. Rolling tobacco also helps on that front ime.

xp

going to bed with my heart pounding because I had a pack’s worth of nicotine in four hours

The temptation is to assuage that with a few extra downers… which only makes it worse, of course.

Sometimes I like to alternate between a drink and a smoke outside the bar but I kind of have to make myself do it or ask the bartender

Fuck I miss bars.

having a pleasant afternoon sesh in a pub and nipping outside to smoke a rolly without any crowd paranoia .. that's another world!

I've never liked having a cig without a drink--the acrid-ness of the taste builds up too much. Extremely unenjoyable ime but I will sit outside and drink my drink in pretty much all weather. Like tonight.

Takes two ryes or vodka sodas for cigarettes to taste okay IME

Unfiltereds and black coffee, now yer talkin

I was working on a church once and found a 1930/40's ? empty unfiltered Woodbine cigarette packet in a void under some floorboards. It struck me how small the average size of ciggies must have been back in the day. You could have took a few hard drags ciggies this size and it's nearly burning your fingers,

Sitting outside with an espresso, a Topo Chico and a Parliament was pretty solid, yeah.

scuse the typing it's late here

me pre COVID: the occasional cigarette, the occasional drink

me during COVID: 2-3 cigs a day most days (with breaks of a few weeks at a time), drinks 1-2 nights a week, lots of weed vaping, and occasionally sampling the mushrooms my roommate told me to take possession of after they gave her a panic attack. (They're nice, tbh.)

Lush life

my day job is currently extremely low-maintenance

I have about 4 cigarettes a year now and they are glorious

I quit cold turkey in like 2009 or something? Shit I don’t even know lol

Didn’t smoke at for at least 5 years

At all*

Some mornings back when I smoked, I'd wake up with my mouth tasting like I licked an ashtray.

And then I quit smoking.

So now some mornings when I've drank too much, I'll wake up with mouth tasting like I licked an ashtray and go fuck, it wasn't the cigarettes doing this after all!

Dehydration is a bitch

I don't drink heavily any more, but I remember that first drink of water in the morning always being godlike, manna from heaven.

I was smoking a couple a day and sometimes much more for months now and was finding myself unable to concentrate and irritable which I'd attribute to a burgeoning nicotine addiction that wasn't being fed enough

wow this thought has somehow never occurred to me despite having been an on-and-off "casual" smoker for years.

i quit about 7 or 8 months ago when i got pneumonia on top of an infarction in my right lung that killed off a whole lobe, so basically i couldn't/can't smoke anymore. not the way i'd suggest quitting! I only miss it late at night or if I have a couple beers, and I often dream of people are offering me cigarettes and I have trouble refusing them.

anyways, if anything good came out of that terrible episode it's the quitting smoking, and then having to get in really good shape to counteract the lung thing. however, man, when you miss smoking you miss it hard and it sucks

"I have about 4 cigarettes a year now and they are glorious"

even when I was still managing to maintain a one-a-day habit, that one smoke was divine.

Ever since a bad cold in 2013 I've limited myself to one cig a day except on weekends if I have a beer or wine with lunch. I'm pretty iron-willed about this sort of thing. It helps that I can only smoke when my throat and mouth are booze-kissed.

"wow this thought has somehow never occurred to me despite having been an on-and-off "casual" smoker for years."

the first time I noticed how hardcore nicotine withdrawal can be, particularly if you were previously a heavy smoker. Was when I was withdrawing with patches and coping quite well. And then one day at work I felt really bad and got a bit panicky and thought am I dying or about to have a stroke or something. I couldn't even focus on simple tasks and was losing it. And then I realised to some relief that my nicotine patch had fallen off my arm.

"I have about 4 cigarettes a year now and they are glorious"

being an occasional/intermittent smoker rules tbh

I knew a lot of hardcore smokers in my kitchen worker days, for obvious reasons. I knew a guy who couldn't even sleep through the night - he had to get up and have a ciggie once or twice most nights. no thank you!!

Reminds me of a guy I knew who would light one up mid-soup.