Why did you start smoking?

[Isabo]

Why did I start? (age 13)
As an act of rebellion at school.
Because I didn't want to be part of the group of prigs that didn't
Because all the boys that I liked did.
I think I enjoyed every cigarette I lit. Every one was a friend when I was down, lonely or stressed. Always there in good times or bad.
Has my health suffered? Fortunately no.
Do I want to give up? I know I should but I'll be happy if I can stick to my current (low) consumption. I'm afraid that's as good an example as I can manage for my daughter who is also a heavy smoker. I feel very guilty about this as I think she started because she was copying my example, I first caught her when she was 7.
So, what's everyone else's excuse?

[72 four door]

I also started smoking when i was 13 [wanted to be the marlboro man] lol, I think i wanted to look cool and smoking at the time to me represented coolness.My friends did it so in order to fit in so did i. It took me 27yrs to quit, Now im free from the monkey.Its a whole new life without that crutch to lean on.

[lendaddy]

Started when I was 19-20! I was working in my current factory full time(40-50 hours) as a production welder and carrying a full load in college. The other welders ALL smoked, because well the welding smoke kinda made it a mute point I guess. I loved it! I enjoyed the headrush it gave me back then. It also made me fell more like "one of the guys" rather than "the Boss' kid". When I would sit in the parking ramp in my car before class and burn one, it would calm me while I wrote a paper for the class I was about to walk into Yes I did this often. I guess I had alot of stress for a young guy? And I don't care what anyone says smoke does relax/calm you. So right there was the mental addiction.

[Overpaid Slacker]

I started at about 26... during law school. Not b/c of the "stress", really, but b/c that's when I started playing around w/ all kinds of substances.

It was a pretty relaxed habit at first ... a buddy and I would split a pack over the course of the evening a couple of nights a week (and feel like cold death on a Triscuit the next day). Then... I started seriously dating a girl who was a full-on, get-down smoker (she bought by the carton; no delusions about being a smoker for the foreseeable future).

We lived together for a while in Ann Arbor, and that pretty much cemented the smoking habit. If she was lighting up, so was I, and vice versa. Chicks will be the death of me, one way or another.

The "A woman drove me to drink, and I never thanked her for it" line doesn't work w/ smoking.

JP

[legion]

Not sure if this qualifies, but I'll have the occasional cigar and pipe, but I very rarely smoke cigarettes. The tobacco in them tastes like crap to me. Started when I was in college, trying to look sophisticated I guess. I do know that after a pipe or cigar, I do feel very relaxed, but I'll suffer at the gym the next day. I know that if I drink and smoke at the same time, I'll have a pounding headache the next morning. I still do it a half a dozen times a year.

[pwd72s]

over a decade ago, with much struggling, I gave up a pack a day Camel straights habit. Still do stogies tho, 1-2 per week, so guess I haven't really "quit smoking". Why did I start? My excuse is my age. It seemed that everybody smoked...movies, TV,
my mother, (not my father, strangely enough) Aunts, Uncles, teachers, cops and crooks...like I said, it seemed that everybody smoked. The "kooks" were the people who didn't smoke, back in the late 1950's USA. So I guess I started because I wanted to belong, look older.

[Rot 911]

Originally posted by Isabo
Has my health suffered? Fortunately no.

It probably has, but not in ways that you notice right now.

[Jeff Higgins]

When I plugged my trouble light in and it shorted out in my hand.

[Dantilla]

My neighbors have been desperately trying to quit. They were suprised to find out that I have never tried smoking. I've never had a cigarette touch my lips.

So I told them that on my 70th birthday, maybe I'll try smoking. That way, if I get hooked, I'll die of something else before the ugly diseases set in.

Maybe I should wait for 80.

[speeder]

I started smoking @ 13 for most of the same reasons as Isabo, (rebellion, etc..), those frikking cigs have owned my ass for most of the years since. Quit 1.5 years ago, not for the first but hopefully the last time.

Isabo, unfortunately the odds of women smokers getting cancer are astronomical, (and not just lung cancer), if I were you I would quit as an example for your daughter since she started because of you. Don't get me wrong here, you are guilty of nothing but having a (very common) addiction, but now you could do something positive w/ it. Plus, the benefits of quiting are manifold; not just improved health but it's a major life adventure to jetison something that has been at your side since age 13.

I just lost a friend to cancer, she was only 50 and it was ugly. She went through hell, (cut out her tongue, throat, etc..), it was 100% smoking related. She was a really hip chick, I'm sure that she started very young.

[paralleltangent]

I started for probably the same reasons, rebellion, etc. I was around 16 and I smoked weekends to solidify my standing somewhere between the really bad kids that stood across the street at lunch to smoke in the 10 below North Dakota winters, and the goodie-goodies that didn't do anything. My best friend and I would split a pack during the weekend while cruising around in my 66 Corvair. Stopped after moving to TX my senior year, but picked it up again in college. Found out it went with drinking quite well and took the edge off of finals prep all-nighters. I'm in agreement with Lendaddy, it was relaxing to me.

I've quit a couple of times since, for as long as a year, but went back to it for some reason or another (the last time was finding out my live-in girlfriend of 3.5 years had married after just 5 mos following her exit). It's been 3 years since then, and I'm quitting again.

I'm at 8 days without now, and today's been kinda rough. First day of noticable irritability, and I've been having more cravings than usual.

[pbs911]

There was this guy in highschool autoshop. We called him fat Matt. Great guy. Drove a hot rod 67 Mustang. Anyways, hee smoked Marboro reds and we always gave him a hard time about smoking. We often stoll his sigs. One day he commented about how do we know whether smoking is bad if we didn't smoke. So, the next pack we stoll from him we smoked. . . . and got that high. Continued smoking for 15 years after. . . then went to chew for another 10 years. . . and now nothing.

With a cut in my drinking I feel like the model for the adam ant song," Don't drink, don't smoke, what dod you do. . . " Man do I miss it.

[Yellowbird RS]

I started smoking at 14 because my big brother did.

[nostatic]

musicians smoke. at 17 (summer of '79) I wanted to be Eric Clapton. Or Jimi Hendrix. So I had to have a cigarette on the headstock of my guitar. And once I started doing blow...well, the coke bone is connected to the smoke bone (just like the drink bone). I quit coke cold turkey January of '84. It took me longer to kick cigarettes...I think I finally quit in September of '84 or so.

[David]

I started smoking cigarettes occationally when I was in college the first time, but I started smoking pot way before that. As my pot smoking decreased and then stopped, my cigarette smoking increased inversely. I don't think I've ever really enjoyed smoking cigarettes, but I REALLY enjoyed smoking pot so the cigarettes have just been a replacement. Wait... what was I talking about?

[JavaBrewer]

Growing up in Santa Barbara CA I was dying to be different, dangerous. I smoked when I could (lived at home) and even dabbled with clove cigs. Then I did a year in Cambridge UK as an exchange student and came back fully hooked, smoking a pack a day, 2 if I was out drinking. Man it was fantastic. After 7 years as a bartender I started to feel the negative effects so one day I just gave it up cold. That was 15 years ago and still today I get the urge once in a while but when I bum a cig it tastes really foul and makes me sick. I'm glad my smoking days are behind me.

[cstreit]

Huh. First mention of cloves.

I used to be a shave-head-mowhawk-purple-hair-punk-rockin'-combat-boot-wearin'-Dead Kennedys-rebel without a clue... Everyone did it.

Started smoking clove cigarettes bummed from friends in college. They were expensive so I bought a pack of generic cig's instead. Think I was addicted 3 months later. Took me 3 years to admit it...

[Clowd]

Don't smoke.. ciggarettes just seem pretty stupid to me. My girlfriend did untill she stopped due to me making fun of her for it, I tried one of hers once and it didn't do anything for me.. weed on the other hand affects me a little bit, but is still stupid.

I don't think I can get addicted easily, either... Except to Porsches.

[M.D. Holloway]

Started in HS to carry on the beer buzz - continued on in college, got to 3+ packs a day of reds (switched to Winstons - less people bum Winstons!) - great with a coffee in the AM, smoke breaks between classes, after a meal or a lay, pre-requiste when booz'n. Stopped when my 17 was born, never went back (sorta).

[GettinHeadStuds]

B/c it's cool.

Trying the cold turkey thing... we'll see...

"Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it a thousand times"
-Mark Twain