Both of my parents smoked and they each died from lung problems. My father had quadruple bypass heart surgery but his lungs were so weak that he never fully recovered and died within a year after surgery. My mother died from severe emphysema.
If you smoke, quit before it's too late....
Burden of Tobacco Use in the U.S.
Current Cigarette Smoking Among U.S. Adults Aged 18 Years and Older
Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States.
Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year.1 Cigarette smoking cost the United States more than $600 billion in 2018, including more than $240 billion in healthcare spending and nearly $372 billion in lost productivity.1,2,3,4
In 2021, an estimated 11.5% (28.3 million) of U.S. adults currently smoked cigarettes. Current cigarette smoking was defined as smoking ≥100 cigarettes during a lifetime and now smoking cigarettes either every day or some days.5
Many years ago I stopped smoking indoors - in the house, anyone's house, at work, in the car. Spent a lot of time in the great outdoors. I finally "quit smoking for Jesus" when I became a Christian. Then again a month later. And again a week later. And again. . . my wife went through hell with my bad temper, the sneaking, my guilt . . . you get the picture. For nine more years.
Until, 7 a.m., middle of winter, sick with a head cold, sitting outside on the front porch (about 3' x 3'), in PJs, shivering in the snow (really) and sucking on the first one of the morning. Spoke out loud saying, "God, I like smoking. I want to smoke, I'm not quitting. If you want me to quit, you do it. I will not". And I sat there finishing my smoke.
That was my last one - I still had nine in the pack but I went back in the house, put the ciggies on the table and simply never picked them up again. Margaretta tossed them away some days later. I never felt the urge, no withdrawal symptoms, no anger, no guilt, no stress. And I never felt responsible. I didn't quit. I still say that I haven't quit smoking. Cigarettes left me. I was going to meet them again at age 70. Now it's 75 or perhaps 80.
Make of it what you will (or won't) but that's exactly what happened on December 11, 2001 - the 24th anniversary of my father's death.
Of course, I got fatter quicker
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Make of it what you will (or won't) but that's exactly what happened on December 11, 2001 - the 24th anniversary of my father's death.
The lungs work in mysterious ways.....
I only brought this subject up because it shocked me when I read that almost half a million Americans per year are dying from cigarette smoking. I would never have guessed such a large number. Back in the 60s and 70s most people I knew smoked cigarettes. I would smoke occasionally if I was drinking alcohol with friends but I never really enjoyed cigarettes all that much.
Knowing what we've learned about cigarettes and the tobacco industry, I don't understand why anyone would choose to smoke nowadays.
I started smoking at 13, falling victim to peer pressure. The ugliest truth is that instead of being outraged and punishing me, my mother recruited me as her smoking buddy and even bought me cigarettes. My father had quit but she didn't want to quit so she welcomed having someone to smoke with. At the time I felt special but of course not too many years later I realized what a sick parenting fail that was on her part.
Luckily for me I did not get addicted to smoking the way so many people do. I smoked socially, mostly in the summers but stayed away from it for the most part during the school year because I was very serious about choir and obviously the habit doesn't mix well with singing. I would still smoke at parties and such, but I wasn't a regular smoker. For a couple of years after I left high school I became a regular, 1 pack/day smoker. Then when I started college I got back into choir and again became more of a casual social smoker - I would give quarters to friends in exchange for a couple of butts, didn't like to keep a pack on me or I would smoke too much. That was my pattern for much of my adult life, with short periods here and there during times of acute stress that I would buy my own and smoke too much, typically not more than half a pack a day during those short stints. I really hated smoking, the stench of it, and I would brush my teeth after every smoke so I brushed a lot.
I finally quit for good 6 or 7 years ago, and probably have ~5 pack years total on my lungs - but I was also exposed to second hand smoke my entire childhood, I remember when I was really young I would get up for the bathroom or a glass of water and the house would be thick with cigarette smoke from my parents, aunt and uncle who were over to play cards or Parcheesi. They smoked at the dining room table, next to us in the living room, and with us in the closed up car all the time.
My mother died of complications of COPD, as did her first cousin who was also a heavy smoker. I do worry about that possibility but I hope that my lungs will be okay. I recently gave up smoking cannabis when I was sick with viral infections for 7 weeks, and I decided not to pick that up again as a regular thing - I might still on rare occasion, but it's time to give the lungs a break.
It's disheartening to see how many young people are vaping these days. Fewer toxic chemicals than in cigarettes, but the aerosol is not harmless and nicotine is as addictive as ever.
The older I get the more angry I am that so many industries are allowed to addict children to toxic substances. Big Food is doing a huge number on young people addicting them to toxic levels of sugar consumption, and the health effects are terrible. And of course Big Tech is ruining their brains with digital addiction, too.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
Knowing what we've learned about cigarettes and the tobacco industry, I don't understand why anyone would choose to smoke nowadays.
Young people have done stupid things since the beginning of time. Very, very few people start smoking later in life - it's almost always a habit picked up in youth, and there is a lot of marketing to youth not just in straight up advertising (now it's vaping, not cigarettes - but sadly too many people switch from one to the other) but in product placement in movies and other media.
And there is still the peer pressure - I still remember the girl who razzed me in front of my circle of friends when I didn't want to join them in smoking, so I finally did. That's how so many young people end up starting any number of bad habits.
Nicotine of course is highly addictive, and some people are more sensitive to the addiction than others. Like you I had no trouble smoking a few while out drinking at a party or bar, and then not smoking for days or weeks or even months - but I lost count of the people who told me they wished they could do that. Many people become slaves to the addiction - my mother's cousin, who I called uncle, used to go out on his porch after disconnecting from his O2 so he could smoke a ciggie. More than a few people have died because they didn't get far enough from the oxygen tank before lighting up.
Before I ever started smoking, I started begging my mommy to quit. Around age 9 or 10, I started asking her every year when she would ask what I wanted for my birthday or Xmas. "Please just quit smoking, mommy - that's the only present I want." She never even tried for a day - not until she was diagnosed with severe COPD a few years before she died, and by then it was too late to make any difference.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
....but I was also exposed to second hand smoke my entire childhood....
When I was a child, my parents' friends, my aunts and uncles were always at our house on weekends. I only remember one aunt (out of 5) who didn't smoke. I'm sure their smoke must have affected my lungs. I remember there were ashtrays all over the house. The first thing I ever made in ceramics class in school was an ashtray. I also remember candy cigarettes and there were pretend cigarettes that you could get that had powder in them that you could blow out to look like smoke. There were also pens made to look like cigarettes. A lot of us had them at school and of course, would hold them in our mouths.
Growing up, I remember thinking that when I become an adult, I'll be a smoker and a drinker and I'll probably need false teeth...
Today has been the first time in twenty years that I actually considered smoking again. My dad broke his leg hit his head and has since been diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia. He is not dealing with being in the hospital well and considering how poorly he did under care last time he had a major medical issue and me being the DPOA has me pining for even the slight stress/anxiety relief that cigarettes can provide.
This shit sucks.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.
I recall smoking cigarettes in high school and early college as a way to meet people; you could always approach someone on the street, boardwalk, etc. and ask for a light and it was a good way to meet women. I finally just stopped and never went back, because I tired of it. Like BSG, I never became addicted, it never even rose to the level of a habit easy to break, although I still will smoke a good cigar occasionally. My mother smoked 2-3 packs a day for more than 40 years; she always said she could stop anytime she wanted, and when the doctor told her she had some smoking related problems, she stopped just like me and never looked back. She said it really wasn't that hard, but that she missed it and would start again if she didn't have those problems because she really enjoyed the act of smoking (she died about 8 years later at 65; my grandmother smoked just as much for over 70 years, with no apparent physical effects, and died at 88).
Last edited by Big RR on Tue Apr 09, 2024 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Both my parents smoked when I was kid and I was fervently against it. Then in grad school I fell in with a dope-smoking crowd and in those days we used to mix resin with cigarette tobacco and roll a big joint and pass it around. The dope smoking phase passed quickly enough - lasted maybe a year at the most - but it left me with a tobacco habit.
Like Mark Twain I got quite good at giving up smoking - I did it often.
Both of my Grandmothers died from lung disease. My maternal grandmother smoked right up until she couldn't breathe, and died from emphysema at the age of 78, but with a family history of easily making 90+. My paternal grandmother smoked from the late 1940s (she started because all her friends did and were collecting prizes, plus didn't help that my grandfather had smoked since before he was a teenager). She quit in 1968, but had COPD for the last 10 years of her life and that, plus cancer and heart failure meant she missed the goal of hitting 100.
I was badly exposed to secondhand smoke from the bingo hall my Dad volunteered at, plus my maternal grandmother. Then again in the Navy until our captain banned smoking except on the fantail of the ship. The problem in the military was smokers got smoke breaks. Nonsmokers didn't get those breaks so a lot of guys took it up just to get that 15 minutes every hour that most smokers took. I cheated- I went back to the fantail with the smokers (the LPO couldn't complain- he was back there too) and I'd just drink a soda.
But I absolutely abhor smoking. And I don't care what version of leafy substance one is smoking for me to find it absolutely disgusting.
Death is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.
I blame the Democrats for the years I spent smoking.
I had tried cigarettes occasionally in my "tween" years, but really got going when I was a volunteer at the county Democratic Party office during the McGovern campaign in the summer and fall of 1972, at age 14. I spent a lot time there and menthol cigarettes were very popular and freely shared (damn commies!). Of course, cigarettes were also de rigeur among the drug-using crowd of musicians, artists and theater folk I hung around with during my high school years, and at some point I dropped the menthol but kept up with the tobacco. I eventually quit after graduating law school.
During the '70s and most of the '80s there really wasn't a whole lot of disincentive for smoking, other than one's individual health-consciousness. I smoked at work, at restaurants, in clubs and bars, pretty much everywhere -- as did a very high percentage of other people. Cigarette vending machines were ubiquitous. Thinking back to those times, nearly everyplace I went smelled of cigarette smoke; in retrospect, it was a really gross era. In the mid '60s nearly 42% of the population were regular smokers. Now it's down to 11.5% and still declining, which is all for the good.
Gross era? I can see how you might think so, but I do kind of miss the laissez faire approach to smoking , at least in the early 70s (and to add to it, the 70s spawned the 18 year old drinking age as well). Then smoking (and other less popular acts) was more or less tolerated--my high school even had a student smoking lounge (now they even ban soda in many high schools); we needed our parent's signature, but most of us coveted that "smoker" stamp (a thumbs down) on our student ID and got it whatever way we could (as most of us were pretty adept at forging a parent's signature). But then we took a turn to the right, restricting personal freedom to suit the public; smoking was eventually banned and the drinking age raised to 21 again (states that refused to do so were threatened with the loss of federal funds by the Reagan administration and eventually caved). Smoking turned away from a health issue to a moral one, and I saw many non smokers loudly berating smokers as if they held some sort of moral high ground--the funny thing is that many of these were smokers just weeks before. Sure, there are people who cannot stand smoke and are even sickened by it (my wife is one), but until the "moral issue" began, I could always get someone at a nearby table to put it out by asking politely--in the late 70s this sense of courtesy ended on both sides.
Personally, I don't miss smoking in restaurants, but it wouldn't bother me in the least of there were some restaurants and bars that permitted it so long as they stated it upfront (there may be an OSHA problem, but I think that could be handled) and my wife agrees. The same at the worksite--we had a smoking lounge on each floor with sealed doors and a negative pressure to prevent the smoke from escaping, but eventually smokers were banished to the outdoors (in some companies even outside of the parking lot) and those ultra expensive lounges ceased to be used. Again, it is this moral superiority--people who would rail against mandatory drug testing as an incursion on personal freedom feel perfectly justified in condemning smokers as less than human. Indeed, some advocate testing people to see if they smoke and up their insurance rates, while they are happy to eat poor diets, be overweight, and not have any other medical monitoring, but would scream if their rates went up for those reasons. It's the old defintion of a puritan--someone who is bothered by the thought that someone else is having a good time.
I don't see smokers as less than human, spent most of my life hanging out with smokers until just the last decade. I know from the experiences of family members and friends that some people who smoke get very addicted and even if they wanted to quit they struggle badly and often can't, even when they know it is killing them - the stories of my uncle with his O2 tank going outside to smoke, he died of complications following a double lung transplant at Mass General because he'd gotten so poorly he couldn't walk across a room and just wanted to golf again. He had finally totally kicked the habit before he got approved for the transplant, but it took him many years following COPD diagnosis to finally kick it. I have huge compassion for smokers, so long as they aren't obnoxious people.
But as a kid who had no choice about choking on second hand smoke for nearly 18 years, and who suffered chronic respiratory illnesses which cleared up entirely when I left my family home and moved into smoke free living environments, I am very glad that smoking is no longer allowed in any public buildings or restaurants/bars. For the years I worked as a barmaid and server I would go home and have to shower before I could sleep because my hair and body reeked from the stench of second hand smoke - in those settings, people will often chain smoke so you can have dozens of people chain smoking over hours that they linger over coffee or drinks, until the inside of such rooms looks no different than the wildfire smoke haze that would block out the mountains in fire season in Montana.
I'm very grateful that when I went to university and law school I didn't have to sit in rooms full of smokers while attending lectures and seminars, or visiting professors during office hours. I'm grateful I didn't have to work in offices where people could freely smoke at their desks and everyone was forced to endure it whether they were a smoker or not. It was bad enough having to walk through a thick cloud of smoke entering and exiting the buildings where smokers gathered near the doorways to smoke on breaks from work or classes, and I take no issue with the restrictions now in place at many healthcare campuses and college campuses and on the grounds of private businesses that require smokers to stay many feet away from the building while outside smoking on breaks - I mean really, it's ridiculous that people suffering serious health issues should have to walk through a cloud of second hand smoke to enter the hospital for treatment, especially given what we know now about the health effects of second hand smoke.
Even all the years that I engaged in casual and at times not so casual smoking, I recognized that it's a filthy smelly habit. I didn't look down on smokers because so many people I loved were smokers, and I was a part time smoker too. But it IS a filthy smelly habit and nobody should have to be subject to it to earn a living or get an education or access healthcare, etc.
When I moved out to Montana in 2007 the laws had just changed, in 2005, and people were still complaining - mostly because it's so libertarian out there. But the bars didn't lose business, the restaurants didn't lose business - most places built smoking shelters for their patrons because the elements are fierce out there. People would still sit for hours in the bar drinking with their friends, and the smokers would stroll outside to the three sided smoking shelter with their beers/drinks in hand, get their nicotine fix and then head back in. It was all very civilized, and the bartenders and waitrons benefitted greatly - many of them were smokers, but that doesn't mean they need to be exposed to hours upon hours of second hand smoke on top of their own habit.
I agree with you on the ridiculous morality BS of it all, but Americans are nothing if not punitive judgmental pricks, it's in our national puritan DNA. The irony of course is that as smoking has waned in this country, Big Tobacco invested itself in Big Food and has been instrumental in engineering processed foods to be highly addictive and thus they have fueled the obesity epidemic in this country to replace the epidemic of smoking related illness which is still with us but less so than in the past.
Anything to make a buck.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
At the time I certainly didn't appreciate the moralizing smoke Nazis who felt they had to police my personal vices -- and I guess I still don't -- but as a public health & safety issue (as well as sanitation -- remember all the cigarette butts casually tossed on the ground?) I am now glad that virtually every public place is smoke-free. And beyond minimizing health risks, the I enjoy the aesthetic improvement; now you can really smell the urine in the subway stations.
To a certain extent I agree with you BSG, but I do think that if we permitted some restaurants and bars to permit smoking, all of them would not follow suit--smokers could congregate in some bars/restaurants and not others, where people who object to smoking would go. we have a couple of cigar bars in my area, and they are frequented by cigar smokers--those who don't like the cigar smoking don't go there (indeed, I don't even see cigarette smoking in he ones I have been to. As for employees, they are long term employees who could easily go elsewhere if they wanted to because of the smoke, but stay. I realize this may not be the same in all areas, but maybe we need to require the owners of smoking establishments to at least offer some sort of protective equipment--I don't think it would be impossible to do.
Sue, don't forget, the filters in the butts soaked up the urine and the activated charcoal cut down on the urine odor.
BSG--Interesting, I have been in Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Nevada in the last couple of years and never noticed smoking in any bars or restaurants I frequented, so It doesn't seem to be all that widespread in those states. imagine there must be some places that permit it, but the economics are driving the restaurants/bars to remain smoke free.
And, FWIW, although there are a lot of things I do not do myself and do not care for, I never would call freedom "dumb". I know you are playing it for comic effect, but I think government intrusion on personal freedom should be minimal, and as unintrusive as possible.
