And if you were to find yourself, some years down the road, in a hospital bed with life threatening burns, and a charred stamp collection on the table beside you, what feelings do you imagine would come up?

Nicotine, and its delvery system, cigarettes, are amazingly powerful. I smoked actually for six years in total, but started in earnest at 13. I always knew the shame of what I was doing to my young lungs, but couldn't quit until finally, one day my first year at college, I suddenly did. For many years after that, probably at least 25, I would still have dreams that I'd been smoking, and I'd wake up with a shitty feeling. I had an occasional pipe and cigar habit going during this time. When I gave those up for good as well, the dreams stopped. It appears that just the taste of tobacco on the lips kept the craving alive.

Never have and never will.

etudiant wrote:And if you were to find yourself, some years down the road, in a hospital bed with life threatening burns, and a charred stamp collection on the table beside you, what feelings do you imagine would come up?

I know you made a reference to this in an earlier post, but I don't see how it's necessarily relevant to smoking. I could quite easily burn down my domicile with an accidental grease fire while cooking as I could with a not quite snuffed cigarette butt. I don't live in fear of my house burning down, at least not consciously, because if I honestly thought about every possible thing that could go wrong in my life I'd be even more miserable than I am now (or have been).

If you're suggesting that me in a hospital bed with a charred stamp collection beside me is a metaphor for being in a hospital bed with lung cancer or emphysema, then so be it. I'm going to die one way or another, and if smoking helps me to deal with the everyday stress of now, why worry about the hospital bed or the coffin waiting down the road? I've certainly had plenty of misery and pain, and I've already spent far too much of my life worrying about my death, so I now make it a point not to worry about it anymore. It's going to happen, somehow, someway, and if it's by my own hand, even unintentionally and over a long period of time, then so be it.

To quote my dear old friend, the late Kurt Vonnegut (who smoked Pall Malls), "And so it goes."

I'm certainly not asking anyone to to do the same, or even suggesting we should share air space, but simply that this is how I see the issue.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather my COD be something that I couldn't have prevented/known about.


But at least lung cancer is very treatable.

DWill wrote:Nicotine, and its delvery system, cigarettes, are amazingly powerful. I smoked actually for six years in total, but started in earnest at 13. I always knew the shame of what I was doing to my young lungs, but couldn't quit until finally, one day my first year at college, I suddenly did. For many years after that, probably at least 25, I would still have dreams that I'd been smoking, and I'd wake up with a shitty feeling. I had an occasional pipe and cigar habit going during this time. When I gave those up for good as well, the dreams stopped. It appears that just the taste of tobacco on the lips kept the craving alive.

I have that stupid dream, and I have it quite often. When I wake up, I am always so sorry that I caved in and smoked, and then I realize it was just a dream. Smoking is just one of those things that grabs ahold of some people and won't let them go. I don't judge anyone else who smokes (in fact, I try to stand next to them while they are smoking so I can suck in some of that lovely second hand stuff) but I will never smoke again. It was too hard to give up the first time.

Yes, I still have those cave in and have a cigarette dreams. Quite often, I have a cigarette between each pair of fingers and I am smoking them all at the same time. I don't get as often as I used to, but every so often it comes back. Its been 25 years for me.

I quit smoking almost 2 years ago (May 4th) My daughters still smoke, and after about 6 months I stole (!) one of their cigarettes and smoked it outside on the balcony (the smoking area) and YUCK!!!! I hated it, It made me cough, tasted awful, and I expected to get this HUGE sense of satisfaction and relief from the craving and it did not happen! I was sooooo very disappointed that I didn't even finish the cigarette, I tossed it less than half smoked. I had never had a cigarette that didn't taste good before. I went back in the house and almost immediately started thinking about going and getting that cigarette. Fortunately, it was raining, so with that and a lot of willpower I made it through having to quit all over again. He says that changed my quit date, I say that I still quit on May 4th, since I didn't pick up the habit again, hated it, and didn't even finish it.

edit---"He" is my boyfriend, who wouldn't even have dated me, but I was already making plans to quit and had told him that before even one date...

That's encouraging, froglipz. The next time I get a craving, I am going to remind myself of your post. But second hand smoke smells so good to me!

ME TOO!!! It smells like food it smells so good, and makes me feel "hungry" especially if I already am hungry. But taste wise it was awful, and after just 6 months my lungs were already unused to the punishment....