Smoking and cancer

[Anonymous]

I'm very sorry for both of you.

 

[Thiel]

Congratulations to everybody who has kicked that very addictive habit. My condolence to those who lost family members to smoking.

[Anonymous]

My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

[Thiel]

My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

My condolences.

[Anonymous]

My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

I'm terribly sorry for your family's loss Seoul.

 

[Anonymous]

My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

Ah shit. I am sorry to hear that brother.

[Anonymous]

My dad is dying of lung cancer too. He has weeks left. He is over eighty and smoked for over sixty years. Though in the last fifteen he would only bum them from other people.



I smoked for twenty seven years. I am going into my sixth year nicotine free. I wish I had quit a lot earlier. Better yet, never started.

 To me, quitting smoking was harder than quitting heroin. I'm not even kidding.



 And quitting heroin is not a joke. That was probably the worst thing I've ever been through. Self inflicted.



 But it has been easier for me to abstain from heroin. Smoking is a struggle. I think it's because it's so easy to smoke. You can just go in a gas station and buy them. Smokers are everywhere. It's mostly socially accepted. Being tempted to just take a few hits.



 Where as heroin you have to look for it, find it, meet up with a drug dealer.  Buy the needles and go through a whole process. You just hit it....you have to prepare it and everything. It's a whole ritual.



 I think if heroin were just as normal and easy to get as cigarettes.....it would be vastly harder to stay clean.  I would take cigarette withdrawls over the heroin ones any day.

^This. The prevalence of cigarettes is the biggest hurdle to managing that addiction, the incessant reminders from the do-gooders reminding you why you should quit is a close second.



I was going through 50 to 60 cigarettes a day 15 years ago. I did manage to scale it back afterwards; even so, my lung function had deteriorated somewhat to the point where a humid and sunny day in the city would leave me gasping for breath. I was on about half a pack a week by then.



These days I'm a lot healthier. Since leaving Canada two and a half years ago, I have had one cigarette, and it was recently. I found about a third of the way through I simply didn't want it. Truthfully, if I had bothered to top up my vape that morning, I probably wouldn't even have bothered with that one cigarette, but I guess I had to find out for sure if i was done with them. Still, I enjoy the smell of one being smoked nearby, I just can't abide the taste of doing it myself. Or having to allocate the five minutes or so to suck down a durrie when I can simply haul a cloud of vapour and get a greater enjoyment in those two seconds. Or having to wonder if in any given summer if I'm not going to be laid up for an hour or more, fighting for breath.



Giving up illicit substances of a variety of descriptions was way easier. I just had to tell myself "not today" enough times until the successes outnumbered the failures. I couldn't even begin to tell you the last time I bothered with that scene, but it's been far longer than my periodic treks to the tobacconist and the monkey's occasional murmurings are pathetically easy to dismiss these days.

[Anonymous]

 To me, quitting smoking was harder than quitting heroin. I'm not even kidding.



 And quitting heroin is not a joke. That was probably the worst thing I've ever been through. Self inflicted.



 But it has been easier for me to abstain from heroin. Smoking is a struggle. I think it's because it's so easy to smoke. You can just go in a gas station and buy them. Smokers are everywhere. It's mostly socially accepted. Being tempted to just take a few hits.



 Where as heroin you have to look for it, find it, meet up with a drug dealer.  Buy the needles and go through a whole process. You just hit it....you have to prepare it and everything. It's a whole ritual.



 I think if heroin were just as normal and easy to get as cigarettes.....it would be vastly harder to stay clean.  I would take cigarette withdrawls over the heroin ones any day.

^This. The prevalence of cigarettes is the biggest hurdle to managing that addiction, the incessant reminders from the do-gooders reminding you why you should quit is a close second.



I was going through 50 to 60 cigarettes a day 15 years ago. I did manage to scale it back afterwards; even so, my lung function had deteriorated somewhat to the point where a humid and sunny day in the city would leave me gasping for breath. I was on about half a pack a week by then.



These days I'm a lot healthier. Since leaving Canada two and a half years ago, I have had one cigarette, and it was recently. I found about a third of the way through I simply didn't want it. Truthfully, if I had bothered to top up my vape that morning, I probably wouldn't even have bothered with that one cigarette, but I guess I had to find out for sure if i was done with them. Still, I enjoy the smell of one being smoked nearby, I just can't abide the taste of doing it myself. Or having to allocate the five minutes or so to suck down a durrie when I can simply haul a cloud of vapour and get a greater enjoyment in those two seconds. Or having to wonder if in any given summer if I'm not going to be laid up for an hour or more, fighting for breath.



Giving up illicit substances of a variety of descriptions was way easier. I just had to tell myself "not today" enough times until the successes outnumbered the failures. I couldn't even begin to tell you the last time I bothered with that scene, but it's been far longer than my periodic treks to the tobacconist and the monkey's occasional murmurings are pathetically easy to dismiss these days.

 

[Dove]

 To me, quitting smoking was harder than quitting heroin. I'm not even kidding.



 And quitting heroin is not a joke. That was probably the worst thing I've ever been through. Self inflicted.



 But it has been easier for me to abstain from heroin. Smoking is a struggle. I think it's because it's so easy to smoke. You can just go in a gas station and buy them. Smokers are everywhere. It's mostly socially accepted. Being tempted to just take a few hits.



 Where as heroin you have to look for it, find it, meet up with a drug dealer.  Buy the needles and go through a whole process. You just hit it....you have to prepare it and everything. It's a whole ritual.



 I think if heroin were just as normal and easy to get as cigarettes.....it would be vastly harder to stay clean.  I would take cigarette withdrawls over the heroin ones any day.

^This. The prevalence of cigarettes is the biggest hurdle to managing that addiction, the incessant reminders from the do-gooders reminding you why you should quit is a close second.



I was going through 50 to 60 cigarettes a day 15 years ago. I did manage to scale it back afterwards; even so, my lung function had deteriorated somewhat to the point where a humid and sunny day in the city would leave me gasping for breath. I was on about half a pack a week by then.



These days I'm a lot healthier. Since leaving Canada two and a half years ago, I have had one cigarette, and it was recently. I found about a third of the way through I simply didn't want it. Truthfully, if I had bothered to top up my vape that morning, I probably wouldn't even have bothered with that one cigarette, but I guess I had to find out for sure if i was done with them. Still, I enjoy the smell of one being smoked nearby, I just can't abide the taste of doing it myself. Or having to allocate the five minutes or so to suck down a durrie when I can simply haul a cloud of vapour and get a greater enjoyment in those two seconds. Or having to wonder if in any given summer if I'm not going to be laid up for an hour or more, fighting for breath.



Giving up illicit substances of a variety of descriptions was way easier. I just had to tell myself "not today" enough times until the successes outnumbered the failures. I couldn't even begin to tell you the last time I bothered with that scene, but it's been far longer than my periodic treks to the tobacconist and the monkey's occasional murmurings are pathetically easy to dismiss these days.

 As cheesy and annoying that "just for today" thing is....it really does help a lot.



 With the cigarettes I just said "not right now" and thought that until I just stopped thinking about it. It was pure hell for a few weeks. People say the first 3 days are the worst. I suffered for a few weeks before I started feeling better....and that took months.



 All the while my husband AND my mother still smoke. So that was rough. My husband really tried to keep it away from me as much as he could though. My mother doesnt give a single shit lol.



 I still get tempted but I just remember how much I actually hate it and how hard it is to stop. And I'm pretty healthy and worked to be healthy so I dont want to shit all that away and like you said....end up slowly suffocating to death as I get older.



 I stay away from the drug scene as well. Nothing for me there. These days I dont even like mentoring newly clean and recovering addicts because it's hard when they relapse. Not hard like I'm tempted to go use drugs with them...its hard because it's just so fucking sad. And hearing their endless bullshit gets hard as well.



 Not that I have no compassion....I'm sure you know what I mean.

[Anonymous]

No, but I can imagine. I'm very much in a libertarian mindset for many things, addiction being one such thing. If someone wishes to engage in that particular kind of behaviour, at most I will offer my take on it before standing back and leaving them to choose. "Their life, their choice". How I live mine can only serve as an example to others of what is possible. It is as imperfect as anyone else's and I am strong enough to own responsibility for my mistakes and successes. It is not for me to feel responsible for anyone else's; that pain and/or joy is rightfully theirs.



I've had people offer me various powders for personal consumption, no money down. I thanked them for their offer while declining it. On other occasions I would catch someone leaving potent smelling buds at the mixing desk while I was working at a gig - again, I'd thank the tipper and later toss it to the barman or a staff member I knew would enjoy it. It's not that I hate it; quite the opposite in fact. I am ambivalent towards it. I know how good it feels, I have other things to feel good about too and getting off my guts on substance abuse deprives me of time I might otherwise be spending.



Choice. Anyone who tells you they are unable to make it for themselves is only declaring their lack of will to make it stick. I know full well I could resume my old habits if I chose to; these days I am in the habit of choosing otherwise and find I kinda like it here.



Here, you might get a chuckle out of this.

[Dove]

Bahahahaha!!  That's hilarious lol



 Yeah I agree and I also have a libertarian stance on drugs. I HAVE gotten a bit more conservative on that.....however I think that might be more an emotional response to the failed war on drugs (or the successful war on drugs if you are an establishment cuck) and the whole heart breaking junkie communities out on the streets in CA and Philly.



 We cant continue what we are doing. It's so destructive and it's a real bane on the lives of regular citizens (the people on the streets, shitting, being a menace and danger, robbing businesses...all that democrat mess)



 I rejected the disease model when I was like...3 months clean and I was seeing people with a whole year under their belt relapse. I started thinking I may as well die because if they cant do it, I have no chance.



 Then I got my head right and realized I'm the captain of my own ship and I'm not going to do anything I didnt actively choose.  I hate that victim narrative that we are all victims of some disease. I'll concede I had disordered thinking and I have diagnosed PTSD and it's not hard to see how someone with my affliction would get a taste of that wonderful opiate euphoria and want to stay there forever.



 But I actively chose to abuse my pain meds, when that became unsustainable I actively chose to find and use street heroin. Everyday I woke up and went for the needle instead of calling for help....my choice. I dont allow anyone to take my power away buy making me some pitiful victim of medically induced addiction. I didnt have to lie and scam and abuse drugs....I chose that.  



 And I'm clean today because i chose that.



 All the disease narrative does is give addicts a pass at relapsing because it's a "disease". Just because a choice is hard....maybe even the hardest one you have to make....its still a choice. I think disempowering people and withholding real accountability has only done more harm. Capitalism could step in here and offer more treatment options than suboxone and methadone. Bleh.

[JOE]

My dad is dying of lung cancer too. He has weeks left. He is over eighty and smoked for over sixty years. Though in the last fifteen he would only bum them from other people.



I smoked for twenty seven years. I am going into my sixth year nicotine free. I wish I had quit a lot earlier. Better yet, never started.

 To me, quitting smoking was harder than quitting heroin. I'm not even kidding.



 And quitting heroin is not a joke. That was probably the worst thing I've ever been through. Self inflicted.



 But it has been easier for me to abstain from heroin. Smoking is a struggle. I think it's because it's so easy to smoke. You can just go in a gas station and buy them. Smokers are everywhere. It's mostly socially accepted. Being tempted to just take a few hits.



 Where as heroin you have to look for it, find it, meet up with a drug dealer.  Buy the needles and go through a whole process. You just hit it....you have to prepare it and everything. It's a whole ritual.



 I think if heroin were just as normal and easy to get as cigarettes.....it would be vastly harder to stay clean.  I would take cigarette withdrawls over the heroin ones any day.



 Better not have to deal with any of it. My attitude towards alcohol was also altered. I'll still have a drink on occasion but I limit it to a few drinks at most the rare times I do drink.

I smoked for about a year & basically quit cold turkey.



Lit up a few times after that but never got hooked. Not even when I was this bar hop in a smoky lounge I worked in. All the other staff were hooked & smoked packs of the stuff.



It was just a fad & I tried 20 different brands?



They all basically tasted the same.



Maybe except wine tipped cigars.



Come ta think of it Camels and a French cugarette Gitaine were the harshest ones.



But like skydiving or smokin weed it was an experience.



Ya always gotta try something once in yer life, ef Dove?

[Anonymous]

The smell of cigs is nostalgic for me, but I never lit up and never had the faintest inclination to do so.  It's like drinking, I know it's supposed to be cool but from a practical standpoint, it all seems a bit pointless and way more trouble than it's ever going to be worth.



And before you say I must be fun at parties, I don't go to parties.

[Erica Mena]

The smell of cigs is nostalgic for me, but I never lit up and never had the faintest inclination to do so.  It's like drinking, I know it's supposed to be cool but from a practical standpoint, it all seems a bit pointless and way more trouble than it's ever going to be worth.



And before you say I must be fun at parties, I don't go to parties.

I'm not a smoker or drinker either. Both are very expensive habits

[Anonymous]

Bahahahaha!!  That's hilarious lol



 Yeah I agree and I also have a libertarian stance on drugs. I HAVE gotten a bit more conservative on that.....however I think that might be more an emotional response to the failed war on drugs (or the successful war on drugs if you are an establishment cuck) and the whole heart breaking junkie communities out on the streets in CA and Philly.



 We cant continue what we are doing. It's so destructive and it's a real bane on the lives of regular citizens (the people on the streets, shitting, being a menace and danger, robbing businesses...all that democrat mess)



 I rejected the disease model when I was like...3 months clean and I was seeing people with a whole year under their belt relapse. I started thinking I may as well die because if they cant do it, I have no chance.



 Then I got my head right and realized I'm the captain of my own ship and I'm not going to do anything I didnt actively choose.  I hate that victim narrative that we are all victims of some disease. I'll concede I had disordered thinking and I have diagnosed PTSD and it's not hard to see how someone with my affliction would get a taste of that wonderful opiate euphoria and want to stay there forever.



 But I actively chose to abuse my pain meds, when that became unsustainable I actively chose to find and use street heroin. Everyday I woke up and went for the needle instead of calling for help....my choice. I dont allow anyone to take my power away buy making me some pitiful victim of medically induced addiction. I didnt have to lie and scam and abuse drugs....I chose that.  



 And I'm clean today because i chose that.



 All the disease narrative does is give addicts a pass at relapsing because it's a "disease". Just because a choice is hard....maybe even the hardest one you have to make....its still a choice. I think disempowering people and withholding real accountability has only done more harm. Capitalism could step in here and offer more treatment options than suboxone and methadone. Bleh.

Yeah, only they won't because it's not profitable. I mean we are at the stage where they are willfully inventing diseases just so they might pump out topical treatments on a schedule, hippocratic oath be damned. And anyone who doubts the veracity of this claim can start by explaining to me how it's possible a supposedly novel coronavirus (COVID 19 specifically) came to have a gene sequence in its makeup that was patented by Moderna two years before the Chinese were welding citizens shut inside their Wuhan apartments.



So no, I don't see any incentive for the bastards to effectively do away with anything as wildly profitable as pumping  the populace full of shit that keeps them coming back for more.



I never stuck my hand out for help to clean up my recreational chemical amusement aids... just took what I knew and started the slog towards sobriety. Or a rough approximation thereof. I did attend a couple of combined NA/AA meetings, but it wasn't really my gig. A 12 step program that requires me to put my destiny in the hands of a deity I'm not even sure exists, far less has the time to give a shit about one tiny speck in the cosmos was never going to cut the mustard where i was concerned.



But those few meetings did give me something to go on, and that was the "not today" mantra and an understanding of how I could make it work for me. I'm glad I went to those meetings for that one little weapon in my own personal war. And I prevailed against my addiction with it. Sure, I fell off the wagon a few times, I might even do so again, but the amount of times I've told myself "not today" AND made it stick has taught me I *do* have that level of control over myself. Irrespective of what temptations and coercions I might find being thrown at me.



It's a powerful thing, makes the journey from my first dalliance with drugs up to the current day worthwhile. And with Big Pharma and its minions getting increasingly aggressive in their marketing strategy for whatever "miracle sauce" they might be pushing at any given moment, I find myself well equipped to wear my biggest shiteating grin, plant both feet as I flip them the bird and tell them "not today".



And you know, I do get disheartened to see others lose the battle, but it needn't be me. We all have a right to ride to Hell in the handbox of our choosing. I chose the one I liked best and made it mine. Seems to have worked so far.  ac_biggrin