THeBlueCashew

Quote from: Velvet post_id=470465 time=1660347204 user_id=2021
Smoking kills. That is all.

Quote from: caskur post_id=470504 time=1660405108 user_id=2156

Quote from: Velvet post_id=470465 time=1660347204 user_id=2021
Smoking kills. That is all.

And it does it slowly and painfully which is the worst part.

Quote from: "Erica Mena" post_id=472009 time=1661021000 user_id=2845
My FIL is going to pass anytime now. I'm so thankful my kids had him for a grandfather. He has been such a positive influence in their lives.





My heart hurts :sad:

Quote from: seoulbro post_id=473545 time=1661698499
My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

Quote from: seoulbro post_id=473545 time=1661698499
My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

Quote from: seoulbro post_id=473545 time=1661698499
My dad finally succumbed to cancer yeterday. He was eighty three.

Quote from: Dove post_id=470031 time=1660158347 user_id=3266

Quote from: seoulbro post_id=469982 time=1660149913 user_id=114
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.

Quote from: UoT post_id=475452 time=1664011622

Quote from: Dove post_id=470031 time=1660158347 user_id=3266




 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.

Quote from: UoT post_id=475452 time=1664011622

Quote from: Dove post_id=470031 time=1660158347 user_id=3266




 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.

Quote from: Dove post_id=470031 time=1660158347 user_id=3266

Quote from: seoulbro post_id=469982 time=1660149913 user_id=114
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.

Quote from: "The Treasurer" post_id=477278 time=1666063118 user_id=3382
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.

Quote from: Dove post_id=476564 time=1665592944 user_id=3266
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.