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This is so random, but I'm curious. 🤔

Who here smokes (not weed, that's not my business) 🤭🤭🤭 cigarettes? Who has successfully quit?

But mostly, who vapes????

At 45 years old, while mourning my son's death, I was in New Jersey. Everyone smokes. It grossed me out. Totally.

However! Some girl talked me into a cigarette that tasted like Wrigley's Spearmint gum. Who knew? It really did taste like gum. Which started a dirty little secret. I'd allow myself 6 a day. Never in public, never indoors, never in a car, and EWWWWWWW.... do not get in my hair. 🤢🤮

So my doctor recently asked if I've ever smoked cigarettes. Like my lungs aren't answering that question??? Hmmm, my secret is safe. 😁 But I'm a horrible liar so I matter-of-factly said, "Yeah, 6 a day or less, depending on where I am and only when I'm alone. Only one person knows and she's in Idaho, so pretty much, it's just you and her that know."

I'm not sure what his face was saying 🤭🤭🤭 but he told me to STOP IT. So I did. That very day.

He gave me these 6 boxes of lozenges (nicotine thingies) and that was that. BUT!!!!!! I saw a Mr. Fog Max Air in a convenience store. I was so intrigued by it's girlish Barbie-pink color and the promise it would last for a looooong time, that I bought 3. 😆

My insurance rate has gone down by 31% as there's no carcinogens in my blood stream. I even tore one Mr Fog apart to see what's in there and figured out how to recharge it. (No child should be left unattended #justsayin) 😂

So I'm wondering, has anyone else learned of the decrease in their health insurance premium by this ridiculous method? My dirty little secret now smells like Bubble Gum and I'm not aiding and abetting anyone's death by 2nd/3rd hand smoke. Win/win.

These things last for weeks. And my hair never smells yicky. And maybe they will kill me, but that'll be determined at a later date, there's no real science out there to confirm or deny.

I really want to know if anyone else cheated the health insurance game by total accident. 🤔🤔🤔 (They do blood test us once a year out here, to make sure we aren't dope fiends or smokers.)

SeaGreenEyez 9 Apr 21
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20 comments

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3

Smoked cigarets for 30 yrs . 2 packs a day at least . Europe , we all smoke , that’s what we do , coffee and smoke . Never smoked anything else than cigarets . February 2018 it was the end of that for me . For no other reason than realizing the young kids of my boyfriend at the time , they were really pay attention and especially the little girl , she wanted to be me .
Cigarets had to go . Had a funeral and all 🙄, but it did made a difference in their lives . Although he and I we are just friends now , the kids are grown now and we still keep in close touch , and neither kid has desire to smoke . Success 🙌
The last 5 yr I vape nicotine . My friends know , but no minors know ( I couch basketball as a volunteer ).
I refuse to have a chest X-ray or a lung scan . I don’t wanna know . What for ? At 53, no kids , what do I care ? As long as my dogs alive and having people to look after them if I go first , I don’t give a flying fuck at this point , I won’t treat any cancer . It is what it is 🙌🦇

2

I never smoked cigarettes because the smoke and smell made me sick. Both parents were heavy smokers, mom was a 3 pack a day, dad was 2 packs a day. Our home and everything in it always smelled like cigarettes. 🤮 I started experimenting with cannabis at 13, and have smoked cannabis off and on for 50 years now. I vape when I can get it because it is easier on my lungs than smoking a blunt. Keeping you in my thoughts, and hope your treatments help you. 😘

2

This year was 20 years tobacco free for me. I claimed I was a non smoker on my life insurance for a long time, but I cashed that out a while back without anyone being the wiser. I do like to taste the herb now and then, but that's a different deal.

2

i smoked cigarettes for 12 years. 11 of those years I was trying to quit.

1

I grew up in a house where my dad smoked. I could not stand it, and I've never touched one myself.

BD66 Level 8 Apr 22, 2023
2

I never smoked cigarettes except for second hand smoke because of the era I grew up in. People could smoke just about everywhere. I tried weed, but did not like the smoke in my lungs. Never understood the allure of smoking.

1

I smoked from the age of about 13 to 25 when I finally stopped. that was in the '70's when around 45% of people in the UK smoked. The figure is now around 13% which amazes me as it appears that it is mainly poorer people who smoke and a pack of 20 costs over £14.00
I don't have health insurance but when I have a health MOT I am always classed as an ex smoker even if I haven't smoked in 50 years.

@SeaGreenEyez Good luck in ditching the vape. I recall hearing that people who stopped smoking ddin't know what to do with their hands *sro the rubics cube sounds like a good idea 😉

1

When i was a Toddler my parents used to get me to light their cigarettes. At 16 I got a hiding for being a chronic smoker. Fast forward into my Thirties when I used to smoke 4 packets of cigarettes and a packet of tobacco PER DAY.
I woke up one morning choking unable to breathe so I went to my local doc.
When he found out how much I smoked, he was very genuine in his prognosis.
I said to him I know" no sex for 3 weeks, don't drink alcohol in that period and cut down on the smokes"
Quite the contrary, he told me to keep smoking as I obviously enjoy it. Make sure your will is in order as soon as you leave the surgery, and enjoy the last few weeks of your life. live it to the fullest. I will get started with your funerary arrangements.
I left his surgery with 3.5 packets of cigarettes and one packet of tobacco.
Only in the last few years did I throw out the tobacco. The mold had eaten it to a greenish minute powder.
Since I left that surgery I have never smoked another cigarette.
giving up was not easy, but being a wooden box underground did not appeal to me one iota.(I get very claustrophobic)

1

I'm soory, I've only ever smoked weed. I did try vaping weed and I enjoyed it but it didn't become a habit. I don't have an addictive personality. Congrats on giving up cigs so easily and my condolences on your son.

@SeaGreenEyez What a shame it hit you like that. I've always had nice experiences, with it, feeling good and laughing with friends. I rarely smoked it alone. Same with drinking. My vices seem to be social.

3

I started smoking regular, nearly a pack a day, as soon as I turned 16. Smoked until I was in my 30’s. I quit because I didn’t like the way they tasted and I thought $1.75 was too expensive! 😁 After 11 years of not smoking I bought a pack of cigarillos to smoke with the “boys” at hunting camp. Next thing I knew, I was smoking a pack a day again. I stopped the first time cold turkey. The second time, after about 3 years, I used a reduction program. I haven’t had any desire to smoke since, probably 30 years or more.

4

I started smoking cigarettes in the Navy to get a break. If you didn't smoke when the "Smoking Lamp was Lit" you kept working. I smoked until I was 51, about 30 years. I had 48 weeks of chemo therapy at 51, and I felt like total shit. My kids were there in the shop and I just put it down, threw the pack away and never touched them again. Now, occasionally I will take a drag from a water pipe. Of oils, I've made my self and only occasionally. I swim 20 laps and do 30 pull-ups three times a week, and walk a mile at 3 miles an hour hour, teach dance class on Tuesday night and bowl with the Veterans league on Friday. I'm 71.

Well done!

@WayneDalton Thanks, will power.

4

Microdosing psilocybin (or LSD or ketamine or other hallucinogenic tryptamine) can quench a variety of addictive behaviors including smoking without getting you high.

Only if you can afford it is it helpful. I've looked into ketamine for depression, but my insurance doesn't cover it. ☹️

@Redheadedgammy Unfortunately, you're right for now. A number of states have moved to allow the use of hallucinogens for therapeutic purposes, but the Drug War still reigns. As long as it does, a numerous diseases and problems will continue without the solutions these drugs can provide. Millions have died from cancer and Alzheimer's and many others from addictions and depression. This is very much a part of the culture war being waged. Tragically, medical use of hallucinogens has few friends, so the death and destruction will continue. As experience grows and the issue get recognition, prices will go down and availability will increase.

@racocn8 I was really surprised that Texas has allowed Ketamine here. The problem is they charge like 500 per treatment. My therapist had recommended it for me and it does seem very promising from what I have read about it. Some people need only one or two treatments and it changes their lives for the better. Just too bad that the insurance companies won't cover it. They Probably have a deal with the pharma companies.

3

I am at the end of a 50-year love affair. It started with the "cool kids" at school and has defined pretty much every relationship since then. From filter-tip cigarettes stolen from my mom's packet, then hand-rolled, to eventually just putting cigarette tobacco into a pipe and inhaling. I have realised that this path is exclusive. Not one woman I've lived with or been with was a non-smoker (those that gave up during don't count). In fact, I only have one non-smoking friend, all the rest smoke.
This brings me to my present predicament. I have to stop! I don't want to but I have to. My cardiologist said so, well if I want to keep living that is. At first, I found that a vape could stop my homicidal urges for the day but I miss my love. So when my friends come round for a drink, I relapse. Like sex with your ex, it feels so wrong and yet so right. The warmth of my pipe cupped in my palm like a cold bum in a warm lap spooning. The smell that most would find disgusting is but her perfume and the ash but her tears. I drink her down till the next meeting, of which I count the days.
Normally I can do cold turkey but all this talk has got me reaching for my vape (18%)

@SeaGreenEyez There should be, why should Twinkies be an exception?

3

I quit in 2001. A chest x-ray revealed a touch of emphysema. I had a grandfather and step-father, both died of emphysema, a most horrible way to go, so l quit immediately.

5

I smoked for years, like you less than 10 and I rolled my own from organic not treated tobacco. Not in my home or apartment, only outside. Then one day it was just too much of a pain in the ass to go to the designated smoking area at the apartment complex and I quit. I had just bought a new tin of tobacco too. Then tin sat in the kitchen closet for a long time, a couple of years, then I just threw it out.
What I have have problems with are people in this complex that refuse to follow the no smoking anywhere in the complex except at the 1 of 2 designated smoke spots.
It has become a serious issue for me as it triggers my asthma, which was totally under control until the person in my building started smoking in the middle of the night. She'd sleep all day and sit up all night smoking and watching TV. grrrrrrrrrrrrr
I am glad you switched to vaping but I've heard some not good things about that. Also you respected others.
Not sure if it's lowered my insurance or not, I'll have to check.

5

I had a 2 pack a day habit for 30 years (60 pack years, yikes!) I quit in 2000 with the help of Nicorette gum, which I stayed on for another few years, gradually reducing the amount. One day I inhaled by accident a tiny fragment of gum. It caused all kinds of havoc, including the fact that I could not get a doctor to believe me. Eventually, it just stayed there in my lung, or bronchial tube, and doesn't cause me much distress these days. I wrote a short book about the experience, which I have not published. Anyhow, my doctor gave me an Rx for a lung scan every year to make sure I was not developing cancer. I stopped doing that after the 20 year mark. I hope that was the right move. I now have asymptomatic cardiovascular disease. I blame the smoking for that.

@SeaGreenEyez I understand that sentiment completely!

@SeaGreenEyez I also disliked my mother's mother intensely. She was a shamelessly vain social climber, and looked down on everyone from her lofty, narcissistic perch. She was a smoker until she was 96, and when she died at the age of 103 (!), we found burn holes in her furniture, rugs, clothes, etc. I'm amazed she didn't set the place on fire. BTW, I bought a gargoyle statue for my porch, and named it Gertrude, after her. She would have hated that. Good.

7

I started smoking non-filter cigarettes when I was 14. By the time I was 34 I was smoking almost 3 packs a day. I wanted to get pregnant, and I didn't want to be a smoking mother so I quit cold turkey. No Nicorette, no patches... and it was really hard. I remember after a year wondering if the craving would ever go away. But now, 45 years later, I still don't smoke. And I can't be in the same zip code with a lit cigarette. Reformed smokers are the worst kind. We're completely intolerant.

By the way, there was a book that was inspirational to me when I was quitting. It was called "I Quit" and there was a line early in the book that resonated with me. It said "The habitual smoker smokes not for pleasure of smoking, but to avoid the displeasure of not smoking". I have no idea if it's still iin print, but it was very helpful.

@SeaGreenEyez Thanks for the congrats!
Jeez~!! What constitutes "doing it right"?

1

My dad, and later mom, smoked enough for all of their 7 kids. Nooo thank you.

5

I smoked for 35 years and smoked 2 packs a day. Tried to quit 3 times but it never worked coz I became aware that laying off cigs a bit and then starting again made me high as a kite. Almost drunk for 15 minutes. When I finally decided to quit was when I woke up coughing and gagging and it took 2 pots of coffee and me smoking all the time to straighten me out. I quit by will not willpower. No gum, no mints, no nothing. My biggest fear was that I would want to smoke if I had a drink. That's how I got started in the first place. It was not all that hard to do. Within 6 months just being around cigarettes made me gag. As for cigs with a drink, I got over that too. I do not drink every day but when I do drink it's usually 3 or less and never over 6. You also cannot smoke inside my house.

Many people think that vape and all these other products are there to help you quit smoking. If there is nicotine in them they are there as another way to sell you nicotine but if you smoke less that is good. As a one time smelly smoker I could never understand why some women would not date a smoker. It's all pretty plain to me today.

3

At my worst, I was a four pack a day smoker. I could not stop or cut back. Then my psychiatrist suggested I try vaping. I vaped pretty much all day every day for several years. Then my living and financial situation changed and I just quit vaping cold turkey. No withdrawal, nothing. I am convinced that vaping is a good thing for those who would otherwise smoke. The prohibitionists would say otherwise but I know enough to ignore them.

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