A sincere question to people who smoke...?

Question

I don't wan't people answering with their views on smoking, i'd just like to ask smokers about their first cigerette, why they tried it and why they continued to smoke afterwards? I don't want to offend anyone with this question.

Did you get a "rush" after the first time and carried on or was it a social thing?

What made you carry on despite modern knowledge of the health risks?

Answer 1

its horrible! Tastes like sh1t! its the social thing, and i started with a puff on one, then you share one, then you buy 10, then you buy 20, and after 20 years you are smoking 40/60 a day and coughing like an old man ALL day! And, just to top it all off, this "enjoyment" makes you stink!
then after 20 years, you realise this and stop within 3 days, filthy disgusting dirty HABIT ( not an addiction), well they do say the ex smokers are the worse! 1 year next month, BEST thing i have ever done! got to dash, I'm going to the gym.

Answer 2

I was 13 when I had my first cigarette with a female friend behind the bushes at our secondary school. It felt daring and rebellious and we thought we were going to be somehow sophisticated and glamorous. I don't think we felt these things consciously but that was what was forming the undercurrent to it. We were both sick and choking and it tasted horrible. However, shockingly, we then persisted in trying to make ourselves enjoy it and after the odd cigarette a couple of times a week over a period of about 6 months, we both became hooked. Both of us became chronic smokers and I still smoke today in my late fifties. The reason I have continued to smoke, despite being well aware of the health risks, is because nicotine is a deeply addictive substance and there are aspects to smoking that we kid ourselves are enjoyable- in fact all the release of tension and alleviation of boredom that comes from smoking is probably imaginary. The real hit from it comes from supplying the body with the nicotine to which it has become accustomed and which it seems to need. I have managed to smoke less as I've got older and made many attempts to stop, but continue smoking in a sort of fatalistic way. It has helped me to write this and to think about the issue, so thanks for posing the question.

Answer 3

The First Time I Started Smoking When I Was 12
Got Stuck Ever Since
And Trying Hard To Quit Here
Any Help?

Take Care

Answer 4

Good question, feedback from smokers - very helpful

Not a smoker myself, born to a paediatrician you know :) and have a strong moral rule against it.

However, most of my friends smoke, and in my circle smokers don't really care about passive smokers. I did try a few times, hard to say what drove me, certainly not curiosity, an itch for showing off maybe? Don't know. I clearly remember at least once it was sort of a sense of guilt, i sort of wanted to punish myself for what i did wrong.
Strangely enough, every time i tried i did inhale, but never choked or coughed. Lighted a ciggy for my b/f a few times, too. And i often dream of smoking, tho i also dream of driving (i don't drive) and flying and being somebody else so that doesn't count.

Had a shoking experience the other day, was queueing up in a night shop and they had a great celection of these tiny sigarillas in the window, and i was just staring at them thoughtlessly until suddenly i caught myself at the thought that i may actually buy a pack and smoke them one a day, like a treat. But i just knew i never would coz i don't want to get addicted.

does anyone know how i stop my b/f from smoking so much? implicitly? as i know just nagging at someone and telling them off never works. His work is so stressful which is why he started.. but that was 10 yrs ago now :(

Answer 5

I had my first cigarette when I was about 13, if memory serves. I had a pretty severely isolated upbringing, so I wasn't really innundated with smoking advertisements. But, my mother smoked, and she unwittingly provided my first impulse to smoke. I remember the first one I ever had. I was hiding in my back yard, and had snuck a book of matches. I didn't have the proper inhaling technique down, so most of it was wasted, but it was then that I fell in love with the aura and the image that the cigarette projected. I was a pretty frail, inadequate kid, and the toughness that smoking symbolized grabbed me like almost nothing else. I kept smoking as much as I could (turned out that it was hard for 13 year olds to buy smokes, though, since I matured early, I was buying them easily at the age of 15).

For me, the physical aspect was a big draw, but the main appeal was the mental aspect. The whole "cigarette culture" had a massive allure. Of course I knew they were bad for me, but, like most kids, I belived myself to be indestructable, and that lung cancer was one of those things that old men got. The human capacity to lie to ourselves is staggering sometimes.

That was how it started, and, over time, as I started suffering from depression, etc, etc, my smoking became my crutch (coupled with drugs and alcohol). It's funny how you develop a relationship with the little round bastards. Throughout my entire f*cked up life (well, from 13 until fairly recently), my smokes were the one constant. They were always there, ready to give their all to help calm me down and give me what I needed. After all the friends I'd had and lost, through moving or whatever, my cigarettes remained the only friend that stayed.

It sounds strange, I know, but it's not, really. I quit for good not that long ago (after I'm-not-sure-how-many attempts), and I still find myself getting meloncholy and missing them from time to time, even if they do smell rank now.

Funny the impact that a plant and paper (and that whole ungodly amount of chemicals and such) can have on the human brain.

Answer 6

My first cigarette was stolen out of my brothers room, i was about 14 it was a big fat roll up and i laughed all day then ate anything i could get my hands on, when i bought a packet they didn't look the same but smoked them anyway,they didn't make me laugh or eat? so i Kept on getting different ones to no avail.. now i like to have a smoke of anything that's going. and the reason i do not stop despite the health risks is people like me need smokers to keep us in a job, nurses need ill people and the revenue that comes off cigarettes keeps the N H S healthy so the big question is if i stopped would it encourage others to do the same? then no ill people,no big cash pot for N H S and no job,hence no food no house no money for fags and drink!!!!

Answer 7

I was 6yrs old when a lad my age called Gary King (you know who you are) introduced me to my first cigarette in the boys toilet at Primary School, I think we got caught too.

From there, I would pinch the occasional roll up or dog end of my step dad, I dont even think I was taking it down, it was just a novelty thing to do as a kid.

I started smoking properly when I started Secondary School, using my Dinner Money to buy Ciggys instead of Dinner.

Now, at the age of 39, I have Emphysema and struggle to breath some days.

Im not gonna go into a lecture about smoking is bad for you etc, but this is all because of that first Cigarette introduced to me by you know who!

Answer 8

My first cigarette was in guilt. A strange attempt to try what I wasn't supposed to.

It was nothing special. I didn't inhale properly even. Try to smoke it, cough, put it out and then forgot about it.

Some years later I was offered a cigarette and decided, why not. Same thing. A waste of time. Then finally, one night while being extremely bored out of my mind, I simply stole one of my mothers cigarettes (years ago from today still) and smoked it, properly.

The rush was something of an amazing feeling. A lightheaded euphoria. It was great. Sadly, like all good things. The euphoria eventually degenerated into a simple routine. Still, a sort of calm feeling associated with smoking still surrounds my mind with ever inhale.

It's unhealthy. It's over-hyped, but I'll be damned if it's not my favorite form of suicide to date.

Answer 9

anyone who starts smoking start because they see a friend or family member doing it. They think its cool, so you play around with other people cigs. when you first start you do get a rush, it makes you feel like you have had a little to much to drink. after playing around with them you become addicted to them, then you cant stop. Of course when you 16, 17, you dont really care about the health issue. Not until you become older and get the smokers cough and whezzing and all that, then you think back and instead of trying to quite you wish you have never started.

Answer 10

Since I smoked for awhile and then quit, I think maybe I'm the right one to answer this.

I started smoking tobacco because I wanted to learn how to inhale so I could smoke grass. The tobacco made me slightly nauseous, but also a little buzzed. I got addicted to tobacco, but not to grass. So when a boyfriend who did not smoke tobacco mentioned that kissing me was a little like licking the bottom of an ash tray, I quit. Tobacco, anyway.