Have you quit smoking? If so, how have your views towards smokers changed?

Question

Did you smoke as a teenager / young adult? How would you react if you found out your teenage kids were smoking? Would you allow them to smoke in front of you?

Did you smoke as a teenager / young adult? How would you react if you found out your teenage kids were smoking? Would you allow them to smoke in front of you?

For info - I quit smoking a year ago, and found it the hardest thing to do. As a teenager, I never thought I had a problem with nicotine addiction and always said that "I'd give up when I was ready", I just never thought that I wouldn't allow myself to know when I was ready...

Answer 1

Yes! I did smoke as a twenty something male, but mostly I think I smoked because it was so habit forming and addictive. I gave up the hardest way i.e. cold turkey after having a cold I couldnt get rid of and the smoking ontop made things MUCH worse. Hence I frightend myself into quitting.

OK! after I gave up, my views did change and I nolonger saw smoking as a good thing, I always felt I was hurting or doing damage to my body and I became even more convinced of how harmful smoking can be once I quit using tabacco.

**If I was a parent and I found my children or one of them had started smoking I think I would be very upset and probably disappointed too. Feel let down?

**The problem is, when your a young person (and we all have been at one point in the past of course!) you dont know whats for you and whats not for you? as a young person its natural to be curious and try different things i.e. some good things and some not so good things (wont bore you with a long list, I'm sure you know what I mean here). Trying and experimentation is completely natural for us in our teens and twenties, its how we discover who we are and what we like/dislike,etc.

Experimentation is an important part of growing and maturing, the problem though is that drugs like tabacco are very addictive and so the real problem is the habit or addiction on the one hand and the health damage from smoking on the other.

**On the positive side of things, its entirely possible that your son or daughter might try smoking, booze or soft drugs & its just a phase or stage and that they grow out of given time. You know what I mean "done that" been there got the T shirt,etc & they move on & stop using these things, nolonger have a need.

**No! I wouldnt like it or allow them to smoke in front of me, it would be a way in which I could show or express my upset or disaproval of them doing that. Its a tough experience to have to deal with, my heart goes out to you.

Hope that helps?

regards IR

Answer 2

Natural Quit Smoking Magic

Answer 3

My son asked me to stop smoking when he was 9. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to manage it right then but I kept trying on & off for several years. 2 weeks before he was 16, I finally managed to do it, only to find that he was now smoking. Now he has 2 children and has stopped several times only to start again. I hope he has finally achieved it.
I have now stopped for 16 years and have not even taken a single drag in all that time because I know that, if I did, I would be hooked again.
I still fancy one every now & again, especially after Sunday lunch, but I will never ever smoke again. Having said that I sometimes enjoy sitting next to someone who is smoking and I enjoy inhaling their second hand smoke, but not always. Other times I cannot tolerate the smell and feel that it is a disgusting habit, which it is!
My advice, to anyone who has never tried smoking, is DON'T you may not become addicted, but if you do, it's a terrible curse.
I've ended up with diabetes and heart disease which resulted in a heart attack followed by triple heart bypass surgery.
Tobacco manufacturers have an awful lot to answer for.

Answer 4

I am recently in the process of quitting again for the tenth time or so in the past few years, I had been smoking since I was 14 and I am now 34 years old, I know for me it has been very difficult to quit, most of my friends smoke ciggarettes and I often wonder why should I quit when all of the people that I care about are smoking ciggarettes and slowly but surely killing themselves off? well quite simply because I value my life and I know that we are all going to die eventually but I just don't want to be the cause of my own death by being stupid, my views of other smokers haven't changed any and I don't have any children of my own but if I did I would find a way to talk to them and do my best to get through to them that it is unhealthy for them to smoke ciggarettes and then I would keep trying to get them to see and understand just how stupid it is for them to smoke, that and I would also promise them that they will never see a dime from me as long as I know they are smoking ciggarettes either

Answer 5

I've recently quit after smoking for 25 years but am determined to not become a "Born again" non-smoker and preach to people who do because that would make me a hypocrite, as until there's a total ban it's there right to do so if they wish. As for if I have any kids and they smoked, no I would not let them smoke in front of me, or at least untill they were old enough to legally smoke and not in my house, I'd try to explain the dangers to their health and as a last resort take them to the ward that I was in when I had my near fatal Asthma attack, with all the people on Oxygen to show them where if they continue to smoke they could one day end up, drastic yes but it helped me to decide to quit.

Answer 6

Hi,

Great post! Quitting smoking was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I thought I wasn't addicted!

Here's what I tried before finding success: hypnosis, those fake cigaretts, the nicotine patch, and group therapy....none worked.

I finally tried this HERBAL patch I bought 6 months ago on the net. They claim a 97% success rate. Well, it worked! They had a sweet deal which was a free 10 day trial for only $3.95 including shipping (it's regularly $53 for 10 days)!!

I don't know if they still have that deal, but it's worth a try.

http://www.alllsite.info/stop-smoking-free.php

Good Luck

Answer 7

I used to smoke as a teen and after a few years I did it in front of my mom. In retrospect I understand how much that probably killed her to see, and I wish I could take it back.
I haven't smoked since I was 20 (7 years ago) and my boyfriend does still. We are having a baby in march and he has promised to quit before then. The idea of him smoking a cigarette and then holding our newborn makes me sick!
My kids will never see us smoke, and hopefully we'll never see them smoke. I hope that by the time they are teens it will be incredibly unpopular so they don't get sucked into it the way their parents did as teens.

Now that I don't smoke it really bothers me to be around it. I don't feel irritated or annoyed - just physically ill and disgusted by it. It's not because I have a negative attitude towards smokers - just a serious, uncontrollable aversion towards the actual smoke.

Answer 8

I've just given up smoking following a heart attack (the single biggest thing you can do to help prevent another attack) after about 40 years of enjoyment, so I understand the 'pull' of smoking. Because of this I would not presume to instruct anyone else to give up. Unless you come from a different planet, you will be well aware of the risks involved, but at the end of the day, it's an individual's life.

Answer 9

My mother used to smoke and I used to hate getting dressed up to go out anywhere when I still lived at home. She couldn't understand why it bothered me to go out smelling of smoke. Infact I don't think she really thought it did make you smell anyway.

She gave up smoking 6 years ago and the first time she went out socially where a lot of people smoked (which was quite a while after the nicotene was out of her system) it made her heave! I said to her that much as I didn't want to laugh about it, it did give me a sense of satisfaction that she finally understood that to a non smoker the smell of ciggies is like making a smoker stand next to a bonfire and breath that in and getting that stench it all over their clothes with no escape .

Answer 10

All good questions- You should read the book Easy way to quit smoking, this is an excellant resource to deter kids from smoking, quit and change attitudes towards smokers... it is by Allen Carr

Really changed my thinking Ashton Cuther read this book and talked about it on the VIEW that he needed to quit before the moive The guardian with kevin coster about the coastgaurd....

I have smoked for 15 years and quit after reading it!