People who smoke cigarettes?

Question

Do you actually want to quit? Or are you happy smoking?

I am just wondering, i have quit for nearly two weeks now :) and i was talking to my friend, she has no interest in quitting.

I'm not preaching i was just wondering if ALL smokers WANT to quit but can't? Or are smokers happy as smokers??

If you do smoke, how long ago did you start and how did you start?

stout unicorn - i am glad you quit while being pregnant. I always thought kids would be enough to want to quit, you dont want to your kids to see their mother with tubes hanging out of her nose and being unable to breathe!!

Answer 1

Yes I smoke, & I do want to quit. I had NO idea how addictive they are! I've had a blood clot twice--in my left lung, & this is so STUPID. Serves me right for feeling so pompous about my "self discipline." You know the old thingee--"I can stop any time I want to, I've done it 100 times?" The longest I ever stopped was two years,& then someone just freaked me out, & back I was! I started, because my first husband thought I was a bore. (I didn't drink, either, not much fun with his friends!) I do know people who have absolutely no desire to quit. Perhaps I wouldn't, either, if it weren't for the blood clots. I've known three (very young) people who never smoked, & have died of lung cancer. I also know a VERY old lady who has smoked all her life, & none the worse for it. I guess the bottom line is, "to care or not to care...& that makes all the difference." I'd have to say, from experience, there are happy smokers & unhappy smokers. I'm so totally proud of you! Two weeks. What is YOUR secret?

Answer 2

I don't want to quit. I actually enjoy smoking. I started at the age of 22 and now am 55. I smoke about 5 packs a week. I believe that smoking affects people differently.

Answer 3

Good for you!
I quit on January 1st this year but to answer your question, no I didn't want to quit. I freely admit that had I not been required to (my husband had to for health reasons), then I'd probably be puffing away now. I'm surprised at how little smoking added to my life and I only miss it sometimes.
I started smoking when I was 14 - that was 14 years ago. Half of my life. I can't really remember how I started, I was one of those stupid kids with multi-coloured hair who listened to British punk (still do) and what was then labelled "grunge" and "goth" and just became embroiled in that scene. Cigarettes were part of it I guess

Answer 4

I'm a smoker...right now I don't want to quit even though I should. I quit every time I was pregnat (3 times). When I get to the point where cigarrettes don't taste good anymore then I will quit and hopefully not start again!!!! & congratulations for quitting smoking!!!

Answer 5

I would like to quit because it's becoming very expensive to smoke and one can only smoke in certain places now, but I really can't imagine myself quitting, so I quess you could say I enjoy it. No, I would say that I am addicted to it.

I suppose I smoke as a reward or as a tranquilizer when I am tired, nervous, upset, angry--kind of like using it as a pacifier. I don't know what I would do in its place if someone did take away my pacifier. I would probably overeat, and that wouldn't replace my desire for a cigarette. I don't like to chew gum or anything like that.

I know that I would never stop wanting one, whether I had been without them for ten days or ten years. I quit for four days once a few years ago, and I did okay the first couple of days, but then by the fourth day I was bereft. I thought, "I don't have to put up with this", and I got in my car and headed for the closest convenience store. That was the end of that.

Another time, my husband and I agreed to quit together, but we just hid out away from each other and smoked and eventually caught each other.

I started smoking when I was a freshman in college. We had these study groups and everybody smoked. You had to smoke yourself in order to be able to stand it. I finished school with a BS in Nursing (RN). That was forty years ago, and I heard but didn't heed the surgeon general's initial or any subsequent warning.

I had a patient once who had throat cancer--he was about 45, and he had had surgery and was left with a tracheotomy. One morning he got up to go to the bathroom and he started bleeding out through his trach. The nurse called a code, and there was blood all over the floor that I, as a member of the code team had to walk through to get to him there on the floor. We weren't able to bring him back. He had never smoked. In a way I felt this vindicated me with my horrible habit, but I knew deep down that more smokers get throat and lung cancer than those who don't.

I don't have anything wrong with me due to smoking (no actual repiratory diagnosis), but I do know that it hurts me. I probably have less energy and tire more quickly than other women my age. I have a harder time getting over a cold or flu than most people, and my house is not as clean as I would like for it to be.

The thing that bothers me most is that both of my daughters, who hated my smoking when they were children, now smoke. I taught them this way of dealing with frustration, weariness and disappointment. If I had not smoked they probably would never have started it.

I applaud you for quitting. Stay with it. You will feel better, smell better and live better without it.