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I was a pack a day smoker - I quit a couple years ago.. well quit isn't the right word - I transferred my addiction to another form of nicotine (snus/dipping to

by Aloha 9y ago

I was a pack a day smoker - I quit a couple years ago.. well quit isn't the right word - I transferred my addiction to another form of nicotine (snus/dipping tobacco, as well as lozenges) - I think the part I miss most of all is the social aspects of smoking, the enjoying instant comradere with some people - it made me a better storyteller, a better and more eloquent speaker - basically helped me to a great extent shave all the rough edges off I had as a kid - it also gave me an instant social group to hang out with at work too. I dip now, which is a slightly more exclusive club (there just seems to be fewer of us) but there is subreddit for it - that is just as supportive and friendly as r/cigarettes though - r/DippingTobacco posts are a bit weirder.

enobrev 9y ago
I switched to vaping about 4 years ago. Even on nights that I forget to charge and thus end up with a dead battery, I still go outside and hang with the smokers every so often. I still appreciate the reset from the conversation at whatever social place / gathering I'm at, as well as the switch in context and opportunity to meet others. And generally, smokers don't care whether you're also smoking. I also take the equivalent of smoking breaks while I'm working. I can vape at my desk for hours, but I like to go outside for a bit to spend 5 minutes away every so often. It's one of the few positive (and free) habits I got from being a smoker for 22 years, and I'm not giving it up.
- Aloha 9y ago
  The hypocrisy of non-smokers still annoys me - the people who complain about cigarette smoke, but bury themselves in cologne, perfume or aftershave for example. As it turns out, I have an astoundingly strong sense of smell, or so I discovered when I quit smoking.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    Great, so you can understand where non-smokers are coming from. All my neighbors smoke and I can't open my windows in nice weather because then my house just smells awful and it triggers migraines for my wife. I don't think they'd appreciate it if I left a bucket of rotting fish on my porch.
    - enobrev 9y ago
      I don't like the smell of smokers or perfumes (of any sort), personally. No migraines or allergies or hypocrisy; I just think they all stink. I don't even like scented shampoo. My favorite deodorant now has an "Invisible" version that's completely unscented. I gladly overpay for it - and very much need it due to my own rotten scent after, say, 12 hours. I smoked in my tiny 1 bedroom apartment for quite a few years. I Never smoked in the bedroom, but the rest of the apartment was open-season. I'd quit smoking in that apartment about a year before I moved to a new city. Two years later, as I was packing to move to yet another city, I realized there was a box beneath my bed I'd forgotten about. After opening it, I realized it was a forever-unopened box, full of [washed/folded] clothes that I hadn't seen in nearly a decade. The whole apartment suddenly stunk like a bar at 10am in the nineties. It was awful. The smoke had seeped into the closed bedroom, into the closed closet, into the taped-up box and had completely saturated the clothes. It took 3 days to air out the place, and I was terrified that my landlord would show up and think that I'd smoked in the apartment, which I absolutely never would have. My [now] wife and I looked at each other completely grossed out, with the realization that we smelled like that at all times for 22 years before we'd quit (much less than that for her).
      - allenbrunson 9y ago
        I have never smoked, but I had a similar revelation once. Up until I was about 35 or so, I went through a 12-pack of 12-ounce cokes in a week. I reached that inevitable point in life where my metabolism was slowing down, and I was gaining weight. I decided to go cold turkey on the cokes, as that was pretty much all of the empty calories I consumed at that time. I figured it would be tough to quit such an ingrained habit, developed over the course of 20 years or so, but it wasn't. I switched to water without incident. My weight gain stopped. About six months later, I was eating at a restaurant, and decided to order a coke, for old time's sake. I can have one every now and then as a treat, I thought. Good god. It tasted awful. The most sickly-sweet disgusting thing I'd ever had in my mouth. I couldn't even finish that sip, let alone the entire drink. That was over ten years ago, and I haven't touched a single drop of any carbonated sickly-sweet beverage since then. I can't believe I ever wanted to drink something so disgusting, for so many years, in such great quantities.

by Aloha 9y ago

enobrev 9y ago

I switched to vaping about 4 years ago. Even on nights that I forget to charge and thus end up with a dead battery, I still go outside and hang with the smokers every so often. I still appreciate the reset from the conversation at whatever social place / gathering I'm at, as well as the switch in context and opportunity to meet others. And generally, smokers don't care whether you're also smoking. I also take the equivalent of smoking breaks while I'm working. I can vape at my desk for hours, but I like to go outside for a bit to spend 5 minutes away every so often. It's one of the few positive (and free) habits I got from being a smoker for 22 years, and I'm not giving it up.

Aloha 9y ago
The hypocrisy of non-smokers still annoys me - the people who complain about cigarette smoke, but bury themselves in cologne, perfume or aftershave for example. As it turns out, I have an astoundingly strong sense of smell, or so I discovered when I quit smoking.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  Great, so you can understand where non-smokers are coming from. All my neighbors smoke and I can't open my windows in nice weather because then my house just smells awful and it triggers migraines for my wife. I don't think they'd appreciate it if I left a bucket of rotting fish on my porch.
  - enobrev 9y ago
    I don't like the smell of smokers or perfumes (of any sort), personally. No migraines or allergies or hypocrisy; I just think they all stink. I don't even like scented shampoo. My favorite deodorant now has an "Invisible" version that's completely unscented. I gladly overpay for it - and very much need it due to my own rotten scent after, say, 12 hours. I smoked in my tiny 1 bedroom apartment for quite a few years. I Never smoked in the bedroom, but the rest of the apartment was open-season. I'd quit smoking in that apartment about a year before I moved to a new city. Two years later, as I was packing to move to yet another city, I realized there was a box beneath my bed I'd forgotten about. After opening it, I realized it was a forever-unopened box, full of [washed/folded] clothes that I hadn't seen in nearly a decade. The whole apartment suddenly stunk like a bar at 10am in the nineties. It was awful. The smoke had seeped into the closed bedroom, into the closed closet, into the taped-up box and had completely saturated the clothes. It took 3 days to air out the place, and I was terrified that my landlord would show up and think that I'd smoked in the apartment, which I absolutely never would have. My [now] wife and I looked at each other completely grossed out, with the realization that we smelled like that at all times for 22 years before we'd quit (much less than that for her).
    - allenbrunson 9y ago
      I have never smoked, but I had a similar revelation once. Up until I was about 35 or so, I went through a 12-pack of 12-ounce cokes in a week. I reached that inevitable point in life where my metabolism was slowing down, and I was gaining weight. I decided to go cold turkey on the cokes, as that was pretty much all of the empty calories I consumed at that time. I figured it would be tough to quit such an ingrained habit, developed over the course of 20 years or so, but it wasn't. I switched to water without incident. My weight gain stopped. About six months later, I was eating at a restaurant, and decided to order a coke, for old time's sake. I can have one every now and then as a treat, I thought. Good god. It tasted awful. The most sickly-sweet disgusting thing I'd ever had in my mouth. I couldn't even finish that sip, let alone the entire drink. That was over ten years ago, and I haven't touched a single drop of any carbonated sickly-sweet beverage since then. I can't believe I ever wanted to drink something so disgusting, for so many years, in such great quantities.