11 ms·

I quit 8 years ago after 25 years of a pack a day, yes my lungs are better, so is my sense of smell and taste. Unfortunately my heart and teeth won't magically

I quit 8 years ago after 25 years of a pack a day, yes my lungs are better, so is my sense of smell and taste. Unfortunately my heart and teeth won't magically repair themselves, neither will the scars on my legs from poor circulation due to my hardened arteries. Worst of all might be the fact that my bank account will never be what it could gave been if only I didn't start, get addicted then squander the thousands of dollars a year on something that was killing me for over two decades. Aint life funny that way? Nope, nothing funny about it, just regret, remorse and sadness. If you don't smoke, please don't start it truly is self imposed misery.

horomeme 7y ago
I also smoked when I was younger, because advertising gave me the information that it was “cool”, but hey, if it weren’t for the advertising I never would have known!
bitexploder 7y ago
I wish young people, under 25 or so, could live a couple of days in your shoes or my moms shoes. She was an alcoholic with a pack a day habit for 20+ years. She isn’t 60 yet and she has a litany of health issues: degenerative disk disease, hardened arteries (can barely walk), heart disease, chronic nerve pain, many secondary issues from there. No exercise and a poor diet, depression, etc. it seems so innocent like you have forever ahead of you. Then 5, 10, 20 years roll by and your body is fucked. It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. Young minds just don’t have the tools to weigh the opportunity cost. I am not saying it should be illegal or anything (the opposite), but it really sucks and there are plenty of regrettable stories like yours and my mothers.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  > It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. I was taught this growing up, but I don't really believe it anymore. Nobody is addicted to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes just from one use. The people who become addicted are the ones who are using it to escape their lives, and continue to use the drug for the same reason they used it in the first place. After a while of this continued use, then they might become addicted. But the significant factor is their environment and mental state, not that they decided to try something once.
  - athenot 7y ago
    This is true. But most of us are not fully aware of the vulnerabilities in our own mental state. Nearly everyone is walking through life with some issue, hurt, scar, and many have trauma that is not fully understood. In that context, certain things that may seem benign to try can easily progress into a stronger habit, then a dependency and pave the way to a real addiction.
  - Retric 7y ago
    I have had less than 1 pack of cigarettes in my life, none in the past decade, and yet I still get cravings. By comparison 3 heavily medicated days in the hospital plus 1 week on heavy Opiods and 2 weeks light Opiods and that’s a vastly lesser craving. So, no addiction is not really just about long term exposure. PS: Addiction is also not simply a habit, though habits make addiction harder to deal with.
  - ehnto 7y ago
    It's more like that one cigarette represents opening the door to the addiction within the context of your day to day life. Almost everyone I know who smokes does it first in a certain context and then it eventually persists through the rest of life due to the cravings. They started smoking when working at the mines, on boats, or when they worked hospitality, or when they hang out with a certain friendship group. Saying yes that first time, allows it to begin and develop. Because you're often in that context due to work/life you will come up against that decision point again and again, quickly becoming addicted through repetition. But what keeps you there for life is the craving for nicotine. So abstinence is a worthwhile goal still, and especially if the opportunity to smoke comes up at somewhere you'll be regularly.
    - n0rbwah 7y ago
      Starting smoking while in an environment with smokers helps you socialize and be part of an ingroup. When you leave that context, all you've got left is a costly habit that's a pain to quit. But, not saying yes at that point might have cost you some chances to socialize and create some bonds with other smokers. And you can still find places where being a smoker will help you socialize. Ex: in places where smoking is banned in bars, going out for a smoke is a pretty good way to start up a conversation with a perfect stranger.
- krageon 7y ago
  > It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you This sort of drug education is actively harmful for exactly the reason that you mention: For most people it does not work that way and when people encounter things that they thought are true and that turned out to be lies, trust in whatever else you told them is going to evaporate.
grecy 7y ago
My Mum smoked a pack a day for 30 years, quit when she was about 50, and passed away a year ago from Lung Cancer at the age of 67. The kicker with lung cancer is that it doesn't really have any symptoms, and most people don't know they've got it until the cancer has metastasized and shows up somewhere else. That's more-or-less a death sentence. Please do yourself a favor and get tested every ~6 months. (I know there are a lot of people that say false positives do more harm than good, and I still believe you're better to get tested if you smoked a pack a day for >10 years)
- nradov 7y ago
  A friend's mom went to see her doctor complaining of back pain, only to find it was a lung cancer tumor pressing on her back. She died a month later.
- Engineering-MD 7y ago
  What is the basis of this recommendation? I appreciate the desire to catch lung cancer early, but I dont think your suggestion is particularly based on evidence. I am by no means a lung cancer expert, but currently there is contention about whether lung cancer screening in smokers is worthwhile, and I doubt at 6 monthly intervals. Some studies have shown benefits from screening for smokers, but I dont think any high quality evidence exist which shows a clear benefit of screening. There are options for screening, chest xray, CT chest. A CT chest is more sensitive than a chest xray but doing it every 6 months is going to cause much more harm than good. My more general point is that these are recommendations which need to be evidence based, and doing more harm than good through false positives, excess radiation exposure, etc is a real risk. I dont think its helpful to make suggestions that are not based on evidence.
  - DSingularity 7y ago
    Thank you.
  - edejong 7y ago
    Frequent screening reduces mortality due to lung cancer by 24%: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1911793 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1911793
larcrimacida 7y ago
I smoked for 24 years from 14 and up an average of half a pack a day. I switched to e-cigarettes so I haven't touched a cigarette in more than 2 years and probably never will. Aside from tooth stains that seem to go away I never had any of the problems you had. I am a bit over 40 years old. I don't stink like an ashtray and the smell of other smokers turns my stomach upside down and yet I am still under the spell of nicotine via ... e-cigs. Should I force myself to quit? Again, I haven't experienced any of the symptoms you describe above and smoked for a nearly the same period albeit just half a pack a day...
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  Every one is different, and you did less damage thankfully. Now you’ve made a significant change for the better. Why not continue on that path by slowly weaning yourself off it? Besides the health angle it’s merely a waste of money and support of a shady industry. Take those funds and perhaps treat yourself to something positive.
- Sophistifunk 7y ago
  Whatever else may be in various vape juices, nicotine itself is about as harmful as caffeine. A mild stimulant, addictive, (as far as we know) harmless in normal doses, and will kill you instantly if you get a few grams at once. IIRC caffeine isn't a good pesticide tho, whereas nicotine is great, so YMMV if you're an aphid.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    Caffeine works great on many mammals though, which is how you end up with your dog in the ER if you aren’t good at keeping things like chocolate or coffee beans out of reach. Humans are just exceptionally good at metabolizing both.
  - ianai 7y ago
    Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances we know.
    - 7y ago
consumer451 7y ago
Here is a rabbit hole regarding tobacco which I still don’t fully comprehend: > Waking a Sleeping Giant: The Tobacco Industry’s Response to the Polonium-210 Issue https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+lung+cancer+paradox!g https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+lung+cancer+paradox!g What is actually going on here?
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  Man, that's trippy.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    "lower levels of carcinogenic ingredients in Japanese cigarettes" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18420238 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18420238 I get Fallout vibes here.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      I'd consider glowing cigarettes, tbh Plus that VATS bonus
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Wait, so is it in iqos and heated tobacco too? That would be huge. What about in Vapes made from tobacco?
  - mschuster91 7y ago
    Anything made from natural sources will be contaminated to some degree. The only thing that should be (relatively) clean is fully synthetic vape stuff.
idclip 7y ago
There with you, 17 years - , clean for 1.5 years. I tried to switch to vaping high nic (20mg liquid) - i think i may have scarring on my wind pipe (my throat still hurts from vaping that high nic, and breathing is still sometimes painful, which is pretty bad news) Lungs do recover, but dont count on it. Quit today, and take it seriously. Watch thank you for smoking, its great for stopping.
- withdavidli 7y ago
  Becareful with high nic. Dad started getting high blood pressure from vaping 24mg for 2-4 years. He's lowered it to 6-12mg solutions and have gotten better. His previous habit was about 2 packs a week, and in high stress situations a pack a day.
  - idclip 7y ago
    Yeah... its even corrosive. And its a pretty messed up nerve toxin.
  - easymodex 7y ago
    24mg is so high, i started with 6mg and then went to 3mg. For me the whole point is to smoke the least amount of nicotine and try to keep it healthy (will try quitting soon as well).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- justinclift 7y ago
  Any interest in taking up swimming? One of my friends from decades ago had asthma right through his teenage years, and was extremely thin and weedy. Couldn't exercise much without coughing fits and similar. He took up swimming (!), and although it was slow going at first he eventually developed good lung capacity. And became a body builder. :) Suspecting the same thing would work for anyone with not much (or damaged) lung capacity.
  - 7y ago
DrOctagon 7y ago
I smoked when drinking (maybe 2-3 packs/week) throughout my 20s and if smoking wasn't a death wish I still would. I enjoyed smoking and I enjoyed the camaraderie of those who would escape outside the party or pub to escape the noise and have a chat and a smoke. It's been a long time since I've smoked. I've lost people close to me and will soon lose another due to lung cancer or emphysema. Smoking sucks, but I do miss those quite moments outside in the cool air with a cigarette.
- thecatspaw 7y ago
  You dont have to miss those moments. Just join them, without the cigarette. In my experience noone cares if you dont smoke.
  - sundvor 7y ago
    Never smoked. The walk to a Melbourne CBD coffee place seems to have the same function of socialising with colleagues. It's definitely something we look forward to, and we have some seriously good coffee places as well. It's a shame we have to walk past / through so many people smoking on the sidewalk though. It really is quite a disgusting habit.
  - JohnBooty 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm a frequent "step outside for some air" guy during gatherings and I like stepping out to talk with the smokers!
  - DrOctagon 7y ago
    At the time they did feel very much linked. You are right though, of course. I’m too old for any of that nonsense now anyway :)
  - raducu 7y ago
    But the temptation to just bum a cigarette from someone is incredible, trust me.
    - 7y ago
hinkley 7y ago
I’m reading Tig Notaro’s autobiographical book and at one point she’s demonstrating how well young her was doing out on her own by listing her budget. Her cigarette budget was 80% of her pretty frugal food budget. If she hadn’t been smoking she wouldn’t have had to put so much time and effort into managing her food budget. I wonder how much and how many ways our situation would have been better when I was a kid if my dad hadn’t smoked the entire time. Fucker used to hotbox us in the winter, too.
ErotemeObelus 7y ago
The money did it for me!
deepGem 7y ago
I will frame this and put it on my kids bedroom wall. No one should get addicted to smoking and the youngest minds are the most gullible.
- asjw 7y ago
  They will get some other addiction It's in the human nature, instead of fighting it it's better educate people to not abuse of anything
ASalazarMX 7y ago
> If you don't smoke, please don't start it truly is self imposed misery. Playing devil's advocate, I'd say that the misery is not the smoking, but the excess smoking. Everything in excess begets misery.

horomeme 7y ago

I also smoked when I was younger, because advertising gave me the information that it was “cool”, but hey, if it weren’t for the advertising I never would have known!

bitexploder 7y ago

I wish young people, under 25 or so, could live a couple of days in your shoes or my moms shoes. She was an alcoholic with a pack a day habit for 20+ years. She isn’t 60 yet and she has a litany of health issues: degenerative disk disease, hardened arteries (can barely walk), heart disease, chronic nerve pain, many secondary issues from there. No exercise and a poor diet, depression, etc. it seems so innocent like you have forever ahead of you. Then 5, 10, 20 years roll by and your body is fucked. It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. Young minds just don’t have the tools to weigh the opportunity cost. I am not saying it should be illegal or anything (the opposite), but it really sucks and there are plenty of regrettable stories like yours and my mothers.

nicoburns 7y ago
> It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you, but for some people that is all it takes. I was taught this growing up, but I don't really believe it anymore. Nobody is addicted to drugs or alcohol or cigarettes just from one use. The people who become addicted are the ones who are using it to escape their lives, and continue to use the drug for the same reason they used it in the first place. After a while of this continued use, then they might become addicted. But the significant factor is their environment and mental state, not that they decided to try something once.
- athenot 7y ago
  This is true. But most of us are not fully aware of the vulnerabilities in our own mental state. Nearly everyone is walking through life with some issue, hurt, scar, and many have trauma that is not fully understood. In that context, certain things that may seem benign to try can easily progress into a stronger habit, then a dependency and pave the way to a real addiction.
- Retric 7y ago
  I have had less than 1 pack of cigarettes in my life, none in the past decade, and yet I still get cravings. By comparison 3 heavily medicated days in the hospital plus 1 week on heavy Opiods and 2 weeks light Opiods and that’s a vastly lesser craving. So, no addiction is not really just about long term exposure. PS: Addiction is also not simply a habit, though habits make addiction harder to deal with.
- ehnto 7y ago
  It's more like that one cigarette represents opening the door to the addiction within the context of your day to day life. Almost everyone I know who smokes does it first in a certain context and then it eventually persists through the rest of life due to the cravings. They started smoking when working at the mines, on boats, or when they worked hospitality, or when they hang out with a certain friendship group. Saying yes that first time, allows it to begin and develop. Because you're often in that context due to work/life you will come up against that decision point again and again, quickly becoming addicted through repetition. But what keeps you there for life is the craving for nicotine. So abstinence is a worthwhile goal still, and especially if the opportunity to smoke comes up at somewhere you'll be regularly.
  - n0rbwah 7y ago
    Starting smoking while in an environment with smokers helps you socialize and be part of an ingroup. When you leave that context, all you've got left is a costly habit that's a pain to quit. But, not saying yes at that point might have cost you some chances to socialize and create some bonds with other smokers. And you can still find places where being a smoker will help you socialize. Ex: in places where smoking is banned in bars, going out for a smoke is a pretty good way to start up a conversation with a perfect stranger.
krageon 7y ago
> It’s so hard to think just one cigarette, one drink, or one hit of a drug can ruin you This sort of drug education is actively harmful for exactly the reason that you mention: For most people it does not work that way and when people encounter things that they thought are true and that turned out to be lies, trust in whatever else you told them is going to evaporate.

grecy 7y ago

My Mum smoked a pack a day for 30 years, quit when she was about 50, and passed away a year ago from Lung Cancer at the age of 67. The kicker with lung cancer is that it doesn't really have any symptoms, and most people don't know they've got it until the cancer has metastasized and shows up somewhere else. That's more-or-less a death sentence. Please do yourself a favor and get tested every ~6 months. (I know there are a lot of people that say false positives do more harm than good, and I still believe you're better to get tested if you smoked a pack a day for >10 years)

nradov 7y ago
A friend's mom went to see her doctor complaining of back pain, only to find it was a lung cancer tumor pressing on her back. She died a month later.
Engineering-MD 7y ago
What is the basis of this recommendation? I appreciate the desire to catch lung cancer early, but I dont think your suggestion is particularly based on evidence. I am by no means a lung cancer expert, but currently there is contention about whether lung cancer screening in smokers is worthwhile, and I doubt at 6 monthly intervals. Some studies have shown benefits from screening for smokers, but I dont think any high quality evidence exist which shows a clear benefit of screening. There are options for screening, chest xray, CT chest. A CT chest is more sensitive than a chest xray but doing it every 6 months is going to cause much more harm than good. My more general point is that these are recommendations which need to be evidence based, and doing more harm than good through false positives, excess radiation exposure, etc is a real risk. I dont think its helpful to make suggestions that are not based on evidence.
- DSingularity 7y ago
  Thank you.
- edejong 7y ago
  Frequent screening reduces mortality due to lung cancer by 24%: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1911793 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1911793

larcrimacida 7y ago

I smoked for 24 years from 14 and up an average of half a pack a day. I switched to e-cigarettes so I haven't touched a cigarette in more than 2 years and probably never will. Aside from tooth stains that seem to go away I never had any of the problems you had. I am a bit over 40 years old. I don't stink like an ashtray and the smell of other smokers turns my stomach upside down and yet I am still under the spell of nicotine via ... e-cigs. Should I force myself to quit? Again, I haven't experienced any of the symptoms you describe above and smoked for a nearly the same period albeit just half a pack a day...

mixmastamyk 7y ago
Every one is different, and you did less damage thankfully. Now you’ve made a significant change for the better. Why not continue on that path by slowly weaning yourself off it? Besides the health angle it’s merely a waste of money and support of a shady industry. Take those funds and perhaps treat yourself to something positive.
Sophistifunk 7y ago
Whatever else may be in various vape juices, nicotine itself is about as harmful as caffeine. A mild stimulant, addictive, (as far as we know) harmless in normal doses, and will kill you instantly if you get a few grams at once. IIRC caffeine isn't a good pesticide tho, whereas nicotine is great, so YMMV if you're an aphid.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Caffeine works great on many mammals though, which is how you end up with your dog in the ER if you aren’t good at keeping things like chocolate or coffee beans out of reach. Humans are just exceptionally good at metabolizing both.
- ianai 7y ago
  Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances we know.
  - 7y ago

consumer451 7y ago

Here is a rabbit hole regarding tobacco which I still don’t fully comprehend: > Waking a Sleeping Giant: The Tobacco Industry’s Response to the Polonium-210 Issue https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+lung+cancer+paradox!g https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+lung+cancer+paradox!g What is actually going on here?

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
Man, that's trippy.
- jacobush 7y ago
  "lower levels of carcinogenic ingredients in Japanese cigarettes" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18420238 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18420238 I get Fallout vibes here.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    I'd consider glowing cigarettes, tbh Plus that VATS bonus
dr_dshiv 7y ago
Wait, so is it in iqos and heated tobacco too? That would be huge. What about in Vapes made from tobacco?
- mschuster91 7y ago
  Anything made from natural sources will be contaminated to some degree. The only thing that should be (relatively) clean is fully synthetic vape stuff.

idclip 7y ago

There with you, 17 years - , clean for 1.5 years. I tried to switch to vaping high nic (20mg liquid) - i think i may have scarring on my wind pipe (my throat still hurts from vaping that high nic, and breathing is still sometimes painful, which is pretty bad news) Lungs do recover, but dont count on it. Quit today, and take it seriously. Watch thank you for smoking, its great for stopping.

withdavidli 7y ago
Becareful with high nic. Dad started getting high blood pressure from vaping 24mg for 2-4 years. He's lowered it to 6-12mg solutions and have gotten better. His previous habit was about 2 packs a week, and in high stress situations a pack a day.
- idclip 7y ago
  Yeah... its even corrosive. And its a pretty messed up nerve toxin.
- easymodex 7y ago
  24mg is so high, i started with 6mg and then went to 3mg. For me the whole point is to smoke the least amount of nicotine and try to keep it healthy (will try quitting soon as well).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
justinclift 7y ago
Any interest in taking up swimming? One of my friends from decades ago had asthma right through his teenage years, and was extremely thin and weedy. Couldn't exercise much without coughing fits and similar. He took up swimming (!), and although it was slow going at first he eventually developed good lung capacity. And became a body builder. :) Suspecting the same thing would work for anyone with not much (or damaged) lung capacity.
- 7y ago

DrOctagon 7y ago

I smoked when drinking (maybe 2-3 packs/week) throughout my 20s and if smoking wasn't a death wish I still would. I enjoyed smoking and I enjoyed the camaraderie of those who would escape outside the party or pub to escape the noise and have a chat and a smoke. It's been a long time since I've smoked. I've lost people close to me and will soon lose another due to lung cancer or emphysema. Smoking sucks, but I do miss those quite moments outside in the cool air with a cigarette.

thecatspaw 7y ago
You dont have to miss those moments. Just join them, without the cigarette. In my experience noone cares if you dont smoke.
- sundvor 7y ago
  Never smoked. The walk to a Melbourne CBD coffee place seems to have the same function of socialising with colleagues. It's definitely something we look forward to, and we have some seriously good coffee places as well. It's a shame we have to walk past / through so many people smoking on the sidewalk though. It really is quite a disgusting habit.
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm a frequent "step outside for some air" guy during gatherings and I like stepping out to talk with the smokers!
- DrOctagon 7y ago
  At the time they did feel very much linked. You are right though, of course. I’m too old for any of that nonsense now anyway :)
- raducu 7y ago
  But the temptation to just bum a cigarette from someone is incredible, trust me.
  - 7y ago

hinkley 7y ago

I’m reading Tig Notaro’s autobiographical book and at one point she’s demonstrating how well young her was doing out on her own by listing her budget. Her cigarette budget was 80% of her pretty frugal food budget. If she hadn’t been smoking she wouldn’t have had to put so much time and effort into managing her food budget. I wonder how much and how many ways our situation would have been better when I was a kid if my dad hadn’t smoked the entire time. Fucker used to hotbox us in the winter, too.

ErotemeObelus 7y ago

The money did it for me!

deepGem 7y ago

I will frame this and put it on my kids bedroom wall. No one should get addicted to smoking and the youngest minds are the most gullible.

asjw 7y ago
They will get some other addiction It's in the human nature, instead of fighting it it's better educate people to not abuse of anything

ASalazarMX 7y ago

> If you don't smoke, please don't start it truly is self imposed misery. Playing devil's advocate, I'd say that the misery is not the smoking, but the excess smoking. Everything in excess begets misery.