Do you remember your first cigarette? Bet you never thought you would get addicted.

[nsd_user663_4964]

So I've been thinking about this recently.....

My dad smoked when i was a kid and my mum hated it.

I nagged him to give up at about age 9, having become very anti smoking after, presumably (can't quite remember) having seen the black tarred lung documentary at school.

He eventually gave in, and i remember was very grumpy for ages, and kept eating mintoes (Do they still exist?)

I still remember my mother saying "have a mint" and him saying- I don't want a ****** mintoe.

So, after all this early anti-smoking indoctrination, you would think i would definitely not become a smoker......Hmm, no.

I always knew smoking was not good or cool, and resisted peer pressure of a few slightly wannabe cooler friends in my early teens. I wasn't particularly interested.

But then approx age 16 ish, saw i guy i fancied smoking (thought, maybe, it might impress him??? err- no) most friends smoked at least here and there, the "boyfriends" i had usually smoked and i also wanted to see what it was like.....There had to be something in it right? (err no, wrong again)

Also i wanted to know "how" to smoke, for the purposes of smoking something other than a cigarette.... (My adventurous streak has always got me into trouble) At that age also you just wanna do whatever your friends are doing and what might be thought of as cool- you don't really want to be different.

So, remember my boss (in my first job) gave me my first cigarette (I asked him for it) and i smoked it and genuinely thought "What's the fuss about? Why would you want to do this 20 times a day??

This is not that great."

I had to be instructed in the art of properly inhaling and keeping the smoke in the lungs i remember.

So, from there , admittedly i didn't cough and be sick or anything, but i didn't exactly enjoy it either, I somehow ended up buying my first packet(Silk Cut)- at first mostly to keep in my bedroom drawer to look at and occasionally smoke out of my window, thinking i was very cool.....

And then i smoked with my boss and friends, and i kept on smoking just long after the trying it period, and obviously somewhere along the line got addicted , very addicted. I was never aware of it, or even that i was going to get addicted, didn't understand the nature of addiction really, or how addictive cigarettes are.

At the end of my" full time smoker" life about 17 years later (with no real attempt at stopping inbetween-about two years ago was the end of the "full time " bit anyway....not completely the END, sigh) i was on at least 40 a day. More sometimes. Even smokers used to comment how much i smoked.....

So, Do you remember your first one? How long before you were addicted?

I can never, and couldn't at the time, pinpoint a time when i became an addict. I guess it's a warning that we never know we are slipping into addiction but our use just increases, and then we need the stuff to function. I used to think because I didn't really actively " enjoy" or "get a high " from cigarettes, i couldn't get addicted.

[nsd_user663_17388]

My first was when I was 11 or 12 years old I think. I always had older friends and one day they were acting shifty and then started to talk about going to the lorry carpark for something or other. I asked if I could tag along, they said yes, they got the fags out and I asked if I could have one, they said yes. The next 22 years is history

I would never have said I was a sheep but looking back the only comment I have is "Baaa aaaa aaaa".

Silly girl.

[nsd_user663_9220]

I honestly cant remember my first ever cigarette, but i remember when i got my national insurance card and couldnt wait to go and get some using it as ID and the back chat i gave the bloke in the "offy" when he still refused to serve me!!!

Mind you, you do get the card a few months before your 16th B-day

I know there was a huge group of us and every one smoked and yes we all thought we were so "hard" and looked "cool"

Looking back now i can understand while people gave me dirty looks as i am the same now when i see "kids" doing it and thinking they look "mega hard"

Maybe they will just have to learn the hard way like i have.

xx

[nsd_user663_16968]

Hi Guys

Back in 1990 when i was 19 i was at a night club with some friends, they lit up and i thought that looks cool so asked if i could try one. Like Jude i thought oh thats bad, but every weekend after that i would have one or 2, then i started buying packs of 10 and they would last all week, that 10 went to 20 and the rest is history.

I hated smoking when i was younger hence i started late in life but i never knew how addictive it would be either or how hard it would be to give it up because it controls you.

I have an Ecig here now and been using that for a while because at least with that you only got the nicotine and nothing else but i still wish i had never started, i have told my kids that its not as cool as they may think and once you start its very hard to stop so DONT DO IT.

Hopefully that will work but if they are gonna do it they will

[nsd_user663_17797]

Hi, just joined today and am trying to get into the no-smoking mood, so am reading as much of this forum as I can!

My first ciggie was in 1974 when I was 15. My big sister smoked and all I wanted was to be like her. I had a Saturday job in a shoe shop and before the store opened we all went for a coffee in the cafe opposite. All the others smoked and were keen as mustard to get me started. Like Jude I had to be instructed on inhaling because to start with I blew the smoke out through my nostrils, a little like a small dragon. Even now if I do that, it takes me right back to 1974!

36 years later and I've decided enough is enough. What I think is really sad is that I remember my first cigarette with much greater accuracy and fondness than my first kiss :eek:

[nsd_user663_15147]

I was part of the extreme anti-smoking group of teenagers as well... I used to badger my parents all the time about quitting... then around the time I was 17 I was at a club and a guy was sitting next to me smoking... I suddenly felt the urge to grab his cigarette and smoke it (probably because he looked like he was enjoying it so much)... so I did and took a few puffs, didn't particularly enjoy it but didn't hate it either.

Then a few weeks after that the same thing happened and I took the cigarette off the only friend of mine who smoked at the time - all the rest who saw me smoking stopped talking to me and even my boyfriend threatened to leave me because I was making it a habit every friday night.

I think I was probably addicted (and realised it) one friday waiting for school to finish, I couldn't wait to go out clubbing but not because I would see all of my friends but because I wanted a cigarette.

I never thought smoking was cool in the beginning, I do think it was the nicotine rush that I actually enjoyed - that light headed feeling, even if it made me feel strange.

[nsd_user663_17734]

Not sure I remember my first cigarette, I remember a tuck shop I bought cigarettes from when Marlboro Red were 99p for ten. I think that was around 1992 when I was 15 going-on 16.

I used to hide them in my room, I suppose I smoked a couple, but mostly I used to sell the ten-packs to my younger brother for £5, who in turn sold them in the playground for 90p each. We basically topped up our pocket money.

One day Mum found a pack of smokes, her and dad took us into the back garden and made us smoke two each - neither of my parents had ever smoked, and I think they wanted us to feel sick, and that we would be deterred.

I first started to smoke regularly at College, in the student union at first. A couple of cigarettes once a week, led to a daily cigarette after lunch - mostly given to me by friends. I remember when I started to buy a 20-pack of my own with the wages from my part time job each week. This led to 2 20 packs and loosing my clothing allowance when my folks realised I was properly hooked.

Here I am. 34, 15 a day since, and going though all this because I wasn't man enough to say no back then.

[nsd_user663_18143]

Hi all, just joined today and, like Vonny says above, am taking in as much as i can as seems there are some fab resources and stories on here!

I'm not sure if it was definitely my very first cig, but the one i remember was when i was 11 or 12, in the first year of high school in 1994/95. I'd snuck out of school at lunch to go to the chippy, which was on the local estate. The two girls i knocked around with were seen as 'hard' and 'cool' and produced a pack of 10 B&H. They asked if i wanted one and being easily led and desparate to be 'cool' i said yes. I vividly remember trying not to cough and ending up blue in the face and feeling very sick! The girls said not to worry and i would get the hang of it, then took half an hour explaining how to inhale, how to hold it and even the best way to light it in bad weather (a crucial skill for a smoker in the North West!)

After that i went to buying a pack of 10 a week (for about £1), then buying a 20 pack especially for a Friday/Saturday night sat in the park with a bottle of Lambrini or 20/20 (another bad habit i developed is binge drinking, although am happy to say i have managed to knock this on the head in the last few months).

For years i prided myself at 'not being addicted' and 'being able to give up whenever i wanted to'. Obviously that wasn't true but i only realised i was addicted properly when i went to Uni, aged 18, and started hanging around with non-smokers (My whole social group growing up were smokers, and you were slightly outcast if you didn't smoke). But again i still genuinely believed that i was the cooler, more grown up one by being a smoker. Ludicrous thinking about it now!

I have been know to walk miles to get to an all-night garage, smoke over 50 fags in a night on the town, and fish dimps out of the ashtray just to get a fix.

I look at 11 year olds now and it terrifies me that i was that young when i started. I've always been an intelligent person and so have no other excuse for my years as a smoker than peer pressure and wanting to 'fit in'.

I hope that by the time i have kids of my own my years of smoking are a distant, smelly memory.

Best of luck to everyone on here and sure i'll be on here regularly looking for some support

[nsd_user663_18026]

i was just thinking about when i started then saw this!!!! i was about 14 and started because my mates did, now 17 years on they quit years ago and i carried on with it, what a waste of money, i really cant see me going back to it although im not talking it for granted just yet!!! i have noticed though that its far more common to be in a no-smoking place than a smoking place these days which helps

[nsd_user663_4149]

Remember my first smoke well. It was in 1956 in our shed, me and my pal who was a year older than me. Wasn't a regular smoker then, just when we could nick the odd ones, or, there were a few "corner shops" that used to sell single fags, two old pence I think with a couple of matches thrown in, or, if we were a bit flush I think we bought 5 "Domino" for 6 old pence (two and half pence) they were called that because they were in an open paper packet with a domino on the side. Started smoking all the time when I was 15 and went to sea where cigarettes and tobacco were in the bond about 100 for about 50 pence and tobacco cheaper. Stopped smoking 53 years later. One of the best things I've ever done in my life. David