Does anyone remember actually starting smok... - No Smoking Day

No Smoking Day

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Does anyone remember actually starting smoking?

nsd_user663_22353 profile image
14 Replies

And what i mean is, actually deciding, 'hey, i think i'll take up smoking.' I'd be surprised if anyone actually does, because i'd be surprised if it was a choice anyone made. And yet here we are, on a board helping each other quit something that none of us wanted to start in the first place.

I remember sneaking out to buy 'just one pack' of cigarettes & smoking them by the window in the dark so nobody would know. They didn't need to know, it was just one pack. It's not like i was addicted anyway, i wasn't buying any more once they were gone. That was 15 years ago.

15 years of unwittingly smelling (& tasting) like a burnt out Ford Focus, of wondering 'where's the £100 i had at the start of the week gone?', of needing a 3 hour nap after navigating a flight of steps, of turning down holidays & nights out because 'i can't afford it', of waking up with a hangover in spite of not having a drink, of having a complexion that should get me a walk-on part in the next series of The Walking Dead, and many delightful benefits yet to come, all paid through the nose for.

"But i enjoy it!" was my usual response to people asking why i don't quit. I enjoy cheesecake, but i don't get homicidal urges if i don't have a slice every hour.

"I'm quitting tomorrow!" i said. Every day. 15 years of breaking promises i made to people, & trying to justify a self destructive & utterly pointless habit.

If someone had stopped me 15 years ago in the street & asked, "Can you give me an obscene amount of money & i'll ensure you smell horrendous, feel like crap every day & have a slow premature death?" i'd have thought they were insane. Yet i did it anyway.

So i'm not doing this anymore.

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nsd_user663_22353 profile image
nsd_user663_22353
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14 Replies
nsd_user663_54332 profile image
nsd_user663_54332

Remember deciding to smoke here and there, but don't remember signing up to all the c**p smoking leads to!! Managed to be a social smoker for 3 years then, well it's obvious :mad:

How many days are you quit now? :)

nsd_user663_18145 profile image
nsd_user663_18145

interesting thread

i know for me i wanted to smoke because all my family smoked and i was even encouraged to by my older sisters who all smoked and was always offering me one and when i was older and babysat my nephews and neices i was always paid with a pack of ciggies so never really had to go out and buy them till i was in my late teens

someone asked me afew years ago at what age i actually started smoking and i cant remember :confused:i must have been anywhere between 8 or 9

but i had to be sneaky though as my mum who smoked didnt want me to start so smoking it became abit of a game as if my one of my sisters was around and was smoking she would let me have a crafty drag when mums back was turned

plus because i had ciggies to burn so to speak i was very popular at school :rolleyes:

scary thinking back now though :eek:

nsd_user663_20558 profile image
nsd_user663_20558

Wow Carol, that's young!

I was exceptionally stupid, and waited until I was 18 and should have known better. I was in a play at uni and my character smoked, so I thought I'd teach myself to do it. Few practice ciggies and I thought, hey, I like this. Spent a lot of time beered up in the student bar and EVERYBODY smoked, and it definitely had an aura of coolness about it, so I just kept going and in a very short time I was completely hooked.

Took me until I was in my forties to quit (with two nine-month pregnancy-induced forced quits). What a numpty.

nsd_user663_18145 profile image
nsd_user663_18145

:eek:

yeah i know but i didnt know any different and being popular at school was good for my ego :p

back in the day too it was cool as all the famous stars of the time smoked to promote smoking it was never seen as a bad harmful thing then

good to see you btw hun :) hope your keeping well and have a great bank holiday weekend

x

nsd_user663_40088 profile image
nsd_user663_40088

I do. I was a very self.destructive teen. 14th birthday. Asked for a fag and.then went n.bought 10 and bought them.then.after! Lol.stupid young me. But i was a i need to get more drunk.more stoned.more more more.kinda person. Now im sorting out it all out. Less drink.no.fags less less less lol xx

nsd_user663_22353 profile image
nsd_user663_22353

I was 20, so i really ought to have known better. It was in Spain, & all of my mates were doing it so i gave it a go. And that was the start. Occasional one when i was drunk led to an occasional one after work, then an occasional 10 box per week, up to an occasional 30 a day, 15 year habit.

This is probably my 10th (!) quit, all of which have been sabotaged by alcohol in the past. I'm currently 7 days into what must be my final quit. I've even got a nicotine free e-cig at the ready for any drunken cravings, just in case.

nsd_user663_54332 profile image
nsd_user663_54332

Good luck with your quit MrE :)

Associate it with shame, and being naughty I think is a bad thing. especially when you think of drinking, which is when you are going to do things the next day that are illicit, or make you ashamed the next day (well you are more likely to anyway)

Or if you're a teenager. ;)

My parents don't smoke and apart from my dad smoking the odd cigar never have. More to the point they were desperate that I shouldn't start - which is partly why I did, just the odd ones here and there for the first 3 years 'cos I was (still am more or less) a good girl and needed to do something "bad" - then when I was 16 I started "properly" in secret (no idea how I got away with it) which got me hooked.

Couldn't start drinking, was allowed to do that anyway so it wasn't a big deal and I loathe drugs so that wasn't happening so smoking was the only option. :/

nsd_user663_19503 profile image
nsd_user663_19503

I was 25 years old and therefore should have known better, all my friends and work colleagues were smokers and I felt the odd one out, so I took offered cigs when out for the night, didnt smoke in between, then after a while I decided it was hardly fair to be always smoking other people's so I bought a packet, handed out a few and of course smoked the rest, and bingo I was hooked. Wish I had known how addictive they were then, but in the 1960,s no one talked about the damage they did, nor how addictive they were, there was no health warnings then and believe it or not you were actually allowed to smoke in hospitals, doctors surgeries, anywhere at all really. Every heartthrob film star smoked, both male and female, celeberties smoked openly on TV. It was the norm to be a smoker.

NicFirth profile image
NicFirth10 Years Smoke Free

1st smoke was aged about 9 while at junior school. I was at a friends house and he had pinched a cig we smoked it.

2nd smoke away with the lads aged 19, West Bay Dorset and they talked me into trying one, enjoyed the head spin. I suppose I smoked a few on that week away then when I came back I would have one on evenings down at the pub.

Slippery slope within a couple of years I was on 20+ a day, I was working in a bank and if you were out of sight of customers you could smoke at your desk and the doors closed @3:30 so everyone could smoke between then and 5pm.

nsd_user663_56972 profile image
nsd_user663_56972

I was about 14 and my mate smoked so one night when we were out in town I had one to try it, so it quickly became a thing to do but I didnt really enjoy it but every night I nicked one from my dads packet and had a cheeky puff at the back of the house again didnt enjoy it.

Then I started smoking 5 a day, 10 a day, 20 a day, 30 a day then eventually 40 for best part of 15 years.

I did enjoy smoking I think because it was a comfort blanket to me, when things got tough at work or in my personal life it was a good way to go and escape for 5 minutes.

Looking back its quite strange because I grew up in a part of the world where theres a big drug culture but I never ever had any desire to experiment with drugs, so I often wander why I was tempted to try that cigarette.

Think its alot to do with being educated at a young age, plus it was COOL to smoke :cool::cool::cool: FFS LOL

hellerscatch profile image
hellerscatch

First smoke.......... with a girl who was 14 and I was 8, was hooked within days, smoked 40 years omg omg ! Still pains me to admit that! x

nsd_user663_54305 profile image
nsd_user663_54305

Oh yes I remember very clearly - on a school French exchange trip, extremely underage in a French nightclub, think it must have been 1980. What a great educational experience that was:rolleyes:

nsd_user663_57395 profile image
nsd_user663_57395

I was 15 and lots of my friends were starting to smoke. I remember we went on a family holiday and some guy gave me a cigarette which I just kept until I got home. I was curious....so one day I smoked it in our garden while noone was home. I took one drag and started coughing so I just put it out.

And then I took a drag when I was offered a cig by a friend......and was actually taught how to smoke a cigarette the next time we went out to the 'movies'.

.....And then we moved from South Africa to Zimbabwe. The first friend I met was a smoker. I wanted to fit in and make friends so I smoked and continued to smoke.........

nsd_user663_40738 profile image
nsd_user663_40738

I was one month and 12 days away from my 13th birthday. It was Valentine's Day and I was going to have surgery on my ear. The Dr. had described the whole procedure to me the week before. That morning before we went to the hospital I snuck one of my Dad's non-filter cig's. That was the beginning for me. ppat

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