WHAT AGE BRACKET DID YOU COME UNDER , WHEN YO... - Quit Support
WHAT AGE BRACKET DID YOU COME UNDER , WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED SMOKING?
jillygirlAdministratorLONG TERM WINNER110 VotersPlease select all that apply:
I think I was about 13 when I used to set off at 6.30am on a bike,with a stolen Woodbine hanging from my lips, for my Saturday/Sunday job .Ahhh happy days,🙄🤣🤣🤣
Lovely pic that Tubby!! Bet you didn’t have many gears on that there bike either!!
Much love Poll x
Oh Poll,you are so right! It was a second hand lady's bike with a total of 3 gears! On the way to 'work' I had to negotiate an infamous hill known to stop lorries!🚴♂️x🤣🤣🤣💖
P.S. I think I bent every fork that Mum kept in the kitchen,by getting the tyre off to mend a puncture! The bike upside down in the kitchen.XXX
Looking at the ages so far, I am part of the young and stupid!!!
I was about 12/13 had a part time job as shampooist in hairdressers on Saturday mornings. I caught a bus to work. when I finished I bought 5 cadets and smoked one on the upstairs of the bus. So what I earned virtually went up in smoke. .😏
I was almost 16 and I started smoking because the boyfriend I had at that time smoked. Funny thing was a week after I started we broke up!
Just sitting here and this poll has catapulted me right back on to the No 98 bus into school. Few stops down the line and on she gets.....Sandra in the beautiful royal blue coat. I’m on the back seat and she sits on the double seat in front. Out come the 20 No.6 and the box of matches. She takes out a cigarette and pops it between her lips and then, the pivotal moment for me, she strikes the match! Oh the smell! That gorgeous, heady smell of burning sulphur fills my nostrils and I know, just know that that is what smoking will taste like!
WRONG! After the youth club, behind the hut, someone offers me my first drag. I know it’s going to be just like on the bus in the mornings......but no, it tastes vile and burns the back of my throat. When it hits my lovely pink, fresh lungs it feels like I’ve been winded. But d’you know, I persevere with the rest of that first cigarette cos I want to get it right. I want to master the art of smoking so I feel like I fit into some sort of tribe, here, behind that hut. I want to feel included, like I belong, accepted and part of. Can’t do it on my own merits, I need some sort of prop because I feel I am not enough without ...these are the reasons I perfected my smoking habit.
I kept it going for 42 years....believe me, I am a tryer!! Madness. Total insanity. Now, 4 years smoke free, I can look back and just reflect on the role I gave smoking for a good proportion of my life. I’ve made it redundant now - it no longer has a job to do here. I’ve moved on.
Much love to all the wonderful people who make up Quit Support without whom, I’d still be ‘throwing myself under that No. 98 bus’ !!
Poll xx
Hi Polly love the post, I can just imagine Sandra sitting in front of you with her coat!!
Some of our memories can be nuts when you think what they remind us of!
X
Shamefully I clicked on the 12-16 box but in fact my smoking started a fair bit before then!!
I was 8 when I first got caught smoking my aunts butts (that sounds a bit rude!!) anyhoo she never smoked down to the end as she was a chain smoker so there was always a good centimetre of smoking left on each one...... that continues until I reached secondary school at 11 when I bought packs (when I was flush with my after school job) or singles when I’d spent the rest on sweets or not able to pinch a couple off my dad!!
It took me almost 41 years to give up and oh how I wish I had come to my senses a long time before then!!
I speak for my husband who smoked from his late school years... age 14-15 I s'pose. I myself smoked occasionally for a short while (only because it was fashionable) from age about 17 but stopped when pregnant at 24; the child subsequently born went on to smoke weird stuff but now, aged 50, is cutting down and vaping...
Yep unfortunately I’m in the early box as well😫
My first puff was on the way to hockey practice🏑 about 15 at the time🙀
I started with consulate menthol and thought I was so classy🥺 I bought a pack of ten then I moved onto Embassy Regal and was hooked until I came here. If I knew then what I know now😡 anyways better late than never🙄
The younger generation are better educated to the dangers of smoking thankfully coz we thought it was very glamorous. OMG we were so wrong👎🏼x
I was 12 when I started smoking cigarettes and 14 when I started the cigaweed I was more of a Canabis smoker than a cigarette one. It would seem between the ages of 12 and 16 are the influential ages that the majority started to smoke. I would say this is due to peer pressure feeling like you have to fit in with the crowd. My efforts these days are try and educate young folk on the disadvantages of smoking as there are no advantages.
I started around 12 or 13. My parents were chain smokers both of my brothers were smokers. I was surrounded by cigs day in and day out. I'm really different then my family. I think I was just trying to fit in. Kinda thought maybe they like me if I smoked. At least it would give us something in common. Funny thing is it kinda worked but now at 26 I realise it wasn't worth it. I was a sad lonely little girl but still it was dumb I knew better even then. I'm trying to quit now. I'm trying to give my niece a family member who doesn't smoke. So maybe she will listen to me and never start. Thanks for reading
Believe it or not I started when I was around 30..and went from zero to 2 packs/day in a few months