Are you a smoker/ex-smoker?

Reformed smoker. I hated the taste, smell, cost, everything about smoking. I started having frequent and serious health problems from smoking. I was embarrassed I smoked and knew I stunk. I hated that something was controlling my life and doing me so much harm.

In my lifetime, I have probably smoked less than a pack of cigarettes, and probably a dozen cigars, but never developed the taste for it, and mostly used them as props, mostly.

I stopped about 17 years ago now (must be about that).

I hated being addicted. I felt controlled by men in suits who own tobacco corporations. I also didn’t like having to leave places to feed my habit.

I quit in 1988, cold turkey. I was a close to two packs a day Marlboro smoker. I would get up to my alarm at 4 a.m., and light a smoke right away, before going to the bathroom.

I tried to quit once when I was about 20 (13 years earlier) and I made it about 8 hours.

I finally quit because I was trying to rde up a hill on a bicycle, and I wanted to vomit from my lungs. But when I got to my car and put the bike on the rack, I started the car and lit a cigarette. For the rest of the evening I asked myself why was I doing this. I finiched that pack about 9 a.m. the next day, and haven’t smoked since.

But once you get through the first few days, and also the first three weeks, it gets much easier and you never have to go through withdrawal again.

I am inspired and proud of you guys.

Are you still trying @bkcunningham? I think I read the other day you’ve given up? Although I think it’s a bit like being an alcoholic. I never give in to the temptation to just have one. I am seriously paranoid that I did that, it wouldn’t be long before I was back to smoking more than a pack a day. It’s an evil drug. I don’t often get cravings but at times of high stress (and I do mean very high, emotional stress) I will occasionally want to smoke. It passes really quickly though. I just go and do something.

May 1 was one year since I stopped. I am a reformed smoker.

I will never smoke again, by the Grace of God. It stinks and I have no desire.

Good for you and congratulations on giving up. The worst is behind you.

Thank you, @Bellatrix .

My parents influenced the fact that I never really smoked. They were constant smokers and smelled bad. We’d go for an automobile drive with the the windows closed and I hated the fog of smoke. Mom died of emphysema; not a pleasant way to go. My dad finally quit after that. I wish I had some way to help people who want to quit to do so. I know it’s easier not to start.

I quit several times from age 10–30. The only time it stuck was when I also quit drinking.

I quit smoking 32 years ago, at age 21, I wanted to fall pregnant and there was no way I was going to smoke through a pregnancy, no way, I did it cold turkey and for some strange reason had no problems whatsoever, I guess the motivation was incredibly strong. Little did I know at the time it would take me 5 years to conceive.

This past March was my 10 year anniversary of quitting that nasty habit. I smoked on and off from the age of 16–32, with a couple years of smoking at least a pack a day. I quit a few times, always cold turkey. The last time I quit I had a bad case of bronchitis. Now whenever I smell smoke, and I can smell it from a mile away, I want to gag. It makes my throat hurt and gives me a headache.

I smoke and have for over 30 years now. God, that’s awful. I’ve never been able to successfully quit, and I wish like crazy I’d never started in the first damn place. Just in the last year, I’ve developed a horrible smoker’s cough that I hate. Maybe it will be the thing that finally makes me quit.

Current smoker, started when I was a teen, but didn’t smoke periodically then, as it wasn’t always easy to get them since I was underage. Then when I was legal, started buying them, and pretty much didn’t stop. I really should try to quit though. :/ Costs money, costs your health and makes my clothes smell.

I told myself I would quit when they cost more than $2. I think they were over $3 a pack (maybe $4) when I finally quit. It’s such an expensive habit now. My father told me that he’s saving $300 a month now that my mom can’t smoke. She smoked about 2 packs a day before her brain aneurysm rupture. That’s crazy money.

It really is crazy expensive. And I live in a ‘cheap tobacco’ state! I’m currently smoking the assiest cigs ever, just because they are the cheapest I can buy. I don’t even like the damn things, but can’t seem to live without them. Ugh.

@augustlan It’s hard to quit. My mom can only say a few words on a good day and can’t eat or stand on her own, but her hands still make the movements as if she’s smoking. She tried to smoke my dads finger the other day! That’s what 50 years of smoking will do to you. :(

@augustlan Do you guys have contraband Indian cigarettes where you live? Québec is riddled with these. Illegally made cigarettes. We call them Indian cigarettes because they were the ones who started making them, although now a lot of other people are into that business. But seriously, they taste like ass and smell like more ass. They’re cheap though. :/ Twenty dollars for 200 cigarettes, give a take.
I find that slightly admirable. I know, I’m an asshole. But if contraband cigarettes help to put legal tobacco companies outta business, that would rock. Of course it’s never going to happen, not when you know how powerful legit smoke companies are. I’m pretty sure though, that morality issues are not the intent behind manufacturing illegal ciggies.
But I can’t smoke that shit, I mean they don’t even taste or smell like smokes, they’re worse, if you can believe it. However, they don’t have as many chemicals and shit in them, so they’re probably better for the health than tailor made ones.
Of course, with those illegal smokes, what you taste and smell is probably the more natural ingredients of the cigarette. lol

My mom’s parents were chain smokers and both died before I was born as a result. Since she wanted to have children, she quit cold turkey. Neither my siblings nor I have ever smoked. It’s not just a choice for my health, but because I was genuinely… angered for a while that my grandparents weren’t around to see me graduate, fall in love, etc. When my friends smoke, I can’t help but shake my head. It’s too personal for me.

I can’t imagine quitting cold turkey. I don’t know how you guys have done it. I don’t know how my mom did it. It’s awesome.

I smoke two packs a day. I’m fifty years old and in perfect health.

I am very active, quite novel, and extremely interested in the world around me.

If we met, we would definitely remember one another.

I hate smokers.

After more than 10 years of heavy smoking, I quit 40 years ago and never resumed. I did it because my doctor suggested it, and perhaps even more because I had grown to hate the stench of tobacco on myself. I quit cold turkey—bam!—and the same week I quit biting my nails, which I had done since I was a little kid.

I still believe that quitting both habits concurrently somehow made each one easier to break.

Never smoked. Tried it a few times as a teen and it was so disgusting each and every time.

@Bellatrix I too try to avoid even a hint of nicotine or tobacco on me. We have industry conferences where the “cigar bar” always seems to be a feature of the dinner/cocktail/entertainment session. I figure if I had a cigar I’d be stopping by for a pack of smokes on the way out.

@jonsblond The prices amaze me, i remember when I went away to school there was one vending machine in the dorms that missed a price increase and was set to 40 cents a pack. These days in New York a single goes for a dollar.

I smoke and have been smoking since I was about 12.
I’m hoping to take another crack at quitting really soon, I bought Allen Carr’s book. I just haven’t had a chance to read it. I feel good about it, though, I’m hopeful that it might give me that internal “switch” to push me to the other side unlike the other methods I’ve tried. I hope.

I smoke and have since I was 16 and able to drive, except a year or two when I’d quit. I quit about 4 times a year, then something stressful occurs and I start again.

I smoke less than a pack a day, and mine are only $3 per pack here in Missouri.

Chantix and Nicotrol, Nicorette, all of them, and they all work to a degree if you really want to quit.

I quit smoking in December ‘12. I switched to an e-cigarette and dropped the nicotine content down to nothing. Going that route it was easy to quit, but I was more addicted to the habit than the nicotine.

I’ve yo-yoed between being a smoker and an ex-smoker more times than I can count. A year ago I switched to e-cigs, now I still use it but with zero nicotine. I figure that as addictions go, this one is as harmless as it gets and costs me no more than a couple of quid a week. I did cave at one point, bought a pack of ten, smoked one and hated it, went back to the juicy flavours. Will I give up the e-cigs eventually? Not on your life. Not while they taste like Vimto or Apple Pie.

My consumption of cigarettes my vary but I will never consider myself a non smoker as I have no intention of either succeeding or failing at quitting.

Still not smoking. May 1 will be two years. May 5 will make one year alcohol free. I have lost 35 pounds and feel better than I have felt in many, many years.