Today, I walked past a guy smoking a cigarette in the parking lot at Costco, and I realized with some surprise that it's been some time since I've seen anyone smoking in public. When I was little, my parents would take my sister and I out to meals on occasion and we would sit in the smoking section (like there was somehow different air in the "non-smoking section"). My father would let me push the button on the cigarette pack vending machine. Camel Full Flavor. There were ashtrays on the tables. My parents both smoked in the house. Most of my memories from young childhood in the early 80's involve there being a haze just below the lights in whatever room we were in the house. How times have changed.

In a few days, it'll be twelve years since I quit cold turkey. At my worst, I was three packs a day. I'd say I averaged a pack and a half for about five years in my mid 20's. My favorites were Camel Turkish Silvers, Blues, and Jades. I did a hookah for some years, and did it right, too. Used to blow huge cold clouds of various tasty flavors. That was on another level. The last year or so of it was smoking various cigars, pipe tobacco, and Black 'n Milds (so gross) to try to discourage me. It didn't work. I had my last puff of tobacco on Thanksgiving day of 2010 - a Black 'n Mild Mild I'd been working on for two days. Disgusting. I have nothing valuable to offer in the way of advice for anyone wanting to quit, I was simply pissed off that for the third time, I moved across the country and within a month or two of moving, tobacco prices doubled because of TAXES FOR THE CHILDREN.

I do not miss any of it. I wish I had never started, but I've done arguably dumber things.

For our purposes, I'm not talking about dip, pouches, snuff or any of that other stuff. This is strictly limited to inhaling burning plant matter and various chemical and plastic fillers for that genuine cancer flavor you can taste and smell when you cough. If you never smoked and the poll options offend you, just pretend they're worded so you're voting for me as a tuber, not you.

Question:
Do you smoke? Did you use to smoke? Have you never?

Choices:
I smoke.
I used to smoke.
I oNlY sMOkE wHeN i"M DRinKinG.
I smoked once or twice.
I have never smoked.

Question:
If you smoke, what do you smoke? If you smoked, what did you smoke?

Choices:
Cigarettes.
Cigars.
Pipe.
Cloves, hookah, or some other nonsense.
All of the above.
Twizzlers.
My cousin is a rutabaga.

Question:
If you used to smoke, how did you quit?

Choices:
Quitting is for quitters and I am not a quitter.
I quit cold turkey.
I used gum/patch.
I used a medication, and got my class-action settlement last week.
I got hypnotized.
I did something else.
I am a potato.

 

I smoked for about 20 years, I quit a little over 10 years ago I think. I honestly don’t remember exactly when I quit like most people do.

When I smoked I smoked cigars, pipes and cigarettes. Mainly it was cigarettes though. I’ll still have a cigar every now and then but it’s been a couple years since my last one of those too.

My cigarettes of choice were either Camel or Camel reds. But I’d mix it up occasionally and grab some Marlboro reds or even some Lucky Strikes. I’d say regular old Camel was what I smoked 99% of the time.

I quit by vaping. I know it looks stupid and all but it worked for me and I’m grateful for the products. I then started working down my nicotine usage until I got to zero, now I don’t vape anymore either.

I'm an experienced quitter.

The first time I quit, I was a 3-pack a day smoker. I met a girl, she said she'd never date/marry a guy who smoked. I quit the next day. Cold turkey. It sucked, I got sick, but I willed myself to do it. 2 months later I married her. We're still married 22 years later.

A few years later, when deployments picked up, I started smoking during deployments. It helped. I'd either quit cold turkey on the rotation home, or pick up Copenhagen for a week to help kill the addiction (it was easier for me to wean off of and quit chewing).

I haven't deployed since 2012, and I haven't really smoked since. I say really, because I will have a smoke or two with someone grieving or in trauma. It's a very effective tool for current smokers to process trauma, and as a chaplain, its my intent to be present with someone in the suck. I carry a pack of marb lights (mostly because I hate them, they were never my brand, and partly because a lot of people like them) in my chaplain bag.

I usually have to come home, brush my teeth a million times, launder my clothes, and take a long shower...and still taste the gross for 2 days. I think that helps me to remain a quitter. I absolutely hate the smell and taste of cigarettes.

I still want one every morning. Probably always will. I don't consider myself a smoker anymore. The last time I smoked a cigarette with someone going through a rough patch was before the china-flu.

If you're looking to quit, you need a motivator. You need a reason. I wanted to be married to a beautiful girl. It was enough to kick the habit and find other ways to cope with stress.

We have a deal. If I ever get cancer...I get to be a smoker again until I die. It's been so long though, that I probably won't. I really dislike that gross smell and taste afterwards.

I smoked for 28 years. I started when I was 16 and quit when I was 44.
I smoked Marlboro Light Kings for about 14 years. I switched to American Spirit Yellow Box and smoked those totem poles for about 14 years. If you average the years, it was probably about a pack a day.
The last year I smoked, I was also stuck a Grizzly Wintergreen Pouch in the old lip when I couldn’t get outside to smoke.
I had to quit when I moved from WA to AZ. I was leaving a good paying job for 1/3 pay. Cigarettes were expensive. I bought some patches, cut them in half and started to quit.

I know it’s one of the things in life that I cannot ever just have one, not ever. If I smoked one cigarette today, I’ll have a carton by weeks end. Not ever one, ever again.

As of right now, I have quit for 1436 days. (3 years, 341 days and 21 hours.
I have avoided 21,553 cigarettes.
I have saved $9,354.

I enjoyed pipes for most of my life having "borrowed" one of my dad's in my preteen years as a start. Embraced the convenience of cigarettes early on as well and much later availed myself of cigars.

Went cold turkey the day I had a heart attack in 2006. Have had less than half a dozen cigars since (special occasions), nothing else. Never sold or traded off my extensive pipe collection...it sits on display in my living room. I know...go figure.

I smoked for about thirty years. Usually about a pack a day. I finally quit with the help of a smoking cessation program through our company health insurance. It had been my third attempt.

My last cigarette was on July 18th, 2010, somewhere around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, following dinner at a best friend's place. I'd been down to two or three a day for a week or two by then. As I was finishing that smoke I briefly contemplated it, announced to my wife and friends "I think this may be my last cigarette," and put it out.

It turned out that was indeed my last cigarette.

Other than for a few days following that, I haven't had the faintest urge to smoke again, since.

Started when I was 14 and quit when I was 45. 3 pack a day habit when I quit. I bought 1 box of patches and they helped a little. I'd go 3 days and then take scissors and cut a 3rd off the patch. Stopped in 1996 and my lungs are clear at age 71.

Hard to quit but after a couple weeks the worst was over. Took a full year to forget about them and I respect nicotine's addictive power - no way in hell will I ever use tobacco again, not even just one.

Got my first part-time job in 1962 and started a full-time job in 1965. Started smoking cigarettes in 1965. Went into the Army in 1968, Vietnam 1969-70 and again in 1971, and we received cigarettes in our C-ration boxes with every meal in the field. Otherwise we bought our cigarettes at the PX, and there was a very real chance of insurrection in the ranks when the price went from $1.70 per carton (10 packs) to $1.90.

I've been smoking for 57 years. Federal, state, local, and sales taxes would probably pay for a decent house or two. If nothing else, I have probably saved the Social Security system for someone else's benefits after my demise.

I don't smoke in other peoples' homes or cars. I am courteous and avoid bothering anyone with my smoking. I clean up after myself, don't throw butts anywhere.

No one else's business what I do. If you don't like it all you need to do is leave me alone (please, it won't bother me at all).

I quit April 2 of 71. I was still in the Army and they were cheap. They had been $.15 a pack in Vietnam. I was worried my son might get burned when he started crawling.

I cut back and quit smoking at home. I left real early for work a day or 2. Then I quit smoking in the car. Finally, I went the entire weekend without one. I did the same the next weekend and never had another.

I figured I have saved several hundred thousand dollars.

You left roll your own out. I started rolling my own back in 2008, and can count the number of packs of premades I have bought since then with the fingers on one hand, and maybe some on the other. I sometimes use bagged tobacco, but a lot of the time, I buy whole leaf tobacco ..... burley, Virginia, Turkish, Perique,and fire cured Kentucky. I shred the leaf myself and make my own blends from among the tobacco types I listed.

I was an absolute degenerate,3 pack a day, chain smoking, stupid asshole.
Tried to quit with patches and gum to no avail.
Labor Day weekend 2016 I got the flu. When I climbed out of bed 5 days later, I never smoked again. So easy it felt like cheating.

never smoked a thing (except stuff on the grill)

no tobacco,
no wacky tobacco,

nothing,


not ever had the urge or desire,

never chewed, or used tobacco in any other way either

I grew up in Europe. Everybody smoked. Everywhere. It was disgusting...trash all over the ground, smoke everywhere, couldn't hardly taste your food in a restaurant, and hard to breathe. I've never once had any desire to take it up. Same with alcohol...I watched drunks puking outside the metro station every morning on my way to school, never much cared for the smell or the taste...just figured neither was a path worth going down.

I started when I was about 15. I was playing in a rock band in local bars. At 18 I joined the Navy where I smoked 3 packs of Camels daily.

I quit on December 24, 1973 when my ship, the USS Truxton DLGN-35 docked in Long Beach after returning from WestPac. As I walked off the plank, I tossed a pack of smokes off one side and my lighter off the other. I’ve never had a smoke since. Almost 50 years.
Mike

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mcrimm,

I smoked from the time I was about 14 until I was 65. Over that time I tried quitting many times, using the patch, gum, and later the pills. Nothing worked. After an annual physical after I retired, I decided it was time to quit, and it's been 9 years since I've smoked. But then all my pants shrank.

I too am a very experienced quitter. I first started in 2004 after starting smoking in the mid 1970s. Tried gum. Then I smoked and chewed gum. Tried Buprioprion, that also did not work. Finally, as I was looking down the barrel of my turning 50, on my 49th birthday, in 2008, I got chantix and gum. I did that for 9 months, then tossed them both. I have not had tobacco since June, 2008

Smoked cigarettes from age 15 to 36. Quit one time somewhere in their for a couple of months. Should have never started again.
Was smoking 1 1/2 packs a day at the end. Quit cold turkey finally but carried an unopened pack for about 6 months after just in case I wanted one. Stupid I know.
Haven't smoked in 31 years now.

Two packs a day for about forty years. I've vaped for pushing nine years, it worked immediately, no more cigs from day one. I'm measurably healthier. I make my own juice, just nic, no flavors, pennies a week. I like nic, it's a pleasure.

Never a cigarette smoker.

I smoke 1 or 2 cigars a week. All premium, the cost alone keeps me from smoking more often.

I also enjoy a pipe during the cold months of the year.

My oldest brother was the only one who followed our father and grandfather in smoking cigarettes. He quit maybe 25 years ago, has COPD from years of smoking. Our dad died at 72 and grandpa at 84. He's 83 and going strong.

I started when I was 14, and quit on the day of the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007.

What a stupid, stupid bastard I was, what a waste of money. If I could go back and meet up with the 'friend' who gave me my first pack, I'd kick him in the nuts so hard, his children would feel it.