Stop. Smoking.

g5000

Diamond Member
Nov 26, 2011
123,316
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I lost another friend to lung disease yesterday.

13 years ago, I had a chest x-ray. I forget what for. Anyway, the doctor pointed to a bunch of spots in the x-ray and asked me if I knew what they were. I admitted ignorance.

He told me they were the beginning signs of emphysema. Emphysema is irreversible. I had been trying for over a decade to quit, to no avail. I did the gum, the patches, the classes, cold turkey, all the methods. Nothing had worked.

One night, my four year old son patted my empty shirt pocket. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "I'm looking for those things that you always have there."







fuck...




That was it. I had to quit.

Then I heard about Chantix, which was a relatively new thing at the time. So I gave it a shot. About 8 of us at work all quit together.

13 years later, I am the only one who is still not smoking. And yesterday, one of our group of 8 died. He leaves behind a daughter who is one of my daughter's best friends, and a wife.

He loved his daughter. Believe me. He loved her very, very much. Spoiled her rotten. And I used to berate him and berate him that if he loved his daughter, he should quit smoking.

A couple years ago, he had a heart attack and was in a coma for three days. He collapsed right in front of his daughter. He ended up in the most rundown horrible convalescent home I have ever seen. It was hellish.

Was that enough?

Nope.

He quit for about a month and then took up smoking again.

The last time I saw him, he was gulping like a goldfish. That's the way he existed for the past two years. Sipping air. He could barely draw a breath. And still smoking.


Nicotine is a vicious, vicious addiction. It is stronger than a father's love.


I lost the best friend I have ever had in my entire life three years ago to this shit. He went out the same way. Gasping for air.

If you smoke, STOP! For fuck's sake, STOP.

Do whatever it takes.

And if you catch your kids vaping nicotine, cut them off. Take away their money, their cell phone, their computer, their TV privileges, their sleepover privileges. Make them sleep on a straw bed until they give that shit up.
 
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i remember the 1st drag off a cigarette, i was 12 & lisa allard, also 12 had a pk of marlboros. i smoked a pk a day for 26 years after that & with multiple tries with quitting, i took wellbutrin, which is the generic to zyban & finally quit. i remember the last cigarette i had - it was 7am on july 19,2000. it was the hardest thing i ever did. i don't get cravings if i see someone smoking but can't stand the smell especially on clothes. but & i also know for a fact that if i took just one drag off a cigarette - i would be right back at it, no doubt.
 
It’s been a while since I’ve smoked; probably 10 years or more,

I see people smoking now and it seems like an odd thing to do. Not to mention the expense. Here in NY they’re like $11 a pack. At a pack a day, that’s over $300 a month. Or a new car and a nice one at that!
 
It’s been a while since I’ve smoked; probably 10 years or more,

I see people smoking now and it seems like an odd thing to do. Not to mention the expense. Here in NY they’re like $11 a pack. At a pack a day, that’s over $300 a month. Or a new car and a nice one at that!

they are about that much too here in CT. when i first started buying them, they were 65 cents a pk.
 
they are about that much too here in CT. when i first started buying them, they were 65 cents a pk.

I remember them being 25 cents a pack.

And when I was in the Navy in the early 70s, they were even cheaper than that. The joke was that you were losing money if you didn't smoke.

I also remember if anybody in the shop complained about the smoke, he was told to go stand outside in the hangar if he didn't like it.
 
I lost another friend to lung disease yesterday.

13 years ago, I had a chest x-ray. I forget what for. Anyway, the doctor pointed to a bunch of white spots in the x-ray and asked me if I knew what they were. I admitted ignorance.

He told me they were the beginning signs of emphysema. Emphysema is irreversible. I had been trying for over a decade to quit, to no avail. I did the gum, the patches, the classes, cold turkey, all the methods. Nothing had worked.

One night, my four year old son patted my empty shirt pocket. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "I'm looking for those things that you always have there."







fuck...




That was it. I had to quit.

Then I heard about Chantix, which was a relatively new thing at the time. So I gave it a shot. About 8 of us at work all quit together.

13 years later, I am the only one who is still not smoking. And yesterday, one of our group of 8 died. He leaves behind a daughter who is one of my daughter's best friends, and a wife.

He loved his daughter. Believe me. He loved her very, very much. Spoiled her rotten. And I used to berate him and berate him that if he loved his daughter, he should quit smoking.

A couple years ago, he had a heart attack and was in a coma for three days. He collapsed right in front of his daughter. He ended up in the most rundown horrible convalescent home I have ever seen. It was hellish.

Was that enough?

Nope.

He quit for about a month and then took up smoking again.

The last time I saw him, he was gulping like a goldfish. That's the way he existed for the past two years. Sipping air. He could barely draw a breath. And still smoking.


Nicotine is a vicious, vicious addition. It is stronger than a father's love.


I lost the best friend I have ever had in my entire life three years ago to this shit. He went out the same way. Gasping for air.

If you smoke, STOP! For fuck's sake, STOP.

Do whatever it takes.

And if you catch your kids vaping nicotine, cut them off. Take away their money, their cell phone, their computer, their TV privileges, their sleepover privileges. Make them sleep on a straw bed until they give that shit up.


Sorry about your loss.......smoking...I just don't get it anymore. You go around and you still see people smoking......it isn't like this is the 1940s.....people today know how bad it is......and yet kids are still starting to smoke....because that is where the new smokers come from. Maybe vaping will help stop the damage....
 
I'm vaping now. Gradually cutting down the nicotine until I get to zero mg then I plan to quit.
Although I think im more addicted to the habit of doing it, rather than the nicotine itself.
 
When I was a kid the vending machines charged about 20 cents a pack. When I was in the Service the C-ration meals came with cigarettes. Now vending machines are gone and they lock up cigarettes in a freaking vault and charge about $6.00. About $100 per week up in smoke alone is a good incentive to quit.
 
I lost another friend to lung disease yesterday.

13 years ago, I had a chest x-ray. I forget what for. Anyway, the doctor pointed to a bunch of white spots in the x-ray and asked me if I knew what they were. I admitted ignorance.

He told me they were the beginning signs of emphysema. Emphysema is irreversible. I had been trying for over a decade to quit, to no avail. I did the gum, the patches, the classes, cold turkey, all the methods. Nothing had worked.

One night, my four year old son patted my empty shirt pocket. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "I'm looking for those things that you always have there."







fuck...




That was it. I had to quit.

Then I heard about Chantix, which was a relatively new thing at the time. So I gave it a shot. About 8 of us at work all quit together.

13 years later, I am the only one who is still not smoking. And yesterday, one of our group of 8 died. He leaves behind a daughter who is one of my daughter's best friends, and a wife.

He loved his daughter. Believe me. He loved her very, very much. Spoiled her rotten. And I used to berate him and berate him that if he loved his daughter, he should quit smoking.

A couple years ago, he had a heart attack and was in a coma for three days. He collapsed right in front of his daughter. He ended up in the most rundown horrible convalescent home I have ever seen. It was hellish.

Was that enough?

Nope.

He quit for about a month and then took up smoking again.

The last time I saw him, he was gulping like a goldfish. That's the way he existed for the past two years. Sipping air. He could barely draw a breath. And still smoking.


Nicotine is a vicious, vicious addition. It is stronger than a father's love.


I lost the best friend I have ever had in my entire life three years ago to this shit. He went out the same way. Gasping for air.

If you smoke, STOP! For fuck's sake, STOP.

Do whatever it takes.

And if you catch your kids vaping nicotine, cut them off. Take away their money, their cell phone, their computer, their TV privileges, their sleepover privileges. Make them sleep on a straw bed until they give that shit up.

I have COPD and run in my family, so the luxury of smoking was never in the cards for me but my Aunt and Uncle who raised me were diehard smokers until my Aunt coughed up blood one day and she quit that day.

The Uncle switched to Cigars...

They raised me and my life was a living hell between the smoking and the abuse.

Now I do not smoke but some friends of mine do but they know I will toss a glass of water in their face ( might even break it across their face ) if they light up but if they smoke away from me then who am I to tell them not to kill themselves when anything can kill us at any moment.

Just my opinion G...
 
Yeah, I still remember the $5.00 carton. Those were the days.

While I was on active duty, I tried to quit cold turkey. The very next day, my troops and some defense contractors did a reverse intervention. About ten of them circled me and told me to go get some cigarettes as I was impossible to be around. :(

It's a bitch of a habit. Congratulations to all of you who managed to kick it. It really is the hardest thing to do.
 
I still enjoy 4-5 American Spirits a day. Cut back from a pack a day 20 years ago but just haven't been willing to give up the ones I actually enjoyed. With a cocktail, with coffee, after a meal, etc.

Figure I'm better off than the pack a day me. And they say living in the heart of America's cities with the worst air pollution is worse than smoking a pack a day.

Tried Chantix and Wellbutrin. Just wired me up and made me smoke more. Kudos to those like yourself who made it to the finish line.
 
My friend that died yesterday was my shooting buddy. He did not trust the other gun nuts at the shooting ranges. He preferred to go out in the woods and shoot. He and myself and my son. We even took my daughters and his daughter one day to shoot an AR-15. His daughter did not like it, but my daughters and son totally dug it.

Here's the sick part. When we were shooting the AR, he forgot to bring some foamies. So we used the filters from his cigarettes as earplugs. :cuckoo:

They don't do a good job as earplugs, by the way.
 
The thing about quitting is that you have to want to quit.

If you're just quitting because you think you should (for whatever reason), than it's not going to be easy and probably not successful.
 
I lost another friend to lung disease yesterday.

13 years ago, I had a chest x-ray. I forget what for. Anyway, the doctor pointed to a bunch of white spots in the x-ray and asked me if I knew what they were. I admitted ignorance.

He told me they were the beginning signs of emphysema. Emphysema is irreversible. I had been trying for over a decade to quit, to no avail. I did the gum, the patches, the classes, cold turkey, all the methods. Nothing had worked.

One night, my four year old son patted my empty shirt pocket. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "I'm looking for those things that you always have there."







fuck...




That was it. I had to quit.

Then I heard about Chantix, which was a relatively new thing at the time. So I gave it a shot. About 8 of us at work all quit together.

13 years later, I am the only one who is still not smoking. And yesterday, one of our group of 8 died. He leaves behind a daughter who is one of my daughter's best friends, and a wife.

He loved his daughter. Believe me. He loved her very, very much. Spoiled her rotten. And I used to berate him and berate him that if he loved his daughter, he should quit smoking.

A couple years ago, he had a heart attack and was in a coma for three days. He collapsed right in front of his daughter. He ended up in the most rundown horrible convalescent home I have ever seen. It was hellish.

Was that enough?

Nope.

He quit for about a month and then took up smoking again.

The last time I saw him, he was gulping like a goldfish. That's the way he existed for the past two years. Sipping air. He could barely draw a breath. And still smoking.


Nicotine is a vicious, vicious addition. It is stronger than a father's love.


I lost the best friend I have ever had in my entire life three years ago to this shit. He went out the same way. Gasping for air.

If you smoke, STOP! For fuck's sake, STOP.

Do whatever it takes.

And if you catch your kids vaping nicotine, cut them off. Take away their money, their cell phone, their computer, their TV privileges, their sleepover privileges. Make them sleep on a straw bed until they give that shit up.

I have COPD and run in my family, so the luxury of smoking was never in the cards for me but my Aunt and Uncle who raised me were diehard smokers until my Aunt coughed up blood one day and she quit that day.

The Uncle switched to Cigars...

They raised me and my life was a living hell between the smoking and the abuse.

Now I do not smoke but some friends of mine do but they know I will toss a glass of water in their face ( might even break it across their face ) if they light up but if they smoke away from me then who am I to tell them not to kill themselves when anything can kill us at any moment.

Just my opinion G...
A former boss of mine smoked cigars. He got cancer of the esophagus. He's had a good part of his tongue removed, along with other parts. His speech is almost intelligible now.

Terrible.
 
The thing about quitting is that you have to want to quit.

If you're just quitting because you think you should (for whatever reason), than it's not going to be easy and probably not successful.
Exactly. I used to kick my own ass for not being able to quit.

But then one day I knew the time had come. I just knew it deep down in my soul. And then I was able to quit and stay quit.

My buddy never had that day, so he wasn't able to quit for his daughter.
 
I lost another friend to lung disease yesterday.

13 years ago, I had a chest x-ray. I forget what for. Anyway, the doctor pointed to a bunch of white spots in the x-ray and asked me if I knew what they were. I admitted ignorance.

He told me they were the beginning signs of emphysema. Emphysema is irreversible. I had been trying for over a decade to quit, to no avail. I did the gum, the patches, the classes, cold turkey, all the methods. Nothing had worked.

One night, my four year old son patted my empty shirt pocket. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "I'm looking for those things that you always have there."







fuck...




That was it. I had to quit.

Then I heard about Chantix, which was a relatively new thing at the time. So I gave it a shot. About 8 of us at work all quit together.

13 years later, I am the only one who is still not smoking. And yesterday, one of our group of 8 died. He leaves behind a daughter who is one of my daughter's best friends, and a wife.

He loved his daughter. Believe me. He loved her very, very much. Spoiled her rotten. And I used to berate him and berate him that if he loved his daughter, he should quit smoking.

A couple years ago, he had a heart attack and was in a coma for three days. He collapsed right in front of his daughter. He ended up in the most rundown horrible convalescent home I have ever seen. It was hellish.

Was that enough?

Nope.

He quit for about a month and then took up smoking again.

The last time I saw him, he was gulping like a goldfish. That's the way he existed for the past two years. Sipping air. He could barely draw a breath. And still smoking.


Nicotine is a vicious, vicious addition. It is stronger than a father's love.


I lost the best friend I have ever had in my entire life three years ago to this shit. He went out the same way. Gasping for air.

If you smoke, STOP! For fuck's sake, STOP.

Do whatever it takes.

And if you catch your kids vaping nicotine, cut them off. Take away their money, their cell phone, their computer, their TV privileges, their sleepover privileges. Make them sleep on a straw bed until they give that shit up.

I have COPD and run in my family, so the luxury of smoking was never in the cards for me but my Aunt and Uncle who raised me were diehard smokers until my Aunt coughed up blood one day and she quit that day.

The Uncle switched to Cigars...

They raised me and my life was a living hell between the smoking and the abuse.

Now I do not smoke but some friends of mine do but they know I will toss a glass of water in their face ( might even break it across their face ) if they light up but if they smoke away from me then who am I to tell them not to kill themselves when anything can kill us at any moment.

Just my opinion G...
A former boss of mine smoked cigars. He got cancer of the esophagus. He's had a good part of his tongue removed, along with other parts. His speech is almost intelligible now.

Terrible.

Free will and their choice...

I for one hate smoking and you now know why.

Let these fools live in a oxygen tent or have a respirator hooked up to them like I had, and you learn quickly breathing is more important than that cancer stick!

But

It is their life and health.
 
I'm vaping now. Gradually cutting down the nicotine until I get to zero mg then I plan to quit.
Although I think im more addicted to the habit of doing it, rather than the nicotine itself.
That's what I did. I went from a 2 1/2 pack a day smoker to vaping. I gradually cut down on the nicotine until it's zero. I still like vaping. Some people chew gum. I vape. My last cigarette was when I picked up my first ecig. No withdrawals, no urges. Nothing.
 
i remember the 1st drag off a cigarette, i was 12 & lisa allard, also 12 had a pk of marlboros. i smoked a pk a day for 26 years after that & with multiple tries with quitting, i took wellbutrin, which is the generic to zyban & finally quit. i remember the last cigarette i had - it was 7am on july 19,2000. it was the hardest thing i ever did. i don't get cravings if i see someone smoking but can't stand the smell especially on clothes. but & i also know for a fact that if i took just one drag off a cigarette - i would be right back at it, no doubt.
Yeah, I had no idea how strong the stench was. But now when I walk past a smoker, they reek!

I used to wonder how my mother-in-law knew I was smoking in her guest room. I mean, I opened a window and blew the smoke out through the screen. Yet she could smell it two rooms away.

I get it now.
 

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