Do you smoke?

John, I share your feelings, as my mother has smoked since she was 15. She grew up in Havana - pronounced by them as "HAY-vana" - FL, where shade tobacco was still king. Worked many summers stringing tobacco to earn money for her school clothes. I worry about her health, especially because she is a breast cancer survivor since 1982. Unfortunately, no amount of pleading, begging, debating, or anything has worked. She's also what I call a "militant" (selfish?) smoker who's so focused on her own "right" to smoke that she disregards the rights of others to breathe non-polluted air, and disregards all the evidence about links between smoking and health. "They don't know what causes cancer," she says in a raspy voice, as she scowls and flicks ashes from the tip of her cig, while whispy trails of grey-white vapor stream from her nostrils. My dad finally got tired of hacking up phlegm about 25 years ago, and stopped cold turkey. Unfortunately, my mother has neither the will-power nor the will to do so. Nicotine is an intense addiction. I fear that someday, I will go through what you're now going through.

Oh honey, what to say? She couldn't stop. In some ways it is a choice, but in some ways, it wasn't. I smoked for a very short time around the age of 17 and probably never inhaled (just thought it looked cool). I quit. It was easy, never having inhaled. But in my present job (home oxygen supplier), I see day in and day out that for some it is not a choice. My mother is 68 and can't stop. She's tried everything and she is not stupid. Your mother's smoking probably closely paralleled my mother's experience. When they started, probably in the 40s or 50s, no one was touting the dangers. Hell, it was promoted as a way to curb your appetite. That first cigarette was the only time for either of them that it was a choice. I guarentee you that first cigarette, that last time either of them had a choice, they didn't know what was coming. Then, when the studies all came out, the true addicts were revealed. It was too late. It was too late for your mother, for my mother and for millions of others. They were addicts. Your mother was one. My mother is one. My dad was not. I was not. My grandmother was not. Your mother finally stopped when they put the cannula under her nose. Some people can't stop even then. I have had to take oxygen out of people's homes because they would not stop. We have had two patients with house fires (one the patient died, the other the patient was hospitalized with burns) because they could not stop. If someone can stop, they should. If someone needs help stopping, they should be helped. But if they can't, there should be acceptance.

Guys - I got all that. And I hope you don't think, Monte, that I was suggesting you don't love your family by my phrasing. I'm sure you do. But that doesn't mean you can't use love for your family as the incentive to quit. I'm not going to turn this place into anti-smoking central. I'm not going on a crusade. But I am making a point that if you lose the cancer lottery - it's not just you that pays the price. Maggie - I hear that. I understand that. And what you are saying describes my mother, as does what Frank said about his mother. Mom said she couldn't quit. But she quit cold turkey the day she donned the cannula. SWWBO smoked for many years, and still has to avoid certain situations where the behavioral urge is strong. I'm just doing what I get to do - point out the cost from the other perspective. If it inspires one person to quit, great. If it inspires 100 people to quit, better. If it has no impact at all, s'okay. I got it off my chest. But the cost of my mother's manner of death and the impact on me is every bit as valid as Monte's right to keep on lighting up. Thanks for dropping down from the rafters to join the discussion, Monte. I don't recall having seen you in the comments before! So, if nothing else, this post was worth it for that alone.

I became addicted to nicotine in the late 1960's, working in a radio station where I was the only non-smoker. I was having yet another nicotine fit when someone stuck a lit cigarette in my hand and told me to try it. Bliss. Took me twenty years to quit. Been about twenty years since my last cigarette now, and -- while I don't have lung cancer yet and there have been other medical problems -- I still get cravings. My doctor says that she thinks it's harder for people to quit smoking, and stay quit, than crack, heroin, or cocaine. It was hard; I ended up first using a random reinforcement program to get rid of the cigarettes, substituting nicotine gum, and then had to get off the nicotine gum, and then off chewing gum. I'm getting a craving just writing about it. I wish I could provide some help to others in quitting, or in helping others to help others, but I don't have any. I don't think I could have done it without the patient, non-nagging, encouragement of my wife. Thank you again, Spice!

John, I am a NON-SMOKER, Never have. I am a service-connected disabled vet, brain issues. There was one time in the hospital, this poor nurse comes up to me, to get my medical history. You need to realize this woman is efficient in everything she does, to the point of being a fault. She comes to me to do this history. She asks, "Do you smoke?" My answer, "Ma'am, sorry, but I'm not smart enough to smoke." I'm in a Texas military hospital at the time. Did you ever go through the time when you are joking with somebody and you are waiting for the understanding to tricle down to their level. It gets down to her level. In a perfect southern Texas drawl, she says, "S-a-y w-h-a-t?" (You can not believe the temptation to just say, "What", I figured that would have really pushed her over the edge.) Doc, who was standing nearby, walked over and said, "Explain". I said "I have a father who has been tested and found to have an IQ in the top 1%. My brother, a high school drop out, but like my father had an IQ in the top 1%, where my brother worked, he had assistants with their PhD in math from M.I.T. This was confirmed by independent verification. Both of these men smoked, I don't smoke, therefore, I'm not smart enough!" Doc, just belly laughed. The nurse grew a sense of humor. -Grumpy

I smoked from the time I was 15 until 29 June 1989, the day I quite cold turkey (had to drink decaf for a few weeks to make it work, but that was it). Haven't had a smoke of any kind, not a puff since. I smoked 2-3 packs of Marlboro reds a day, a good deal of it up in smoke as I let an awful lot burn off. I'd of quit sooner if the Army hadn't made it so cheap, but it's not the Army's fault. My Dad smoked from his boyhood until he died suddenly of blood clot in his 60s in 1986. Of course, he'd been looking like crap for a while. I was plentypPissed when he died, but only because he did it without warning (as if it was his fault...). My first step father smoked, but he died of a brain tumor when I was 11, he was dying for years. My grandfather died of heart failure, he smoked cigars sometimes. My stepmother died of cancer, she never smoked that I know of. And so on. I stopped smoking because I realized it was stupid. I was a slave to the demon weed, and I ruined clothes and cars and I stank all the time (but didn't know it), and my house smelled, and I spent money on the smokes and the tools, and I had brown fingers, and yellow teeth, and a wheezed sometimes when I ran (though I did manage to pass my PT test pretty well in spite of it), and so on... Even so, it was stupid. I have been telling my daughter since she was old enough to hear it that people who smoke are stupid. I make no apologies for that. Anyone who smokes today, knowing what we know, people who take up smoking are morons. People who are addicted may be so, but that's the problem, it's not fun or something they want to do. People who smoke and claim they are doing what the law and God allow them to do are rationalizing. They are still stupid. And unlike John, I don't care what anyone says. If you smoke and you have family (children, especially), then you care more about yourself then you do about them. Period. You can lie to us, you can lie to them, you can lie to yourself, but anything you do that diminishes your life on purpose, and that creates hardship for your family, without good purpose, is selfish and mean. And stupid. I am not, by the way, an evangelist former smoker. If people want to smoke, that's ok with me, as long as I don't have to share the smoke anymore. If people want to stink of smoke, that's fine, but I reserve the right to ask them to move away from me just as I would if an unwashed person sat down next to me while I was eating (and trust me, smokers, the smell of a fresh burnt cigarette is as bad as an unwashed body, except I can smell a smoker coming or walking by on the other side of the cubical wall, whereas most dirty people only smell bad if you get close). And if you think I am making it up, just ask any non-smoker who isn't afraid to tell you the truth. And if you smoke in your car, take a razor to the inside of the windshield sometime. Or a white handkerchief. Smoker's cars stink. And they are filthy (unless they work hard to get rid of that)... I agree that people have the right to smoke. In their houses, where there are no children, who are being abused by secondhand smoke no less than if they were being fed tainted meat. My parents smoked, I smoked, my wife smoked.. Hell everyone in my generation smoked, if not tobacco, then pot, but I don't smoke anymore, and my wife doesn't smoke, and my daughter knows full well that her favorite uncle who chewed and smoked for years was STUPID!! He did all of that until he was diagnosed last November with stage 4 lymphoma, and everyone including my daughter got really distraught! Fortunately, Anderson in Houston was able to help him (thanks be to God), and so now my daughter has an example of the bad and the good. And as for my brother-in-law, well he used to get angry when I told my daughter he was stupid for smoking, now he just agrees... And he's glad he'll get to see his two granddaughters (one under 2, the other newborn) maybe grow up a little more. People who smoke when they don't have to are stupid. I make no apologies for saying so, I don't care if anyone likes it. I smoked for almost two decades. I can say whatever the hell I like about people like me. If you are offended and you hate me, but you stop, then hate me. If you just get mad, but keep on smoking, well, I might yet find I have cancer from all the smoking I did do, but my daughter will never have any reason to be angry at me for caring more about my stupid filthy habit than I do about her.

While the risk is not usually as dramatic as the case with smoking, all of us make choices that may end up making our lives either shorter or longer. What we eat, where we live, what hobbies we pursue, what kind of car we drive, etc. And if you start making all these choices out of some mistaken obligation to extend your lives at any cost, we very quickly end up not having much of a life at all.

Really, really well said. Brutal honesty always makes writing so much more powerful.

SangerM i have no idea why you have linked me as though i have claimed smoking was cool or a fashion choice. I made no such claim. You seem unable to differentiate between stupid people and the stupid actions of people. Alcoholism is an addiction too not a different kind of problem at all. What are the details for your claim that it is different? Your goal of protecting your daughter from this vile addiction is noble enough but you should know by now taking the moral high ground won't win wars with teens. They know many of your darkest features already. Worse still calling people stupid might make you feel brave and you can even be right but ask your self the obvious question. "Will someone you just called stupid be likely to do what you want?" John's approach is better because he knows this already.

Please note: I've done what I could to make this less 'personal' but it's not as easy as when responding to someone whose arguments actually make sense and pertain to the subject at hand. Trias wrote: "You seem unable to differentiate between stupid people and the stupid actions of people." How does me talking about smoking translate into your assumption about my ability to differentiate between one thing and another, eh? You've assumed that because I choose to call smoking stupid I don't know the difference between one kind of stupid and another. In fact, it's you who doesn't seem to know the difference because there IS NO DIFFERENCE if a stupid action is taken with knowledge 'aforehand that the action is stupid and is likely to have negative consequences. Stupid is as stupid does. And just to be clear, that's not me trying to be brave, that's me calling it like I see it. And these are my opinions, remember. I'm not trying to make you see things my way, or change anyone's behavior, I'm just saying what I believe. And as for "moral high ground," that's not the issue here at all. This isn't about morals or 'winning' something, it's about health and long-term welfare. More to the point, I'm not at war with my daughter. We may not always agree, but she knows my focus is her welfare, not her control. You can believe this or not, but she comes to me or my wife for advice about every subject imaginable, and she gets straight, no holds barred answers, about whatever she is old enough to ask about (and I mean everything). We don't give 'pointers' of an inappropriate kind, of course, but we don't mince words about health, hygiene, finances, death, sex, or whatever else have you. And we don't sugarcoat or hide things. She doesn't always like the answers, but in our time together neither my wife nor I have ever once told her "because I said so," and I've never told her it was ok for me to do something wrong, but not ok for her (which makes it pretty hard when I try to explain that my foul mouth is not something she wants to cultivate). With my child and with this SPECIFIC topic, the issues are plain and clear. I used to smoke, I don't smoke anymore, I tell my daughter that people who smoke (and especially people who take up smoking now, knowing what the odds for pain are) are stupid, even though they may be the smartest people walking, or even if you love them, as I did my stepfather. My daughter may yet smoke, I can't stop that, but she's known since day one that I disapprove strongly of smoking, and that if she ever takes up smoking, 1) I will think she's stupid too, 2) she will never be allowed to smoke in my house, and 3) if her home stinks, I am going to tell her so, and probably not go there very often, just as I don't visit friends' houses now if the house stinks badly from smoke. As for validation, well, I just this minute asked my daughter "what do you think about people who smoke?" (I had to assure her it was not a trick question--any answer is ok) Her answer: "They're retarded." Said with that little question lilt teen girls put at the end of a sentence they think is too dumb to answer in the first place. Duh, Dad... I rest my case. The issue is smoking. I think people who smoke are stupid. So does my daughter (at least today). That's all I care about. Moral high ground indeed. That was just silly. And so was this, too, actually: "They know many of your darkest features already. Worse still calling people stupid might make you feel brave and you can even be right but ask your self the obvious question. Will someone you just called stupid be likely to do what you want?" What on earth are you talking about here? Do you think I just go around telling people they should quit smoking? Do you think I care? I don't talk to people about smoking unless they encroach on my breathing space, or we are friends, and even then I don't ever tell people they should quit, I just ask them to move downwind or not make me share the smoke. I have numerous friends and relatives who smoke, they know how I feel, but I don't berate them, I don't argue with them, I don't pretend I'm their parent or their God, and I never, ever tell anyone they should quit. I smoked for 18 years. Who am I to tell anyone to quit or try to convince them they should? I talk about me, when it comes up. I tell people I used to smoke, but I don't anymore, and that I thought it was stupid to smoke when it cost so much and had so many negative consequences and NO good ones. I also tell them, if the conversation allows, what I've told my daughter about people who smoke. So far, NO ONE has ever disagreed with me!! And most have said that's the best thing I could do. And I don't have a single friend who thinks smoking is better than not smoking, or who wouldn't quit if he or she could (or hasn't tried to quit). And finally, this comment: "John's approach is better because he knows this already." John's approach to what?!? What is it that you think he and I are trying to do, but that he is doing better than I am? Seems to me, Trias, you wrapped a great many biased assumptions around my comments, apparently based on a mistaken understanding of why I wrote what I wrote. For example, I didn't say you "claimed smoking was cool or a fashion choice." I said my goal is to make it perfectly clear to my currently non-smoking daughter that smoking is not cool, it is not a fashion choice, it is just plain stupid." The key is the stupid part, in opposition to the messages she gets from her schoolmates or from the media (and that we got when I was young) that smoking is cool, or hip, or goes with your latest chic dress or music, etc. Does that make more sense now or are you going to go off on another goofy tangent about some other supposed flaw in my character or personality?