Do you smoke?

Well done Madmeg celebrate 🥳

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And what would the consequences for your children be?? Throw them out, disown them? Great parenting!

I gave up at age 34 after 18 years. I wasn't a heavy smoker and once I stopped I never had another. I can hardly believe that I ever did as I find it utterly repulsive now.

Wardell

And what would the consequences for your children be?? Throw them out, disown them? Great parenting!

If that's aimed at me, did your children not have any boundaries - were they allowed to do anything they wanted without any consequences? If so, great parenting...

I don't find the holier than thou attitude of some non and ex smokers very helpful.

When I was growing up just about all adults smoked and despite the fact that a link with lung cancer had been discovered in 1950, the tobacco companies managed to flog their deadly wares with very few restrictions. They even managed to cover up the dangers of passive smoking.

It was almost a rite of passage to start smoking at sixteen or even earlier. We were given licorice smoking sets and packets of sweet cigarettes as children and real cigarettes were openly sold to young children. Is it any wonder that so many of us became slaves to the demon tobacco?

Perhaps I should add that I never took up smoking not because I was superior in any way but having tried it I just didn't take to it.

Magenta I don't think non smokers are holier than thou. As a non smoker who never has, I don't want to risk my heath or have the smell of the filthy habit. In fact I gave sat next to smokers and they stink.
What a smoker does in their own homes is up to them. I would not complain, just don't inflict it on me.

I did qualify my remarks by saying some as I did not intend to imply all or even most non smokers are holier than thou.

Believe me I have suffered the effects of smoking. Even before I was born I was a passive smoker as my mother smoked throughout her pregnancy and I was consequently a very small baby. I grew up in a smoke filled house and had to put up with various smoke filled workplaces, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, buses, trains and even aeroplanes.

I don't expect I enjoy the smell and health hazards any more than you do.

You are one up on me in the virtue stakes in that I tried a cigarette when I was about 14 and you have never smoked.

I am not one up on the virtue stakes. I made a choice. I hated my parents smoking. The smell, the ashtrays.
I honestly don't care what people do, they can smoke, just not near me.

My mother smoked from her teens on, as did most people then so I breathed it in from birth. I am very glad I never started as nicotine is said to be more addictive than heroin.
My sister still smokes despite having heart failure, COPD and other chronic diseases. She has tried really hard but failed to give up. Her daughter nags her constantly but I don’t. I think it’s too late to worry about it now and her lifelong habit gives her comfort.

I used to smoke, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Stopped some years ago after an (unrelated) spell in hospital, when for several days I was too ill even to think of it.

Unlike many, I still like the smell, and if I pass anyone smoking in the street I enjoy a whiff of their fag. I’d never start again, though.

No. Was an heavy smoker. Full fat Marlboros, from 13-23, 40 a day from 18-23. Met my husband just shy of my 24th birthday. He was a non-smoker and hated the smell so I stopped very quickly.
So worth it!

My fathed chain smoked Woodbines at home so I was a passive smoker till 21 and of course pretty well everwhere else was exposed to secondary smoke ( on the train, in shops, etc,) but it has had no discernable effects thus far aged 80.

At my school when i was 14, we were allowed to smoke in class and the teacher would smoke while giving lessons.

No.

Most of my family smoked when I was a child. Later on I did try it to see what it was all about but thought it was a waste of time and money. So I never became a smoker. I had friends who smoked but they couldn't persuade me to take up the habit.

No regrets at all.

Witzend

I used to smoke, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Stopped some years ago after an (unrelated) spell in hospital, when for several days I was too ill even to think of it.

Unlike many, I still like the smell, and if I pass anyone smoking in the street I enjoy a whiff of their fag. I’d never start again, though.

I feel the same Witzend.