Do you smoke?

I loved the smell of cigarettes as a child as it meant my dad was home (he was away for weeks at a time) Stole my first cigarette from dad's packet at 14. Had to go in the garden as felt dizzy. Started buying them from a machine outside a shop and by 16 smoking 20 a day. Gave up for 6 months at 21yrs, left first marriage and started again. Up to 40 a day until age 50. Still smoking now in my late 60s around 15 a day. Last 20 yrs have always smoked outside unless I'm visiting someone who smokes in the house. Now have COPD but not too bad O2 level at 98% but struggle to walk up hills or lift heavy things. Tried just vaping a few times but never really stuck to it.

I do but have cut right back so hopefully I won't much longer I have a vape just to use when the cravings come. I've smoked on and off since I was 19 im 53 now. I find it hard in the morning but I really want to give up now so hopefully I will

'Tried a couple when I first went to work - 'felt self consious I suppose and wanted something to do with my hands, but the experience was so horrible I managed only two or three and then threw the rest away. Sadly in later years I saw a close relative die from cancer, due to heavy smoking, and if anything might put people off, an experience like that should. However, another relative has carried on regardlessly almost chain smoking. Frankly she stinks, and so does her home, and her cough is revolting. Many family members have tried to help her, but she is a tobacco addict.

Both my parents smoked heavily. So until I left home in my early 20s I was a victom of passive smoking. My mother gave up mid life when she developed a heart complaint. My father retained the habit and died a terrible death of a smoking related ailment. Two other near relatives (uncle and aunt) also died of smoking related diseases. It was just a habit I never developed. My only sibling has also never smoked nor do either of her children. I used to do a lot of singing when I was a young woman and was afraid it would affect my voice!

There was a lot of social pressure for fashionable young women to smoke in the 1960s. It was considered "smart" and people would have a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other on social occasions. My contemporaries used to say that it gave them "something to do with their hands" at parties and in pubs. If you think about all the little rituals involved in smoking (passing them around, offering a light, etc) there was probably some truth in that for young people who lacked social confidence and wanted to fit in.

Shandy57

I went to the 'stop' clinic when I wanted to stop smoking, and was prescribed a drug. Unfortunately as I'm prone to depression I had to stop taking it, I was extremely bad on it.

The nurse explained that we have nicotine 'receptors' in our brain, which clamour for nicotine when our levels get low, hence the need to have a cigarette. The drug essentially encircles these receptors, closing them off. I remember how effective it was, I was able to be in the same room as other smokers and never tempted to ask for one.

Was the drug Champix? That’s how I gave up after years of trying. Brilliant and I so wish it had been available earlier. Patches, gum, lozenges and oral sprays did nothing for me.
I smoked 15-20 a day for over forty years.

I started to smoke at 18 because I thought it was a cool, adult thing to do. Silly me! I smoked until my 30's and gave it up for financial reasons. New house, new more expensive mortgage, so new house, new habits. I gave it up cold turkey and was simply too busy to think of smoking very often. I started a full time job the week after we moved in and every time the craving for a ciggy hit me I thought of the bank balance.

I am also a recovering alcoholic 22 years since I gave up I have smoked all my life and now have severe emphysema and chronic bronchitis and on oxygen just to move about and I am still trying to give up smoking,I am 57 now and smoking is way harder to give up than the drink.

When I was younger offering a lady a cigarette and lighting it was an accepted part of "dating" behaviour when you met up in a public place.

Interesting how so many posters say they took it up as young people because they thought it was smart or adult. Then later, when they developed other responsibilities (mortgages, children) gave it up for financial reasons or for the sake of their offspring.

No. I tried one cigarette when I was about 14. Took two puffs and threw it away. My friend said 'Don't waste it, they're expensive!' and I said 'So why are we burning them'. I just hated the taste and thought what a waste of money.

My mum was a heavy smoker, also my GF. The house always smelled of cigarettes and pipe tobacco. Despite their smoking they both lived to a ripe old age. I was probably a passive smoker because of home, pubs, buses etc etc.

DH smoked when I met him but gave up when I developed asthma. DS smokes occasionally (despite his asthma) but never smokes when he's with us.

Yes I did from when I was around 12 years old and then a lot more once I'd left school and was able to buy my own whenever I wanted. It creeps upon you, the gradually needing more & more & I smoked heavily for a very long time, then one day I suddenly had a light bulb moment when I realised that it was controlling my life, financial choices etc.. I cut down a bit & then I gave up completely with the help of patches. How I wish that light bulb had come on a lot sooner. That was 16 years ago & I love not being dependant anymore it's really liberating.

Smoking behind the bike sheds! I wonder how many kids got into it that way.

Never smoked, hated the smell and tgat was bad enough used to get out if lifts if a smoker got in, smell of them was unbearable. Worked with a nurse 15 years younger than I am, who smoked. See her occasionally, now has COPD and can hardly move. If ever there was a warning not to smoke COPD suffering, gasping for breath is one.

I was sitting on the floor (aged around three or so) at the hairdresser whilst my mother had her hair drying under the 'dome' dryer. She was reading a magazine and holding a cigarette with her other hand when she inadvertently touched - and burnt - my arm. I think that was what put me off cigarettes in a major way! I have never smoked (although being asthmatic probably helped my aversion).

Mother smoked 'Craven A' cigarettes and my father smoked a pipe. I don't think that the message regarding asthma and smoking had yet penetrated the system in the 40's and 50's as smoking was pretty universal. However, my mother, aged 70, was diagnosed with pneumonia and stopped smoking the same day. To her credit, she never began again.

In the 1960's. almost everyone smoked to the extent that on entering a club, my make up would slide off within ten minutes or so, as my eyes watered with the smoke. Not a good look!

I persuaded my three-year-old daughter to climb onto her daddy's lap and tell him that he smelt horrible. He stopped smoking that day - and may have saved his life, who knows....

The price of twenty fags in UK supermarkets varied between £8.80 and £13.50 (27th Oct 2021) that's between £61.60 and £95.90 a week so it seems like people with a twenty-a-day habit have money to burn, literally, even in these straightened times!
(£3,203 and £4,986 per year!)

I started smoking when I was I the sixth form at school, it was very cool to go to a cafe after school with the crowd & puff away! I smoked through lectures as a student and, surprisingly for the time, was the only smoker in my college house of 5. I still smoked when going out with my non smoking husband to be but he told me he wouldn't marry a smoker so I had my last one the day before our wedding, aged 23, and I'm now nearly 64 and I've not touched one since.

I never smoked but my parents did and my husband did until about 15 years ago.
In the 70s, I worked in the offices of Gallahers Cigaretter Factory. We got given 200 cigarettes at the end of every month which I gave to my parents! Crazy when I think of it now.

I have a hypothetical question for all you smokers: what would you say and do if you were told you couldn't see your grandchild/ren unless you stopped smoking?
(Asking because I know someone who was in that position)

NEver smoked and I think it is a filthy habit. So glad they banned it in public places because I was mad when I had to go outside to get away from the filthy air generated by smokers. What does annoy me is the suggestion that smokers could be paid as an incentive to give up. Exercise willpower for God's sake.

I smoked about 20 a day from being 25 then retired and stopped with no effort. I’d tried numerous times before but for some unknown reason this time worked. That was 3 years ago and still no urge to smoke even when in the company of smokers.

...and that's the net cost lizzypopbottle. You have to consider that to spend £10 on a pack of cigarettes you have to earn £12 at least. My addicted relative smokes about forty a day - £140 net a week. I truly don't know how she affords it.

I smoked between the ages of 17 and 25. I started smoking as it was a bit 'cool' when I was a student and my then boyfriend also smoked. Neither of my parents smoked.

I gave up when I became pregnant at 25 and have never smoked since. I didn't even enjoy smoking and don't know how anyone can afford it these days

My ex MIL smoked Capstan full strength. She died of a smoking related disease. Her house stank of smoke and she rarely opened the windows. You could see the nicotine stains on the once white walls.

I was so pleased when they banned smoking in public places. I used to hate coming home from a night out with all of my clothes smelling of smoke. I have been in restaurants with people smoking between courses on nearby tables - revolving if you are eating.

Does anyone remember Roy Castle. He never smoked but had passively smoked when he was playing his trumpet (?) in smoky clubs. He died quite young of lung cancer. Such a shame

My dad was a 60 a day Capstan Full Strength smoker from his teens to his early 60's. My mum smoked too till my sister was born in 1961. By then I'd had 11 years of being kippered. They had a VW Beetle too (engine in the back) and they wondered why I got car sick.... I never wanted to smoke. Oddly, my sister, who had asthma, smoked from her teens till her 40's. Both parents had cancer when they died but opted for no treatment other than palliative care and died relatively quickly and 'easily' within 6 months of diagnosis....

Used to smoke, probably around 10 a day, then had a really bad chest infection.
Decided to stop and have never smoked since, that was almost thirty years ago. Can’t stand the smell of them now.

I’ve never smoked- cigarette smoke has always made me wheezy. When I was a child, a neighbour died from lung cancer, and even back then, (60 years ago) we knew smoking was dangerous to health.
My father smoked whilst he was in the navy doing national service (2 years) He developed asthma ( and married my non smoking mother ?) so gave up in his early 20s- but he still had smoking put as a secondary cause of death on his death certificate! Of course for most of his working life, colleagues he worked with, smoked in the staff room, so secondary smoke may have contributed to his poor health in his late life.

1942. In the WAAF on nights in the cipher office decoding lists of casualties. We had free cigarettes from the NAAFI. When I was posted to another office gave up and swapped cigs for chocolate. Never smoked another one.