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Smoking is teh icky.

debbiedowner wrote:

CaptKevMan wrote:

My mother, on the other hand, started smoking at around 13 or 14, and continued on until, well...she hasn't quit... She was told if she didn't quit smoking and did not go on oxygen 24/7, she might not last two more years.
She hasn't done either, and it's a year and a half later.

CaptKevMan: I truly don't know how you must feel about this: angry, resigned, sad, indifferent?  How does the child of a smoker feel, I wonder?  I started smoking at 15 in the days before anyone was informed about the health effects, so I never worried about my mother's smoking. (She stopped at age 80 and lived to 92.) I was still smoking when she quit, so I guess her smoking was never an issue for me. I'm wondering what our children felt when Mr. Downer and I smoked. (We stopped after they were in college.One of them in particular, the one who nagged us most to stop smoking, was the same one who made us both reach for the cigarettes because he could be so damned sanctimonious.)

(I'm just now seeing this post; here's my long overdue reply):

Growing up, I was allergic to cigarette smoke (meaning that it affected me much as a severe allergy would: itchy, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, etc.). My mother knew this. My doctors told her this. Yet she couldn't quit; she was a slave to her nicotine addiction. My sisters and I would beg her to quit, and she always promised she'd try, but she never could.

Right after her bypass surgery, they let us in, one at a time, to the cardiac ICU to see her. I saw my mother's lifeless body wrapped like a mummy in medical dressing, tubes and wires protruding from underneath. A machine was breathing for her via a tube taped around her mouth, and there were monitors beeping and blipping everywhere. Just hours before, they had her chest held open with a clamp and her leg cut open like a fish, and they were able to perform a medical miracle that would bless her with more time on this planet to spend with her family. All I could think was, "My God, mother...what have you done to yourself? What has this horrible affliction done to you?" She was ashen gray...colorless. I truly believe I was looking at my dead mother at that moment; I was just fortunate enough to get her back a bit later.

So, how did that make me feel? I felt a flurry of emotions during that time, but the most frequent were heartbroken, frustrated, and enraged. Even now, I can still see the shame my mother feels when we "catch" her smoking: she never smokes around me or my middle sister (my youngest sister lived with her the longest, and picked up her bad habits, so she doesn't feel guilty around her), and whenever we stop by to visit and the place smells like a just-extinguished cigarette, she can barely make eye contact with us. She knows how much it hurts us to see her like that, and she knows she shouldn't be smoking. She wants to quit, but I think in some way, she also wants it to kill her and be done with it.

In my home, we have a couple of rules above all others: This is a house of love; we do not hate in this house. "Hate" is considered a bad word. It is a fundamental value that we are trying to instill in our children.

How do I feel now? I truly hate the tobacco industry with an unrivaled passion.

As far as I'm concerned, they killed my mother.


And no, my mother's not dead yet...but it's just a matter of time -- weeks, months...or if we're truly blessed, a year or two. How many countless other mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters and sons have been lost for the very same reason?

SonicSamurai wrote:

I've been pretty smoke free since new years, I was smoking for about 8 months beofre that. (Yeah, I guess that makes me a lightweight, especially only with about 4-6 cigarettes a day compared to a lot of twin and triple pack people, but I dont think that's the important part here, eh?) I had one cig when I was pissed on Valentines day, but I sure as hell didnt enjoy it.

I dont think that I could really stand one nowadays, so buying another pack would be a complete waste.

I also do not support any smoking bans.

Marijuana is banned, cocaine is banned, and all of the other narcotics. Why not cigarettes?
By the way, I have a friend that keeps trying to start, and I dont know what in smurfland I can do to convince him not to. He seems hellbent on getting addicted, WTF is wrong with him??!!?

CaptKevMan wrote:

How do I feel now? I truly hate the tobacco industry with an unrivaled passion.

As far as I'm concerned, they killed my mother.

I feel for you buddy. My grandfather is about 72 and has been smoking for several decades and now no matter what he does he cannot quit, no matter how much we beg him. And he is one of the strongest people I know; as a child when there were no readily available vaccines he brushed off both polio and small pox as if it were the common cold, he is even immune to poison oak and the like. But all the years smoking have devastated his body and now he probably only has one or two years of life left. The only thing worse than the thought of him dying is sitting here waiting and watching him helplessly.
The combination of this and the death and suffering of my fellow man is what fuels the rage I feel against the tobbaco industry that you all have probably seen during my membership to these forums. I absolutly hate them more than I hate anything else.

Last edited by MacMonkey (2005-10-08 3:59 am)

people make their own decisions to smoke. they are 50% resonsable if ya ask me. 50% cause ciggies are addictive and the companies lied bout it for so long along with a culture that used to place smoking on a pedestal.

Last edited by MrJ in OZ (2005-10-08 4:27 am)

MrJ in OZ wrote:

people make their own decisions to smoke. they are 50% resonsable if ya ask me. 50% cause ciggies are addictive and the companies lied bout it for so long along with a culture that used to place smoking on a pedestal.

What about the other 50%? All those teens that are sucked in by pier pressure and marketing. The tobacco companies take advantage in the weaknesses of our society for ther financial gain, they know it will sell and that there will always be new consumers, therefore there will always be that previous generation hopelessly addicted. Though less and less people are smoking nowadays, I can't see them going out of buisness any time soon.

THey say if you start smoking by age 16 you will smoke for the rest of your life. So who here has smokes at or before age 16 and still is or isnt today?

MrJ in OZ wrote:

THey say if you start smoking by age 16 you will smoke for the rest of your life. So who here has smokes at or before age 16 and still is or isnt today?

I started when i was 16.