I always tell the nurse, âdo I smoke, no⌠But I aspire to, somedayâ, which always provokes a quizzical look. Itâll be pipe tobacco, if/when I reach the age of suspenders, shuffleboard, and sailor hats. I used to smoke pipes and cigars, 25 years ago, before health insurance was even a consideration. Always liked pipes.
7 Likes
Promise to post a picture!
3 Likes
My father was a heavy smoker until he quit when I was about 10, he was in his 40s. He picked it up in WW2. He joined up with a group called Smoke Enders to quit. I vividly remember one of the quitting aids he usedâŚa lidded mason jar with old cigarette butts, ashes and some water in it. You would not believe how rank it smelled when the lid was off. When he had a craving, one snort from that jar removed the craving. He lived to 98 so luckily his decades of smoking did no lasting damage.
8 Likes
I sure will. I hope this site is still going, 20 years hence!
3 Likes
Yeah, I think some people are lucky and have the genes not to develop lung cancer. My wifeâs grandmother was a chimney, at least one pack a day for her entire adult life, dies in her mid-90âs. Nothing to do with her lungs or cancer.
3 Likes
I will have no ethical problem classifying myself as a smoker to obtain the vaccine. In my early 20âs I worked on a survey crew in a rural community. Outdoor work, roaming around with my friends on the crew, nobody looking over our shoulders (no cell phones in those days)âŚin hindsight it was one of the best jobs I ever had. I discovered that cigar smoke, preferably the cheapest cigar available, is an effective repellent. I spent a few years smoking a lifetime worth of cheap cigars, King Edward brand. (The label stated âNo more than 5% non tobacco fillerââŚYUM!).
I wondered why the dating scene slowed down for me those yearsâŚI must have smelled like a sweaty cigar butt. Iâm sure my clothes did. Plus the rural lifestyle can be pretty quiet. Anyway, just the smell of a cigar grosses me out after that over exposure decades ago, have not even been tempted to sample quality cigars.
4 Likes
I went through a cigar and whiskey phase in college. I drank the whiskey so that people would think I was cool. It didnât work and I didnât like how it tasted.
Cigars, on the other hand, are awesome and I love the nicotine buzz. I started smoking those in college to intimidate the boys in the flight program. But then I ended up loving them and had to keep it to one per weekâŚyou know, for health reasons.
Iâve stopped because I just donât think theyâre healthy no matter how awesome I think they are.
The last cigar I smoked was upon my return to work from my first maternity leave. Our office was putting on a weekday golf scramble, so I drove around in the golf cart with a girlfriend selling raffle tickets to the rich golfers for charity. I was smoking a cigar Iâd bummed off one of the board members and drinking a Big Gulp of chardonnay. My raffle ticket sales pitches were getting progressively louder throughout the day. Golfers were acting like I was ruining their putting game and Iâd just reassure them, âItâs for CHARITYYYY! Longest NINE months of MY LIFE!!!â
Iâm a really fun nicotine-buzzing drunk. I miss those days. Le sigh.
12 Likes
I donât think Iâve ever smoked an entire cigarette, but occasionally while drinking (or taking other substances), Iâve had drags off of friendsâ, back in the day. Probably like, 10 times max in my life though. It has absolutely no appeal whatsoever to sober me, and generally I find cigarette smoke gross and hard to tolerate. I canât stand cigar smoke at all. Pipe smoke is more tolerable to an extent, and reminds me of my grandfather. Said grandfather survived two heart attacks and eventually died of brain cancer, likely secondary to never discovered lung cancer based on the characteristics of the tumor.
Given that in many places, inmates have no ability to social distance whatsoever and that infections are running rampant through prisons, and that these folks may well be imprisoned regarding things as stupid as buying some pot or not being able to pay parking fines (true story, and basically amounts to being imprisoned for being poor), this is entirely reasonable.
7 Likes
Oh, youâre long past. I first wore suspenders when I was 11. Ahead of the curve, apparently.
Never smoked, never did drugs, never saw much point (so long as alcohol was nearby, and I could never drink a lot of that or Iâd instantly vomit). I did try puffing on one of my older brotherâs joints once, and coughed for half a day. When I worked in Italy I did use to puff on these little Dutch cigarillos, CafĂŠ Crème I think they were called, they came in a little yellow tin and everyone I hung out with smoked either those or cigarettes and I hated the stench of cigarettes and I liked the flavour of the cigarillos especially with espresso and I figured they were relatively safe since I learned quickly you werenât supposed to inhale anyway. Thatâs my life of crime.
7 Likes
Quite a rap sheet you have there!
4 Likes
And just to clarify my cigar smoking rap sheetâŚthe cheap cigars were intended to repel mosquitos not women. They inadvertently repelled both for a few years though.
9 Likes
Apparently, you just didnât run into the right woman during that time.
3 Likes
3 Likes
3 Likes
I should clarify that this wasnât just because I didnât see much point (âreality is fun enoughâ), but mostly because my father put the fear of God in me. Heâd always say, âWhat if youâre stoned and you GO LOW? You wonât be able to treat yourself and YOUâLL DIE.â So I owe him thanks for that.
Then again, he used that as an argument against doing lots of things. I couldnât become a doctor because âWhat if youâre in the middle of doing an operation and you GO LOW?â Etc., etc. Parents, careful what you say to your diabetic kids.
8 Likes
Agreed, the only thing we have said is you canât be in the military, since it is actually true. He would need to be a Dept. of âXâ civilian to work with the military. The cool thing is that he can now be an airline pilot, which didnât used to be true. And thanks to our very own @Sam we know he can be a ship pilot.
10 Likes
@Beacher so funny - my first endocrinologist, when I was diagnosed at age 20 (this was 28 years ago), would vehemently tell me DONâT DRINK â SMOKE POT!!! As drinking could lead to more serious consequences (going low, passing out) than smoking potâŚ! I do my best to just be moderate in my consumption. /inserting the shrugging shoulders emoji/ - Jessica
5 Likes
I plan on transitioning from drinking to smoking pot in my off seasons in the not too distant future
1 Like