Bird
Rest in Peace
I started smoking a pipe shortly before I turned 19, and yes, I inhaled it and kept it lit most of the time for a little over 5 years. Then when I was 24 and joined the police department, I changed to cigarettes (ash trays in the police sedans were too small to put my pipe in them, and we had no air-conditioning so driving with all the windows open was risky with a pipe - the wind would blow sparks out of it). So for many years now, I've smoked a couple of packs a day, and occasionally even more.
Quite frankly, I don't believe smoking causes all the problems that the "experts" tell us it causes, simply because all my personal experience has been quite the contrary. Both my Dad and his dad lived to be 80 years old; actually Dad lived about 4 months longer than his dad did. Dad smoked all his life and his dad never smoked. My paternal grandmother, who never smoked and was adamantly against smoking, died a very painful death from lung cancer at the age of 73. My mother never smoked, but since her husband did and her dad did, she was exposed to "second hand" smoke all her life and lived to be 85 (no one else on either side of the family has lived that long). I could give you a lot more examples, but know that nearly everyone would disagree with my opinion on this matter.
So I would not quit smoking for health reasons; however . . ., it's expensive and getting more so all the time, and it's a dirty habit . . . so . . . the evening of the 11th (10 days ago) I smoked the last cigarette in the pack I had in my pocket and just have not opened another pack since. As for the nicotine addiction; maybe so, though I'm not so sure. I didn't feel all that great the first day (the 12th), but otherwise I can't tell there's any physical need. Psychological? Certainly. I've caught myself reaching for my pocket only to find there's nothing there.
My wife says she wants to quit, but so far all she's done is quit smoking in the house. She goes out on the patio (which I wouldn't do in this heat) 10 or 15 times a day for a smoke.
Will I stay quit? I don't know, but probably will, just because it gripes me to pay the kind of taxes they put on tobacco now-a-days. I told my youngest daughter that after 47 years, I just decided I might ought to quit before it became a real habit.
My wife's surgeon recently quit smoking, after trying to quit for several years. He finally went for hypnosis and says that worked for him.
Back in 2006, I posted the above when I had quit smoking 10 days earlier (July 11, 2006). Now if I just had the will power to quit eating . . ..
I mentioned my wife wanting to quit. She finally did, nearly a year later on June 25, 2007.
And my wife's surgeon who had quit. Well, apparently that hypnosis didn't work all that well. Just before he retired he said he only smoked "occasionally".
