Most smokers want to quit, CDC report finds

[mitzi]

ALL smokers smell like their smoke of choice. To some they are stinky. The smokers just don't know it until they quit. I've found old clothes I'd like to wear again that had been laundered and put away years ago, and they smelled like cigarettes so much I hardly wanted to touch them.

One side-effect of my habit was that I grew tumors in my maxillary sinuses and in a couple of other spots near my nasal passages. The resultant surgery dulled my sense of smell and worse, dulled my ability to taste food. But when the wind's right (actually wrong) I can smell cigarette smoke a long, long way from the source, and the smell of a car that's been smoked in gives me a headache.

Remember, I smoked for 37 years and hated all those who were critical of smoking. I even swore that I'd never be critical of smoking after I quit. I'm not smug, just telling you what it looks like from outside.

And yes, tell me how bad I stink if we ever meet I love my colognes...in small doses most of the time...

Small doses of cologne are fine! In all honestly, I do know that the smoke on your clothes, etc. doesn't smell good. I just get annoyed at those who feel the need to say something about it directed to me when I may feel they don't exactly smell good either.

 

[Cheeky1]

What I don't understand is when smokers...smoke inside their home. Everything they own carries the smoke odor and color. And to the smokers who smoke inside an apartment building, within their apartment - I give a special SHAME ON YOU. Your odor and smoke creeps through the small cracks and crevices and into the neighboring apartments around you. You give everyone around you the trashy, bi-product of your disgusting addiction...and then, THEIR clothes and home smell like YOUR addiction.

It is all I can do sometimes, when I begin to smell the affects of you lighting it up, to not whip out my fender stratocaster, dust of my 50W amp, point it down towards YOUR apartment and play the most gawd awful racket you ever heard JUST as an attempt to disrupt the momentary fix you decide to enjoy without even opening a window or stepping outside.

...but, no, I don't do this. Instead, I think about once this lease is up I will move as far away from the nearest smoking.....person....as possible.

Your habit negatively effects all that are around you. We all need to breath. Clean air is optional I suppose.

/rant over.

 

[Railroad]

It's interesting that as a smoker, I used to opt for top-floor apts or townhouse end units or free-standing single-family homes. I was an inside smoker but concerned about abuse from neighbors, and that dates back to 1978.

No smoker really wants to offend others. I enjoyed and needed my smokes but tried to choose an environment that didn't subject others to the smoke.

I remember as a child, we would be on long road trips in the family car, and I sat directly behind my dad. His heavy pipe smoke would stream over his left shoulder and right into my face. I would be pretty green if motion and reading were added, and so most trips I spent trying to sleep during the day.

 

[bohman]

I've been on both sides of the issue, and I can't for the life of me figure out why otherwise reasonable adults get so up in arms over the smell of cigarette smoke. I smoked a pack a day for about 4 years or so, and then quit. (ok, I quit a bunch of times, but that's another story) Yeah, the first year was tough. Several close friends still smoked, and there were times it was tough for me to hang out with them. But not because the smell bothered me - I just so badly wanted to light one myself. That was 10 years ago, and at this point it doesn't phase me if someone else wants to smoke. Yes, the smell is noticable, but I don't find it unpleasant. And I no longer crave one myself. It's a complete non-issue.

Meanwhile, I see grown adults act like spoiled children if they are subjected to a momentary whiff of smoke as they walk past the banished smokers on their way into a store.

Notice that I'm only talking about the smell issue. I don't think we should go back to the old days when people lit up anywhere and everywhere. There are legitimate health reasons for keeping second-hand away from children, adults with chronic health conditions, and those who don't want to develop chronic health conditions. All I'm saying is that catching a whiff of a smell for a few seconds should not be enough to illicit the whining that occurs.

Railroad, the above rant wasn't directed at you. I just wanted to vent. I know you were just putting your experience out there, and encouraging people to drop the habit.

 

[Cheeky1]

In my case, cigarette smoke makes my throat raw and if I am subjected to it further and I actually become sick with cold/fever like symptoms. I guess I could leave MY apartment when the other tenants light up, but I still need to come back and the residual smell is still there. Which means, for me, I have a semi-raw throat most of the time.

It is a sh!tty situation and I will be glad to be rid of it when the appropriate time comes.

 

[vraiblonde]

What I don't understand is when smokers...smoke inside their home. Everything they own carries the smoke odor and color. And to the smokers who smoke inside an apartment building, within their apartment - I give a special SHAME ON YOU. Your odor and smoke creeps through the small cracks and crevices and into the neighboring apartments around you. You give everyone around you the trashy, bi-product of your disgusting addiction...and then, THEIR clothes and home smell like YOUR addiction.

It is all I can do sometimes, when I begin to smell the affects of you lighting it up, to not whip out my fender stratocaster, dust of my 50W amp, point it down towards YOUR apartment and play the most gawd awful racket you ever heard JUST as an attempt to disrupt the momentary fix you decide to enjoy without even opening a window or stepping outside.

...but, no, I don't do this. Instead, I think about once this lease is up I will move as far away from the nearest smoking.....person....as possible.

Your habit negatively effects all that are around you. We all need to breath. Clean air is optional I suppose.

/rant over.

In my case, cigarette smoke makes my throat raw and if I am subjected to it further and I actually become sick with cold/fever like symptoms. I guess I could leave MY apartment when the other tenants light up, but I still need to come back and the residual smell is still there. Which means, for me, I have a semi-raw throat most of the time.

It is a sh!tty situation and I will be glad to be rid of it when the appropriate time comes.

Go get several rolls of duct tape and seal your apartment up. Walls, windows, air vents, everything. Then smoke from the other apartments won't bother you.

 

[Cheeky1]

Go get several rolls of duct tape and seal your apartment up. Walls, windows, air vents, everything. Then smoke from the other apartments won't bother you.

It's worth a shot, I guess.

 

[Larry Gude]

Go get several rolls of duct tape and seal your apartment up. Walls, windows, air vents, everything. Then smoke from the other apartments won't bother you.

Why should anyone have to make allowances for anyone else?

If I don't want to smell smoke or hear bad music or perfume I don't like or speech that annoys me or see ugly people or fat people or people in too good of shape that make me self conscious or can't stand the smell of beef on a grill or the toxic horror on fresh paint or fumes from people's planet raping SUV's or put up with the mere existence of some vulgar Dallas Cowboy fan, why shouldn't THEY all have the responsibility to not annoy me?

 

[Cheeky1]

Why should anyone have to make allowances for anyone else?

If I don't want to smell smoke or hear bad music or perfume I don't like or speech that annoys me or see ugly people or fat people or people in too good of shape that make me self conscious or can't stand the smell of beef on a grill or the toxic horror on fresh paint or fumes from people's planet raping SUV's or put up with the mere existence of some vulgar Dallas Cowboy fan, why shouldn't THEY all have the responsibility to not annoy me?

....you lost me about halfway through.....

but, yeah, there is also music at night and vulgar language typically paired with verbal fighting with anyone else within their space....

....from time to time I come to the conclusion: these people must either lead miserable lives, or have become accustomed to and enjoy long, loud, heated, vulger, verbal confrontations.

EDIT: your avi rocks!....mister lefty....

 

[Neversaykever]

Yup. Then, an older friend inhaled his pipe and exhaled through his white t shirt to make a point as to what gets on your lungs.

I used to smoke camel NON filters and lucky strikes, then when I was 19, my roomate (also a heavy smoker) took a drag of my smoke through a white napkin and I got to see a thick, tarry, black glob just from one hit. that got me to filtered cigarettes anyways. makes me wonder how much permanent damage i've done to my body.
that being said, when is this bike ride? haha

 

[Neversaykever]

Why should anyone have to make allowances for anyone else?

If I don't want to smell smoke or hear bad music or perfume I don't like or speech that annoys me or see ugly people or fat people or people in too good of shape that make me self conscious or can't stand the smell of beef on a grill or the toxic horror on fresh paint or fumes from people's planet raping SUV's or put up with the mere existence of some vulgar Dallas Cowboy fan, why shouldn't THEY all have the responsibility to not annoy me?

HAH!

yeah, everybody seems to have their own ideas about smoking etiquette, and these opinions are ALWAYS strong and NEVER the same. The arguments over smoke smell are doomed to last forever

or atleast until smoking is illegal. I wonder how long that will be? 5 years? 20? 50?

 

[atheos]

HAH!

yeah, everybody seems to have their own ideas about smoking etiquette, and these opinions are ALWAYS strong and NEVER the same. The arguments over smoke smell are doomed to last forever

or atleast until smoking is illegal. I wonder how long that will be? 5 years? 20? 50?

Smoking is illegal in a lot of places in the present. So I wouldn't guess to far down the road, that they will ban it all together.

 

[Toxick]

I may be the only non-smoker on the face of this earth who does not mind the smell of smoke. It never bothered me when you could smoke in restaurants, and I don't fall on the floor seizing and clutching my chest in pre-emphysemic agony when someone blazes up their smokes around me.

In fact, the smoke that comes off the tip of a cigarette (or cigar), I find to have something of a homey, cozy comforting smell. On the other hand, the smoke that comes out of someone's face is usually less pleasant, and kind of burns my eyes ... I figure that's the carbon-monoxide, or whatever the chemical stew is after respiration. However, it's not horrible enough to illicit the melodramatic demonstrations that most non-smokers seem to engage in.

Ex-smokers seem to be the worst when it comes to smoke-tolerance. Maybe after years of sucking on cigarettes, they become hyper-sensitive to smoke when they are exposed to it after they quit. That's my working theory. My [unidentified male relative] has started and stopped smoking at least 9000 times in my memory. When he is in a smoking cycle, he's a live and let live kind of guy, where people should be allowed to smoke in restaurants, on planes and movie theaters, and whiners should STFU and stay home if they don't like it. When he is in a non-smoking cycle he is quite simply a fascist when it comes to other people smoking around him. One whiff and he puts his hand to his heart as if apoplexy is lurking there (although, it could be that he's reflexively reaching for his breast-pocket where he usually has a pack of Luckies).

One thing is for damn sure though - I am so glad I'm not a slave to those ####ing things.