Comment by tunap | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tunap | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Not just lose the nicotine, I would lose my mind or would need to take a pharmaceutical...better, right? I quit for seven months and not a second of the day or night was I not jonesing for nicotine. I am an addict, my mom quit 20 years ago and got breast cancer last year, my 93yo grandfather is one & his deceased 92yo father was one(neither ever stepped foot in a hospital). Our genes seem to abide the smoking, the other things we all have in common is we never stop moving...well except for great grampa that one fateful day he never got up to fill his pipe. If I too last until I'm 90, yay! If not, so what? Nobody gets out alive & I'm going to live well until the end. The 7 billion of the rest of you will have to go on without me. Try to be strong.

Oh yeah, TFA: The pedometer on my phone tells me I walk 2.5+ miles a day... while smoking. My uncle was director of IT for Fortune 20 corp and does the same thing, he swears it is 'his process'. I concur, however, YMMV.

I'm collecting little stories like these to show my kids as they hit their teens.

Everyone does a few dumb things while they are teenagers. A frighteningly large number of teens (esp. here in France) start smoking. Choose something else, please!

It'd probably be better to get pregnant; we'll be here to help you stay in school etc., and having a kid can be quite a difficult commitment for a few years, but gradually gets easier. It will make some things harder in your life, but it won't generally shut many doors.

Starting smoking is a lifelong commitment that will never have a positive payoff beyond "hey a little buzz", has a decent chance of a fucking horrible cost (hello, young people with cancer) if you have the wrong genes, and relatively-horrible costs even if you don't (having a lower quality of life when you're old and dying younger, yes, but also the financial cost is staggering -- the cost of the cigarettes is just a bit of it; you'll pay more for health/homeowners/car/life insurance, everything you own and might re-sell will have lower value, if you start a fire like one of the hundreds of thousands of other smokers who do in any given year, you'll pay for that, etc.).

Or you may quit, and live the possibly-quite-unpleasant life of an addict who has quit their addiction. See above; it can suck intensely, and you will crumble, you will choose "worse life with" vs. "worse life without" and construct flimsy rationalizations around it, but the only winning move is not to play.

I lost two grandparents early to smoking-related illness/cancers, and I have a once-smoking friend who got lung cancer when she was 20, though she's still alive, so I can make sure they won't have any illusions about "the bad outcomes only happen to other people".

[huh, this didn't start as a rant, but it sure is one now.]

I cannot deny I wish I had never gotten hooked. That doesn't mean I do not care or am making flimsy excuses. I am personally responsible for every choice I make, whether I like the results or not. To benefit my health I live a very non-sedentary lifestyle, drink a liter of water every day(minimum, I live in a desert), eat fresh veggies and home prepared meals daily and rarely eat fast food as it makes me feel heavy & uncomfortable(same goes for chips, bakery sweets, candies, etc). I do not take any pharmaceuticals and do not smoke tailpipe exhaust commuting daily(which is worse?). When not working & walking/smoking on breaks, I am hiking desert washes and game trails. Oh yeah, I'm a butt nazi, too...just because the ignoramuses on the big screen do it, doesn't mean flicking butts is not littering and I couldn't live with myself if I caused a fire that destroyed my playground.

My point is, besides the cigs, the marketing department would label me a health nut...6'0" @ 165lbs and still able to carry 80lbs compressors up a ladder or stone a 2000sqft floor when I have off-time from the keyboard. Thanks to the cigs, this witch hunt has made me a 2nd class citizen all the while the majority benevolently deride me while eating big macs, popping 'good' pills to 'manage' their weight problems, idly watching their 'shows' while smoking equivalent fumes in their vehicles everyday.

PS: I had three schoolmates with cancer by 9th grade, none smoked, they just lived in N/W Indiana of which they had no choice(I was a transplant).

Edit: I NEVER smoke indoors, hate the stale cig smell more than most. My nose olfactory senses are still quite acute at 42yo.

How many months/years has your friend been smoking for?

I'm 23, and picked up smoking 5 months ago. I smoked heavily during this time period, but quit and went back to my healthy/athletic lifestyle. Stories like yours scare the hell out of me.

Then you'd better make sure you know your surroundings. In my building we've had quite a few of diseases, including a ~10 year old dying to brain tumors, attributed to a bad floor glue. At some point the social insurance paid the inhabitants the reconstruction costs to get rid of it. It's called "lepik asfaltowy" (asphalt glue-ish?) in Polish, there's no Wikipedia page for it in any other language.

Having seen a few people spend their (rapidly failing) final years with emphysema and related health complications due to smoking... I can't say that you'll live well to the end necessarily. I hope you avoid that fate, random internet stranger, but there are ways to improve your chances...

As I said in 1st post, I mitigate my risks as well as I know how. Check my 2nd rant above. Also, my step-father died a short battle with Endocratic cancer in 2012 @ 63yo. He smoked on tour in Nam for < 2years. 42 years later his death was attributed to 'tobacco', "Probably". The certificate actually had a check box for 'probably'.

Ignore, if you will, the agent orange, forget the smog, forget the crap he ate and his voluminous waistband or the fact that he sat in his chair for 8+hours a day after work and definitely forget the lacquers & paints he inhaled as a gifted cabinet maker for decades. It was the tobacco that killed him, says so on his death certificate.

Get a vaporizer: http://www.thebestshop.eu/shop/electronic-cigarettes-starter...

Nicotine without the volatile smoldering micro particles hitting your lungs.

Tried it, didn't do anything for me but dull the cravings and never for longer than 4 hours. I longed for the sensation of burning vegetable, the process of flicking the ashes, the laps I walk for the burn duration and the smell on my fingers. Not proud of it, it just is.

Frankly, when I don't smoke, I also miss the social aspect of smoking. Whenever a smoke break is called, everyone stops what we're doing, gets up, goes outside, walks around a bit, bullshits and talks, and then heads back in refreshed. Half the time, it ends up being an excuse to do a quick walk around the park near us. I probably miss that more than I miss the actual smoking, and even after mostly "quitting", I'll still often go share a puff or two off someone's cig while we stand / walk and chat, just so I can get the social part, without as much of the actual smoke.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com