Poll: What is your history of tobacco usage?

I grew up with two smoking parents and the second hand hell was enough for me to decide never to try. I can't stand the stuff. And I'm not really looking to acquire any addictions. I don't see the point in letting yourself become a slave to something like that.

It amazes me that people even get past trying it. I always get the impression that the first time is horrid. So...uh...why continue? :) (Yeah, yeah, I know. Easy to say when it's not your thing.)

Yep. My parents had us "try it" in junior high. One cigarette and it was so awful tasting when I brushed my teeth afterwards that I wondered why anyone got hooked. Good move on my parents' part I thought. They didn't smoke either, so that helped.

never have, never will. eew.

Every now and again, when I'm around people smoking them, I'll have a clove... or a cigar... but I've never been a smoker, and I never will be.

ditto

...besides being cancer-causing, expensive, tooth-yellowing, addictive, etc.� but first and foremost, because i sing and i value my voice, i don't smoke.� and haven't, ever.

The singing is a whole other issue. Joni Mitchell totally destroyed her voice. She is still a great singer but her voice is not the one she used half a million cigarettes ago (two packs a day for 35 years, a reasonable estimate).

I always wanted to tell Dave to stop ruining his voice when I saw him smoke.

Amen to that.� It's probably the worst thing you could possibly do to your voice (aside from ripping out your vocal cords).� Plus it's disgusting and it kills people.� I've never smoked and I never will.

I never understood why there were a few voice majors at Rutgers who smoked.

* Gets on pulpit *

Smoking was a big thing at my high school.� Seemed like kids always used bathroom breaks to sneak a smoke, or smoke at the one corner that was RIGHT across the school border.

You have to wonder how much money one spends smoking in a year, 5 years, 10 years...� Politicians have no problem taxing cigarettes, so the prices will just keep going up and up, and yet, people will still smoke not because they don't want to, but because they can't.

I wish it was easy to tell people that it's not worth it.� But if that was true, we wouldn't have a huge tobacco industry.� It's something that people have to decide for themselves whether they want to get involved or not.� It's a personal decision, but I know I made the correct one.

You have to wonder how much money one spends smoking in a year, 5 years, 10 years... Politicians have no problem taxing cigarettes, so the prices will just keep going up and up, and yet, people will still smoke not because they don't want to, but because they can't.

Politicians should get on the drinking issues as much as the smoking. Tax the alcohol as much as the smokes.

You have more of a chance of getting hit by a drunk driver than dying from second hand smoke.

Try after a sporting event or the bingefest the day before thanksgiving.

I'm so tired of hearing about the smoking (not to mention doing a research project on the smoking ban) and not enough about the issues of drinking.

BTW, I don't do either.

Riiiight.
Cuz, lord knows that everyone who drinks also drives drunk.

:P

Some are pretty stupid to do it.

Or do they convince themselves "If I teach myself to drive drunk, the better I will get at it."

Here is a poll:

How many times have you rode with a drunk driver?

This could be in an instance where you don't/can't drive. (example no driver's license)

Anyone who drives while drunk is stupid.
Buh.

The problem is that drinking impairs judgement, including the judgement of whether you are sober enough to drive.

True. Which is why, as a general rule of thumb, if you've had more than a couple drinks, you should just not drive.

speaking of ruining your voice from smoking. . ..

I was watching the Susan Werner DVD and she was SMOKING!!

I was like. . . .noooooo, say it ain't so!!� It can't be true. She was classically trained. She's gotta know that smoking will ruin her voice.�� .and i've noticed she isn't hitting those high� notes as clearly as she used to. . .� .

ugh, that's too depressing. whenever i see singers smoking, especially if they've got great voices like susan, i want to sit them down and make them listen to joni's first cd and then her most recent recording and show them what they're doing to themselves.

i'm with kat; i care too much about my voice to want to damage it that way. tho honestly, after seeing what a lifetime of smoking has done to my dad, i never wanted to try it and don't know why anyone would want to.

I quit, I get stressed, I smoke, I quit, I get stressed I smoke.� It's a frustrating loop.� Any suggestions on how to break that loop?� I would love to be able to quit permanently.

Change your stress outlets, I guess. Easier said than done but try to come up with some (healthy) way to react to stress, say...knitting! :) Something silly like that, instead of smoking. You're in a loop because you associate the smoking with relief from stress and the plain truth is stress is not going to stop happening so you have to stop giving it the same reception.

Besides, you can knit yourself warm things. :)

*grin* I've actually wanted to learn to knit for some time now.� Perhaps I'll try that when I come up with the money.� *hugs*

When I smoked it was only two cigs a day for the most part--one on the way to work, one on the way home. Everyone at my job smoked, and if they didn't when they were hired, they started. But when I quit my job and (eventually) found one I liked the need to smoke went away. I am one of those lucky people who does not have an addictive personality. I smoked only 2 cigs a day for years and gave those up easily. I have never been really drunk, never wanted to take drugs and gambling holds no allure for me--a boring life to some perhaps, but at least I don't have to worry about dying an early death from my own stupid addictions. Hmm, maybe I do have one addiction...couldn't give up chocolate forever unless it was a life or death situation.

Mmm...chocohol.� I gave up chocolate for a year for a new year's resolution.� It was hell, I'll never do that again.� Besides, chocolate, unlike most other addictive substances (not including red wine), is good for your heart.� Go chocolate!

Yep!
wish I could find the study.... but, there was one done back in the early 90's that showed that moderate chocolate consumption extended the life of males by approx 5 years.

:)

Sweet!� (Literally.) �;)

no way, man... semi-sweet... or even better, dark.
:)

oh yeah. all about the dark chocolate.

amen, sistah!
:)

Oooh.. I love dark chocolate.� *swoons*

The dark chocolate ice cream at cones on Bleecker street = Heaven

Want. Gimme.

Dude.. when I make it there I'll have to get one.� *drools*

i agree. soooo good.

i've heard that dark chocolate is usually something of an acquired taste--you tend to like it more as an adult than as a child--but for me, it's been the opposite. i was a dark chocolate *fiend* when i was a little kid, and these days, i'm all about the milk.

My relationship with chocolate is shaky at best.� I love it, I eat it, then I totally hulk out, occasionally smash things, scream, and stay up all night crying about how no one loves me.�� Then, I get better, don't eat chocolate for a while, then think, "Oh, a little chocolate won't hurt..."� and the whole thing begins again.� *sigh*

I have never used�nicotine products.� Ok, maybe one or two cigarettes in my entire lifetime, but many of my friends smoke regularly, maybe 1 or 2 packs a day.� They used to get all their smokes from one of their mothers, but coming from New York State, the new smoking ban has severely limited their usage of cigarettes.� Now they all chew tobacco, (Yay, no more lung cancer, now they get tongue and throat cancer, good trade off right?)

nada.� never.� now that i sing quasi-regularly, i'd never even ponder it.� and now that i sing quasi-regularly, i'm glad i never did.

i *ahem* recall the experience of once being kissed by a smoker some years ago and thinking to myself (much later after the recovery�from shock) "so that's what licking an ash tray is like."

*shudder*

�-= george =-

I've never kissed a smoker (and I just...wouldn't.) but as an aside whenever I've tasted coffee that's pretty much my impression. Licking an ashtray. It just tastes specifcally like ashes to me. Not that I've eaten ashes. But it tastes like ashes smell when they get blown in your face.

yep.
Kissing a smoker is ickkkkkky.

I think most people already know this since I've mentioned it in other polls and the wall, but I do smoke occasionally if I'm around other somkers in some situations. *shrug* Honestly, I enjoy it in small amounts. The times I've done it too much I've gotten a worse hangover than alcohol, and I'm almost paranoid about actual addiction (since it does run in the family) so that kind of works to keep me in check anyways. I'm not about to claim that any of the good aspects outweigh the bad (I don't even know any regular smokers who would argue that), but I thought I'd chime in as a single voice on the "I don't find it the worse thing in the world" side of the argument.

I'd also like to mention that I love pipe smoke. My dad smokes a pipe and did all the while I was growing up. I always liked the smell of it (and for what it's worth, pipe smoke is less worse than cigerette as second-hand) I've always thought pipe smoke was much less harsh than normal second-hand, which is why it's always confused me when restruants don't allow pipes in the smoking sections and all.

Plus, pipes just look cool. And we all know that smoking is all about looking cool ;-)

Yeah!
Pipes/cigars smell soooo goooood.

mmm.
:)

Cigarettes, on the other hand, don't.

pipe smoke is less worse than cigerette as second-hand

Heh... English major. ;)

and both times were in a dream. so, never.

I have no desire to put any burning object anywhere near my mouth. the idea of inhaling all that smoke just disgusts me. it's bad enough that half the concerts I go to are in smoky clubs. if only more places would pass laws requiring people to take their filth elsewhere.

No. More clubs would do well to adopt a no-smoking policy, and vents should be very heavily required/inspected, but Old Bill's Bar, which only really has a customer and employee base who smoke, never has concerts there, is just a local hang-out for people who want to be in that environment shouldn't have to ban smoking because of that.

I always find it funny that one of the few times where I fall in with "buisnesses should not be regulated for ____" is the time where I'm out of sync with most people ;-)

Ohh lord.
Let us not start THAT debate again.

Sorry... I think I already jumped into the fray.

But this is the second day of the poll, so even if others do join in, it won't last long...right?

No you just want a room that you can set huge fires in :-)