Being the scrawny chick I am, I suppose picking up a great big phallic cigar wouldn't be that bad an idea. It'd be cute, and somehow extremely sexual.

But, being that I am a scrawny chick, I don't know anything about real tobacco and tend to be deterred by uncharted waters. I think I take the easy route and just quit. [ It's nice that I can call that the easy route, yeah? ]

Is it possible to smoke and not become addicted,

Yes, but it has to be few and far between.

There was a time in my life when I only smoked clove cigarettes and a single pack would last me well over a month. Generally in the evenings I would sit down, have a cigarette, and relax. But it wasn't a must-do daily ritual. I treated them just as I do alcohol nowadays... a single glass of wine a couple times a week isn't putting me at a very high risk of anything.

My big mistake was to switch to regular cigarettes when the local store stopped carrying cloves. Shortly afterwards, my smoking habits changed and involved far more than one cigarette a day.

I do know a couple people who just smoke when they are around other smokers in social settings (similar to social drinkers) once in a blue moon, which seems to work out fine for them as long as their social life doesn't take a dramatic increase.

I'm not about to say that smoking to any extent doesn't carry risks. But in very careful moderation, I don't think those risks are very high.

Yucky.

Just a few days ago I had to call a taxi and send a girl home because of this filthy horrible habit.

Managed to pull this bird in a pub. She was easily a 9 out of ten. Really nice looking. Got her home, however, and her mouth tasted like an ashtray. Nearly made me sick.

Sent her straight home. And told her why aswell.

"You taste like an old ahtray. Get the fuck out!"

Filthy, horrible woman.

And to think of the ending that could have been, had you have had a tic-tac...

Yes, it's possible. I've seen some who only go through a pack a month, and some who smoke and live well into their 90s. I'll have a cigar maybe once every two years on my birthday. Then again, I don't think that qualifies me as a "smoker" any more than a person whose only alcohol intake is half a glass of champagne every Jan 31st is a "drinker".

The reality though is that very, very few smokers can do this. And I've never seen a smoker go from being an addict to somebody who can easily go a week without a cigarette, unless it was while they were on their way to permanently quitting. I've known smokers who've quit, and they tell me it has much more to do with will power than physical addiction. It seems to me that the people who "can't quit" are, like most adicts, those who secretly don't want to quit on some level.

Honestly, I can't imagine who would want to be a smoker. Never mind the crazy health risks. Is it really worth having to step outside of the building every hour, when it's freezing or raining outside? To have your skin, your clothes, and your car smell so rancid? To have to stop at convenience stores every night, with the price of cigarettes ever-rising? (Smokers tell me they can't save money and buy a carton, because they know they'll just smoke more.) I don't get it.

Smokers often think cigarettes calm them down or make them in one kind or another "happy", but this is actually a drug-induced self-delusion. Scientists have shown that the level of hormones which are responsible for feeling happy goes down under the average value in smokers who have not smoked for a significant time. Smokers need cigarettes for rising those hormones to an average level. This rise makes the smoker think that cigarettes are making him happier than a non-smoking person, which is wrong. Other addicting drugs actually have a mood-enhancing feature, so it seems incomprehensible to me why one would choose this drug. (Note that I myself never did drugs.)

...I don't know what your parents told you, but you should've been getting presents every year.

Source?

I smoked for ten years.

Cigarettes, roll-ups, a pipe, turkish water pipe, etc.

I quit last year, September, I believe.

Best thing I have ever done. The health problems that smoking causes really hits you when you quit.

I do not miss smoking at all, I despise the smell of smoke in the air, on people, in transport.

I quit using Hypnosis (who'd have thought it? haha) this was a quick process and above all, it worked.

I did have a small relapse where I was really tempted to try and smoke (even though the smell repulsed me,) I lit one up and nearly vomited.

Quit today, live tomorrow.

I stopped smoking many years ago and never felt the urge to smoke again.
It's a useless time and life wasting habit.

Your avatar pic is the story of a kitty cat covered in cotton candy. Your "cynical" cred ain't exactly solid as it is.

Actually, I get mine for $1.50 a pack. Then again, I go through a carton (10 packs) in little over a month.

If you really want to smoke, you just have to do your homework.

Good for you! I went cold turkey in 1996. It wasn't hard for me at all considering no one else in my house was a smoker. I still can't get over how they put up with it for so many years.

One question Adequate...You said you smoked for 10 YEARS...At what age did you start smoking?

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