Question For Young Smokers

[MasonC2K]

This is targeted towards anyone around 40 or younger that smokes.

When I talk to older folks that smoke or smoked like my parents did they always say stuff like "We didn't know any better. If we had known the bad stuff about it to begin with we never would have started." Looking bad at the advertising and how the tobacco companies lied I can certainly understand it. However, I don't think that statement would be true. Why? Because people my age and younger smoke.

So my question to my generation and younger is why did you start smoking to begin with? You certainly knew better. The evils of tobacco has been all over the TV and radio and in schools since the late 80's.

So why would you start doing something that you knew not only effected you but everyone around you in a negative way? All the negative tobacco propaganda worked on me. So why not you?

I don't ask this in a condescending way. I just don't understand the reasoning of it.

[Crazymonkee]

I'm 41 now, I've smoked since I was 16. Did I know better... yes, I'm not gonna say I didn't. It was all around me, my Mom smoked, my friends smoked... I'm not even blaming peer pressure as a great majority of my friends were into the drug scene but I never touched any of that, although I did drink.
Why did exactly did I start smoking... I honestly couldn't tell ya.
I don't know if anyone could really say... this is why I started, and honestly all these years later I have no desire to quit other than the $$$ spent

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

[olstyn]

I'll be curious to see the responses this thread gets, as it's something I've never been able to understand either. Of course, my perspective on the subject was strongly skewed by the fact that my maternal grandfather died of lung cancer when I was 8. I only have the vaguest childhood memories of him, and I have tobacco to thank for it. Smoking was not something I was going to try.

[MootWorm]

I'm very interested in this as well. I do think being exposed to smoking in your family has a bearing on it. My mom has smoked pretty much all my life, with a few stretches when she 'quit'. My sister and I never picked up the habit, but my brother is a pack-a-day kind of guy.

Now, my boyfriend is a pretty heavy smoker. Both of his parents and all of his friends are/were big smokers. He's been saying he wants to quit for about the last 5 years. Especially after his dad died from complications of COPD, at the ripe old age of 42. That was two years ago, and he's still at a pack and a half a day...

[jclaiborne]

I am 27 now and haven't smoked since 2007, i had smoked on and off since I was 16, it was mostly accompanied by drinking, however I really didn't start smoking daily until I was on deployment. When you are deployed you are constantly stressed out beyond belief. You have zero access to alcohol, they only thing you can generally get steadily is tobacco. However when I found out I was going to be a dad I quit. For me it was as simple as that.

[NH93]

Good topic OP!

MootWorm, yikes.

My family smokes... my parents and brother, and several relatives as well. I personally vowed to myself (apart from never starting to smoke - because I just couldn't nor do I want to) that I wouldn't be with someone who smokes. I don't mean this in any "oh I'm better than you blah blah blah" way... I simply couldn't handle the possibility of losing someone close to me, by a means that was definitely avoidable.
Like other people, I also get headaches around cigarette smoke. But the biggest thing for me would be losing someone important in my life... it has already happened, sadly, by a combination of habbits - including cigarettes.

I have asked my family members before why they started smoking. I could tell you that my brother started because of the crowd he hung with. He started working as a bouncer at our only town's bar at the age of 18, although he had smoked before then. But that is where he upped the anti, and began smoking regularly; as he puts it, everyone else smoked on their breaks and he wanted to be a part of it.

My parents both started in their late teens as well. They are in their 50's now, but I think they don't really have reasons... apart from "it was just the thing to do".

[carbn8]

Im a smoker in my mid 20's, I staterted when I was 13. So safe to say I knew the risks, yet I still started. I think there is more than one reason I started. First I grew up around it, so it was a normal thing for me, second all my friends were trying it or already doing it, and last to rebel. Clearly not the best reasons to start, not that there is a good reason too. Now 11 years after I started I want nothing more than to quite. Ironically most of the friends I had at 13 when I started smoking have since quite.

Good topic. Thanks!

[dgring]

Smoking is disguisting and horrible, anyone who does is soooooo stupid

[jclaiborne]

Smoking is disguisting and horrible, anyone who does is soooooo stupid

This is not productive at all. Anyone that smokes knows the risk, there is no need to bash anyone here. It is a personal decision, if I remeber correctly you have started quite a few posts that were random questions, which could have been answered with a google search that a few of these "stupid" people have helped you with multiple times. So think before you open you start flaming people.

[Crazymonkee]

Smoking is disguisting and horrible, anyone who does is soooooo stupid

Thank you for your opinion, but I'm actually quite smart. I understand people don't like it, and I respect that and don't smoke around them.
As stated... my Mom smoked from the age of 16 til she just passed away in August from an automobile accident. She was the healthiest person I know. My brother is 33 and the drs have given him til 35 to live, with a condition unrelated to tobacco.
It's a choice and crap happens everyday, as I said I respect people and I think every smoker should

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk