Be Excellent To Each Other

A few people at Cottag3 said that they planned to give up when it was over.

How's that going?

Yeah. That might need to wait a while.

Yeah, I;m not doing that right, am I.

In soviet Russia, Mr Chris YOU.

Or that.

I haven't smoked since Sunday. Cold turkey. Pretty determined this time...

That's like practically forever!

You're right. Surely it's safe to start again by now?

What you need to do is, assuming she's real, is to get Mrs WTB to say she won't boink you if you ever smoke again.

Worked for me!

...

Now Mrs WTB and I do it allll the time.

!!

She's shite at making me feel bad for smoking.

Does she find snogging an ashtray a turn on, then?

She doesn't seem to mind! Or didn't, rather. I like to think I'm a pretty nice-smelling chap, though. Most people are surprised to discover I smoke. Well, smoked.

It's quite amusing to me that people were intending to use the cottage as a quitting point. I did the same with my mate's stag do on Saturday. Basically, there was no way in hell I was going to go on that stag do and not smoke, so I decided to quit as soon as I ran out of fags the day after. Is that the same train of thought the cottage-quit-team had? Good old nicotine addicted logic.

Anyway, my main problem is definitely drinking with chums. I always fall off the no smoking wagon at that point. I'm fine at all other times, if a little angry and leg-bouncy.

Everyone was pretty much thinking there's no point trying to quit beforehand, certainly.

Anyone anywhere trying to give up smoking should just go to the doctor and get themselves some of this shit. I'd usually hesitate to throw around terms like 'wonder drug' but taking that, for me and at least three of my mates, turned giving up smoking from a nightmare into genuinely one of the easiest things I've ever done. You take it for about ten weeks (I think) and you carry on smoking for the first few weeks to let the drugs build up in your body and then you just stop dead. I was smoking 20 a day--more on weekends--and had tried giving up before loads of times with no success. With this shit I just stopped and that was that. No real cravings, no moodiness, no side-effects; nothing. The only person I know who tried it and is still smoking is a fucking idiot who got off the fags pretty easily but decided to stop taking the pills before he'd finished the prescription for no reason at all and thus ended up smoking again. In all honesty I don't think he actually wanted to give up hence the bizarre self-sabotage. Seriously folks, give it a shot.

I quit just by being awesome. True story.

What, smoke?

It's pretty easy after the first two weeks of feeling a bit narky.

Note - anti-smoking drugs tend to have very serious potential mental side effects.

I don't need drugs. The single most important thing when quitting is that you actually want to. If you want to, it's easy. If you're resistant to quitting, you'll start again.

Noooo, the single most important thing is being awesome. that's where you're going wrong.

Crazy.

But completely true.

o/

\o

Now I just need to stop wanking 20 times a day.

Why would you need to do that? It's good for you, and it's good for Specsavers.

If i looked like Z i'd look in the mirror and wank twenty times a day.

If i looked like Z i'd look in the mirror and wank
twenty times a day.

I like it better with the line break. It's like a semi-haiku.

Yeah.

And because I get funny looks at work.

I was one of those. So far so good. No fags since I left the cottage on Sunday. Only one craving so far that I managed to deny.

However, I'm normally pretty good at not smoking for a few days. Then I usually crumble into an orgy of smoke filled hedonism as soon as I'm around anyone else who smokes. So will try and avoid other smokers/smoking situations for a couple of weeks.

Although I gave it up years ago, I still like the odd one now and again usualy when drinking

I used to smoke the odd cigar when drinking but figure these must be worse for you that fags.

Homophobe.

You can't play that card unless you live in the US!

Whilst in the Former Colony, I did used to delight in announcing I was "off out to the alleyway for a quick fag". But then I'm massively childish.

You can always nip out the back for a quick puff.

I'll defer to your expertise on that score.

Quick pull on a docker.

I don't understand smoking at all.

I understand drugs that get you high in some way, that makes sense.

I understand alcohol, that can be pleasurable and intoxication (to a point) can be an enjoyable sensation.

But a drug you have to carry on taking just to feel 'normal' and will most likely fucking kill you in a somewhat grisly fashion, anyone continuing with that is into the realms of helpless addiction and nothing more, surely?

You'll never understand until you get yourself on at least 10 a day. Give it a try, it's great!

God I love smoking.

Still, I've made it through the whole working week! Just the weekend now, with beers tomorrow night. If I manage that, I'm golden.

Well.....yeah.

I've tried pretty much everything at one time or another, and had myself some pretty serious habits with various substances over the years.

Smoking is the one thing that has never, ever appealed to me. (Quite the opposite in fact, I find everything about it pretty repulsive.) I can honestly say I've never had a single puff of a cigarette, and I've never wanted to.

This was a considered decision, I looked at the smokers around me (a lot of my family are smokers) and thought 'What the fuck are they getting out of this filth apart from spending a fortune, smelling like shit, and getting really scratchy and irritable if they don't smoke for a few hours?'

It just made no sense to me at all.

Ecstasy on the other hand, fuck me I was going to have me some of that shit, because the upside clearly made it worth a punt. Seriously, if you're going to do drugs, at least do good drugs.

Have you tried snus?
All the joys of smoking, no lung cancer


only a slight bit of mouth cancer*

*may not be proven

I think any attempt to rationalise *any* addiction is ultimately folly. Basically, they're simply a failing of the Human Condition - or at least that's the way I see it.

Yes, smoking is particularly odd because there really is no upside at all (apart from perhaps marginally suppressing the appetite/raising the metabolism - hardly worth £8/day and a 50/50 chance of horrible, premature death). But there again, people get addicted to all sorts of other stuff and behaviours with no upside.

For example, I *knew*, just as surely as AE did back in the day, that I would never win on fruit machines and even if by some miracle I got incredibly lucky on a whole string of machines, I'd just keep plodding away until my money had gone. Back in my day, fruit machines had a £2.40 cash jackpot (this was perhaps 15 years back) - and yet I'd often pump £30-50 in one such machine, basically impossible to get your money back. It wasn't that I didn't realise this at the time, or even put it out of my mind. I just felt that I could not stop; there was an awful inevitability about it all; a perverse act, almost 'self-harm by proxy', is how I can best describe it?

Smoking is, ultimately, the same I feel. If it boiled down to a simple, rational choice, like whether or not to shop at Sainsbury's or Tescos, then obviously no-one would ever do it.

Surely the stupid part is starting (I mean smoking here)? I mean people of my age or younger. Yeah, yeah peer pressure, but you know, Just say "no".

Malc

Agreed, and for that matter, people of my age as well, and older still. The dangers of cigarettes have been well known and publicized for 40 years absolute minimum, possibly much longer. Of course, you're forgetting the 'rebel factor' here, though. People don't start smoking at 40, 30 or even 20 - they start at age 11-16, i.e. when still children, basically.

It perhaps helped that until I got to know people from here, I never had a friend who smoked, certainly, but even without that, I find it quite unlikely that I'd ever even try it.

It had nothing to do with peer pressure for me. I tried it and I liked it! It gives you a buzz at first.

I first tried it when I was 19, after my best friend complained of another friend who claimed to be 'desperate for a cigarette' but 'wasn't smoking them properly' (he was puffing on them like a cigar but not fully inhaling). I wasn't sure what she meant so she showed me how to smoke! It gives you a massive head rush if you're not used to it.

It was interesting but the smell and expense were off-putting. Having a few while out for drinks was okay but I couldn't just sit and smoke, it wasn't nice. Had never intended to take it up anyway, now I had personal experiences to back my resolve up with.

I recall being in MyFinger's back yard with him and some other folks, someone gave me a Marlboro Red (up until then I'd only ever smoked lights) and I was dizzy and my head was swimming before I was halfway finished it!

In my view, part of the reason for doing it (that's not chemical related) is that it just gives you something to do; it's a prop to play with, to punctuate sentences with and to gesture and point with. If you just have a pint in your hand all you can do is have another sip.

Yup. If you're an easily bored, easily distracted doofus like myself, fags really make drinking less dull.