My Smoking Gun?
I have smoked since I was 17 and back then you could still smoke everywhere and anywhere, oh how times have changed. I remember the ashtray that used to sit on my work desk, the grey/blue plumes above all our heads and the constant cough of your workmates. If I am honest, I miss that.
- Image via Wikipedia
Nowadays you are treated like you have the plague. Friends and complete strangers seem to think it is acceptable to be rude to you. Take this morning for instance, I go out for a fag during the morning and commented to my colleague that I would not be long, and her reply, “Oh, off to take 10 minutes off your life are you”. I would have liked to have respond by saying something equally rude such as “Oi you fat cow your going to die of a heart attack of you don’t stop eating crap!” but of course I would never dream of saying such a thing, and I probably would not have even thought about it if she had not been so damn rude.
I get other such beauties as “You’ve just been for a fag, you stink!” Do people think these comments are helpful or in any way encouraging?
Let’s put this into perspective. I am the only smoker in my house and as such I do smoke in the house unless I have children in the building.
I do not let the children see me smoke, where possible. I do not smoke when I am walking around the park or in town but I do if I am driving but only if I am alone or travelling with another smoker.
I do not force my opinions on others who all seem to be ex-smokers with the “If I can, anyone can” give-up story, nor do I rant at others over their personal choices. At the end of the day I MAKE THE CHOICE TO SMOKE and if you don’t like it, fine by me just walk away.
The only comment ever made to me that made a difference was a year or so ago when I was sat outside work having a fag, a little old lady walked passed me, then stopped, turned around and came up to me. In a soft kindly voice that only belongs to little old ladies she said “Young lady, I have just lost my husband because he smoked, he was my life and I loved him very much and miss him everyday, please think about giving up so your husband never has to feel the pain I deal with everyday”. I gave up for 6 months after that but last Christmas I started again.
At least I know I can do it and I also know I want to give up but it has to be on my terms, for the right reasons and in my own time. Your personal reasons are the only way you can give up but for those who don’t, leave them alone, it is there life not yours.
Rant Done!
Take Care People
*Out back of office having a quick fag*
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5 Responses to My Smoking Gun?
All that jazz – All in A Day
Review of: Cousin Alice Jazz Music by Cousin Alice: Elaine Sturgess Reviewed by: Elaine Sturgess Rating: 5 On January 21, 2012 Last modified: January 30, 2012 Summary: What makes Alice so distinctive is her wonderfully smokey voice, a quality that furniture designer William Yeoward found so arresting at a concert she was performing for the [...]
Ahem, put that fag out luv, this is a non smoking blog… *runs for cover*
Thanks for this one Angie. I totally agree with everything you’ve said. As a smoker with 2 children,I do not smoke in the house or the car, but they do know that I smoke.
I get fed up of being almost persecuted for being a smoker. I did do a blog on it a long time ago, but think it was probably a bit over the top for publishing, fair enough!
I know that I can go days without a cigarette if I chose to and often do, so I don’t consider it an immoveable force to give up, just in MY own time, not someone elses.
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The thing that I find very sad, Angie, is the few smoking friends I have who fondly imagine that just because they don’t smoke in front of their children, their children don’t know they are smokers. Of course they do, because it is true that most non-smokers can smell a smoker when they have had a cigarette.
The only smoker I know of, of whom this is not true is my boyfriend, and it’s because he does not swallow the smoke (I assume) and is fastidious about hygiene – I didn’t know for a whole year that he was a smoker! I won’t stop him, because nagging doesn’t help. He’s an adult and it is his choice.
The other thing I hate to see is a mum pushing a buggy with one hand while holding a cigarette with the other. It’s the “don’t care” attitude towards her child which is heartbreaking.
You may smoke as much as you like, on whatever terms you like (though not in my house!
), but smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer by far, and inhaling secondary smoke is not much better than dragging it through your own lungs. (And yes, I have tried smoking, and I gave it up after three days because I didn’t like it and it was too expensive.)
My excuse is that smoking was still very popular when I started as a teenager. There was none of the looking -down-noses that accompanies it as there is almost automatically nowadays by non smokers or, even worse, reformed ex smokers who’ve ‘seen the light’: Give me strength!
Advertising was still rampant across TV and press and boy! did it ‘sell the sizzle’… I think there were connections being made between smoking and certain illnesses/ diseases but quite frankly
a) there were and are many people who’d never smoked a cigarette in their lives who’d contracted those same diseases
b) at that age you just know you’re invincible
c) everybody knows somebody who smoked 2 packs a day and lived into their 90s
As a teen you’re pretty impressionable and there were still plenty of films where the lead actors/ actresses made smoking look so cool and who didn’t want to be like them? I remember that, with two older sisters, I also didn’t want to look or be treated like a kid. What better way to show maturity than with a fag hanging out the corner of your mouth…
I tried stopping in my mid twenties but that was a dismal failure – still loads of smokers around in work and social environments and I don’t think I really wanted to stop so much as thought I OUGHT to.
I didn’t have anything like the tender moment you describe with the little old lady to decide me three years ago to have another bash. I’d cut well down over the years and frankly found it worked fine using the Alan Carr method – until the first major drama 8 months down the line. To be fair, I hadn’t followed the instructions to the T – I still had a packet with a few cigarettes in it. So off we went, hooked again…
Stopped again April – this time didn’t keep any reserve – so we’ll see.
Your paragraph before the ‘rant done’ works for me, Angie
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