Trying to quit smoking

dhh712 said:

Thank you. ...

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YW @dhh712

You're evidently a history buff; I was interested to read that apparently in Antebellum times in some areas it was customary on Sundays after church for women to congregate outdoors and smoke together; in fact it was even considered a bit rude not to smoke as well if one joined them in conversation.

Fast forward to the Progressive Era onward, from where the Fundamentalists got a lot of their culture, and it became a supposed taboo in many Fundamentalist churches for people - especially women - to smoke.

Obviously what is known now about the effects of heavy cigarette smoking is greater than what was known in Antebellum times, and in any case in those days it wouldn't have been the cigarettes like you occasionally smoke but pipes that women would smoke, after church.

If heavy smokers can quit, then more power to them, I say.

But I really don't buy at all the idea that the mere fact that a woman in her own right as an adult smokes an occasional cigarette socially, etc., is supposedly "unladylike"; I really don't buy that sort of Fundamentalist taboo at all....

(Such a taboo, historically, would be hard to vindicate, also.)

dhh712 said:

I'm actually quite a fairly disciplined person and don't have an addictive personality so I'm not sure if that is an extension of that (though the nicotine would be something physical and the personality though rooted in physiology is quite different in my understanding).

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@dhh712 This is a thoughtful comment.

Yes I can see the separate personality and physiological aspects. You are of course right.

Sometimes - popularly, anecdotally, etc. - someone who chain-smokes might also be described as nervous/neurotic, etc. Maybe so; maybe not.

I do think also that someone who is a disciplined person who knows how to use a cigarette occasionally in a social setting, having learned with poise how to maximize a single cigarette quite fully cannot be derided supposedly as a "neurotic chain smoker"; this would be totally unfair.

So are right about the distinction between these physiological and personality aspects.

@Heart2Soul So a while ago you posted your successful efforts so far to become smoke-free. This was great news. So is it still a continued success?

(I know a lot of ex-military ppl feel that their basic fitness was sometimes challenged by a smoking habit. Mind you, the military can be very stressful, of course.)

LadyofFireandLace said:

Topic title- Trying to quit smoking

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Here's some motivation-
1- A lot of boys won't want to kiss you if you smoke..
I don't smoke myself and could never want to take up with a woman smoker who smells like a hairy trucker, so when thinking about dating a woman I always try to firstly discreetly find out if she smokes but it's not always easy and I've had to ditch a couple in the past when it turned out they were smokers.

2- Both my parents were heavy smokers and it must have cost them a packet. There was always enough food on the table, but they were too skint to buy things like a TV set or record player or books etc for the family home, so it's a pity that smoking parents put their filthy habit before their kids..

3- Then there's the health thing, smokers poison their bodies with it for years, but cancer usually zaps them in the end. My smoking bro-in-law died of cancer in his mid-60's leaving his grieving wife to struggle on without him for the rest of her life.

PS- some women continue to smoke during pregnancy, my mother did and she tried to make light of it and told me "It hasn't done you any harm".
But I've had migraine attacks most of my life, so who knows?

VictoryinJesus said:

I tried vaping and couldn’t inhale without pain. I have an inhaler for asthma and for me vaping feels harsher on breathing in. I cough worse with vaping than with cigarettes.

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@VictoryinJesus

Don't beat yourself up, anyway.

Evidently cigarettes work better for you for your inhales.

Maybe with a low tar brand it could help you gradually to cut down.

Keep looking up.

@Dropship I saw your post; I think that it's best not to generalize too much about women who smoke; as @dhh712 says, for her a pack might take 3 to 4 months to get through; not all women smokers are heavy smokers.

cc @shortangel

farouk said:

@Dropship I saw your post; I think that it's best not to generalize too much about women who smoke; as @dhh712 says, for her a pack might take 3 to 4 months to get through; not all women smokers are heavy smokers..

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A smoker is a smoker whether it's one a week or a hundred a day.
Call me picky but there's nothing destroys a womans feminine appeal more than smoking..

Dropship said:

A smoker is a smoker whether it's one a week or a hundred a day.
Call me picky but there's nothing destroys a womans feminine appeal more than smoking..

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Well, speaking from a fellowship angle, I don't think an occasional cigarette will nullify a Godly Christian woman's exercise in prayer and Scripture meditation.

farouk said:

Well, speaking from a fellowship angle, I don't think an occasional cigarette will nullify a Godly Christian woman's exercise in prayer and Scripture meditation.

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If you don't mind her nicotine addiction, her smokers cough, black lungs and stink, you're tougher than I am mate.
Why do people smoke anyway, I never have and all the sensible people i know never have either..

It is really tough.

Self-discipline is the key.

To tell your body no and do something else. I have smoked on and off in life, longest time not was probably 3 months.

There was a young lady who worked in the grocers who smoked, her excuse was "I only started so that I could take fag breaks with the other workers".

Dropship said:

There was a young lady who worked in the grocers who smoked, her excuse was "I only started so that I could take fag breaks with the other workers".

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My Navy kid took up smoking for the same reason. It was the only acceptable reason you could go take a break on deck while on sea duty.

Lambano said:

My Navy kid took up smoking for the same reason. It was the only acceptable reason you could go take a break on deck while on sea duty.

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There is a strong pull to social smoking, isn't there?

cc @Dropship

Self discipline sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. When it does, we take the glory for our own accomplishments. Leads to pride. Let God take away all our addictions, bad habits, and love for the world and things thereof. Let self discipline indeed be operative in the life, but toward Bible study and prayer. It is through prayer and the word of God by which we are cleansed. Righteousness is a gift. The discipline needed is to make ourselves available to receive it.

Dropship said:

There was a young lady who worked in the grocers who smoked, her excuse was "I only started so that I could take fag breaks with the other workers".

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You wouldn't want to use the term fags here, it means something else, I know in the UK it means cigarettes but here it means a homosexual.

LadyofFireandLace said:

I started smoking LONG before I actually started walking with God. It was actually never my choice. I hated smoking. I don't want to get into that story too much. Basically, it was a bad situation and it was forced on me. I got addicted and then I quit, and then I didn't know how to cope with certain things and started again on my own at 19.

I quit again and again and again, and for six days at the beginning of this month, but without any emotional support besides a different forum - but it didn't give me any Christian support/comfort that I was kind of craving and then in real life there was zero emotional support. Actually it was the opposite and more of just constant criticism.

Now after being here I feel like I have a little more emotional support with dealing with certain things so I'm ready to try again.

I don't really have a point. Just wanted to share.

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Personal story:
I started Smoking because I wanted to quickly built to 3 packs a day (back when they were $0.35 a pack). But some years later when in '63, I was Born Again of the Holy Spirit, and became a Christian. The next morning, I simply didn't smoke any more. it was GONE, no withdrawal, no craving, NOTHING just like I'd never smoked. But then a few weeks after, the fellow next door's wife had a baby, and he was passing around "it's a BOY" cigars. so I took one, lit it, took a couple of puffs, got Convicted by the Spirit, and put it out. The next morning, I woke up totally "HOOKED" again - right back to three packs a day.

4-5 years later, after I got Married, I had been trying to quit, but couldn't. I went to an Assembly of God couple's retreat for a couple of days (where there were no cigarette machines), and got prayed for to quit.

So after two days with no smokes, I was utterly bonkers with craving, and as soo as I got home, I jumped in the car went to the nearest cigarette machine, but my quarter in the slot, and had my dime in my hand, and HE was there, and HE asked me if I really wanted to throw it all away??? I'd been two days off, and did I REALLY want to throw that away? so I never did put the dime in, but I did buy some life-savers, and drove home. over the next 3-4 weeks, I probably lost $20 in Quarters (wasn't bright enough to put the dine in first), and every time HE was there with the same question. and after a couple of months, I stopped going to the Cigarette machine. and in about 6 months I stopped buying life savers, and the "Smoking dreams" (where I'd light up and LOVE the taste, and wake up all convicted, until I remembered it was just a dream) got less frequent. So my last Cigarette was 55 years ago. The serious craving stopped decades ago, but now and again, there's an odor in the air, of somebody leaving second-hand smoke, and I wish I could do that again. I'm STILL a "Smoker" - I just didn't light up today - again.

Bob Carabbio said:

Personal story:
I started Smoking because I wanted to quickly built to 3 packs a day (back when they were $0.35 a pack). But some years later when in '63, I was Born Again of the Holy Spirit, and became a Christian. The next morning, I simply didn't smoke any more. it was GONE, no withdrawal, no craving, NOTHING just like I'd never smoked. But then a few weeks after, the fellow next door's wife had a baby, and he was passing around "it's a BOY" cigars. so I took one, lit it, took a couple of puffs, got Convicted by the Spirit, and put it out. The next morning, I woke up totally "HOOKED" again - right back to three packs a day.

4-5 years later, after I got Married, I had been trying to quit, but couldn't. I went to an Assembly of God couple's retreat for a couple of days (where there were no cigarette machines), and got prayed for to quit.

So after two days with no smokes, I was utterly bonkers with craving, and as soo as I got home, I jumped in the car went to the nearest cigarette machine, but my quarter in the slot, and had my dime in my hand, and HE was there, and HE asked me if I really wanted to throw it all away??? I'd been two days off, and did I REALLY want to throw that away? so I never did put the dime in, but I did buy some life-savers, and drove home. over the next 3-4 weeks, I probably lost $20 in Quarters (wasn't bright enough to put the dine in first), and every time HE was there with the same question. and after a couple of months, I stopped going to the Cigarette machine. and in about 6 months I stopped buying life savers, and the "Smoking dreams" (where I'd light up and LOVE the taste, and wake up all convicted, until I remembered it was just a dream) got less frequent. So my last Cigarette was 55 years ago. The serious craving stopped decades ago, but now and again, there's an odor in the air, of somebody leaving second-hand smoke, and I wish I could do that again. I'm STILL a "Smoker" - I just didn't light up today - again.

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My wife and I haven't smoked for 20 years or so. When we come outside of a mall or supermarket, where there may be just one person smoking 20 yards away, we both instantly recoil in disgust. Not disgust of the person, but the smell. It just seems so foul, I'm embarrassed that way back I use to leave that stench behind me wherever I went. Yuk.

Brakelite said:

My wife and I haven't smoked for 20 years or so. When we come outside of a mall or supermarket, where there may be just one person smoking 20 yards away, we both instantly recoil in disgust. Not disgust of the person, but the smell. It just seems so foul, I'm embarrassed that way back I use to leave that stench behind me wherever I went. Yuk.

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Personally I still enjoy second hand smoke, as long as it's no too intense (the back of an airplane, back when smoking was permitted) was way beyond tolerable.

Incidentally we know many men won't touch a woman who smokes, but how do women feel about taking up with a man who smokes?