Is Smoking Cool?

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A better question...is emphysema cool? Would you like hacking up phlegm and "tar" later in life? Smoking also, ages you...before lung cancer can eventually take your life.

Smoke gets in your eyes (and YOUR LUNGS!) topic

KimJ and the others are right, Angelgirl1224. The second hand smoke gets into everyone else's eyes and lungs, too.

I quit smoking 27 years ago, long before most of the WP members were ever born.
It was difficult, and not a day goes by that I do not think about doing it again. But I never have. Pakled is right. It is a life long addiction.

You can smoke a few, it's your choice. In my last post I said for some ppl it's hard just to smoke a few because it gets addictive. My sister is trying to quit regarding an uncle who died of lung cancer a month ago. She's having a hard time with it. As for it being cool, that's for you to decide. I really don't think smoking is that mainstream anymore.

Well...this could be the case. Either that or people think of you like a "sheep"...following the crowd and you could be rejected even more.
In either case, don't smoke just to fit in. It's not "cool" to my standards anyway.

*gets down on knees*

Please, please, please do not start smoking!

I work in Thoracic Medicine in a hospital in Australia. So I see the patients with lung cancer, emphysema etc etc

I run a Pulmonary Rehabilitation programme so get to know my patients really well. They live with chronic breathlessness, anxiety and depression.

Some people are susceptible to the effects of smoke and will get emphyseme and lung cancer. Other people have 'good genes' and can smoke and live to a ripe old age.

However, there is no test available now to determine whether you are susceptible to cigarette smoke or not. The only way is to take up smoking, wait a decade or more, then see if you get emphysema / lung cancer.

I see patients dying in their 40's from emphysema. Horrible deaths.

On a personal note, I smoked for 1 week in highschool to try to be more 'cool' (I was an ultra-nerd!)

The kids I was trying to impress called me a 'try-hard' and were unimpressed so I stopped smoking.

Helen

I don't think it's a good sacrifice. This is your health, and cigarettes are one of the few things known to give you Cancer. Now, I can't tell you how to run your life, but if you want to do something to be more normal, smoking is one of the worst choices. You'll spend your money on cigarettes, and the prices are high and only going to get higher, it's very addictive, and there are other things you can do to fit in other than sacrificing your money and health.

If they aren't pressuring you to smoke, it's no big deal. It's just something they do that you don't. If you don't want to do it, they don't mind if you don't do it, and the only benefit will be fleeting social popularity, I'd reccomend against it.

But this is your choice, after all. I just hope you can look back on it without any regrets, whatever you decide.

I smoked for about 8 years, and I'm not cool.

Anyway, it's getting really hard to smoke because it's banned in many places and the price of tobacco keeps rising, so I think it will start becoming less of an issue.

In this day and age there are other people that you can try to fit in with. Peer acceptance is a whole issue onto itself. I can't say that it is really that good of an idea. I used to stick out and do my own thing. People would complain that I never went with the crowd but then they were the ones copying me later, once I had experimented. I was one of the first in my school to bleach my hair in the 80's, I started trends.
So, what people say about you is completely unimportant. They may be jealous and later try to emulate you.

I have actually gotten seriously ill, from second hand smoke. I never smoked. Once I lived with a guy who smoked. We stayed at his parent's house, and they all smoked. I started coughing up blood, and went to a doctor. He asked me why didn't I give up smoking? When I told him it was all second hand, he advised me to move out, since I was very sensitive to smoke. It took me a long time to heal from that. Later, I was living in an apartment building which had lots of smokers. During the winter, I became ill with Bronchial Pneumonia, again, due to second hand smoke. Just my point of view. I have met many interesting people in life, who could spoil a perfectly nice friendship by their constant need to pollute themselves, and anyone within their immediate vicinity.

Please, please don't take up such a disgusting habit. You damage not only your own lungs, but those of other innocent bystanders. I've seen women so addicted, that they couldn't give up the habit even while pregnant. And of course they continued to smoke after the child was born, who in turn suffered from asthma and/or other chronic upper respiratory illnesses. It is a bad, selfish habit.

Last edited by hartzofspace on 09 Mar 2008, 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No its vile.

Trying to be cool is uncool, so your entire premise is flawed.

And smoking's disgusting.

hartzof- well my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me, so i guess i take your point.

anyway thank you for all your comments.
xx

I've gone through periods of being a smoker and being a non-smoker. I maybe smoke 1 cigarette every 3 days or so. I find that I don't get addicted at all, somehow. I can choose to stop or smoke whenever I want and I never really get an urge to just go nuts or buy a packet and start having Smoko's at work. It doesn't calm me down, it sometimes gives me headspins, but other than that I just enjoy the action and the feel of smoke going down my oesophagus.

I don't do it because its cool. I do it because its enjoyable to an extent and a pass-time that has existed for thousands of years. Smoking can kill you, but so can a lot of things, including alcahol and sun-tanning, so for me its a rare pass-time that I enjoy.

Smoking is a great way to trash your body. So if you're into doing stupid stuff like that, go ahead and smoke. It's something I never plan on doing.

No! Smoking is not cool. It's repulsive and makes people age faster. The better life management skills of the nonsmokers makes them more attractive to me. I suppose one can use smoking to self medicate for emotional problems, as such it's a red flag. It may cause the smoker to die at an early age, or worse, it can take away quality of life without necessarily shortening it.

Could smoking be a rational decision for some people who enjoy it so much that their enjoyment outweighs spending a few decades in a wheelchair, with an oxygen tank, wallowing in their own waste? I guess it's a question of what people want out of life. What's the difference between addiction and really, really, really enjoying something and does this distinction matter? Is "addiction" really just a way to dodge personal responsibility?

Unless dying is cool, no.
My mom thought she had cancer, and although she was lucky that it was just a simple surgey instead of cancer, she is planning on quitting smoking (once the turmoil in her life calms down) because she doesn't want to leave her life.