Quit smoking

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Wizard46 said:
Helped me a lot when the doctor told me " you can quit smoking or die, your choice ", really made me see the light but still was not easy.
Wizard46
I've learned 2 things about smoking cigarettes since I started smoking 63 years ago.
1.) It's easy to quit smoking ..(I've done it hundreds of times).
2.) Even non smokers die eventually.
 
mel s said:
Wizard46
I've learned 2 things about smoking cigarettes since I started smoking 63 years ago.
1.) It's easy to quit smoking ..(I've done it hundreds of times).
2.) Even non smokers die eventually.
May be, but most of the options that result from Smoking are WAY down on my list of ways to go.
 
Tom said:
Isn't that a fact Bill. The National Lung Association used to have a saying on their web site" "When you can't breathe, nothing else matters".

  That is a fact, the inability to breath becomes all consuming. Lung disease progresses not at an even pace but the rate of decline increases as time passes. The body tries to make best use of the oxygen it receives by slowing down certain functions such as the hair on legs and arms began to disappear, then fingernails and toenails curved down as bone and tissue at the extremities could not get enough oxygen. Muscles deteriorate and organs slow down. Nurses instantly recognize you by the blue lips and gasping for air, they called us "blue puffers".
  This is not a pleasant way to come to your end, instead it is a long drawn out miserable way to slowly choke to death. It makes you wish for someone or something to bring it to an end sooner.  Fortunately I was one of the rare ones to get a near perfect match for transplant but that is about as likes as most to win the lottery and would a person really like to have their chest cut from armpit to armpit then their lungs scraped from inside their chest wall........I wish everyone would take the consequences seriously !! 
  Seven years, three months, one day and still kicking the can down the road.....
 
Started when I was 13 because I though it was cool.  Luckily never became a heavy smoker and quit for good about 22 years ago. 
 
I'm with you on that! We stopped in October, 1987 so it's been 36 1/2 years since we quit. I had been smoking for just over 26 years.
I started smoking 55 years ago. I stopped smoking 53 years ago, cold turkey.

Why do I remember the years so well? 1969 to 1971 I smoked.

Yeah, I started smoking in the army. Those were the days when the army encouraged us to smoke (times have changed!). I quit the day I got out of the army.

BTW, cigarettes were free to us grants in Vietnam. In more ways than one. Not only were there a few (pack of four to be exact) cigarettes in our C-rations, we got them free by the cartoon with our other supplies. Flown into us by chopper, such as by @HueyPilotVN.

-Don- Reno, NV
 
Quit when the cost of cigarettes was $1.00 a pack. Don't know what I saved but suspect it's significant. It's been almost 40 years and I was a two pack a day smoker.
 
i quit 6/20/83 11am. i almost died from alcoholic brain seizures then and when i got my brain back i decided to quit everything.
 
I quit by never starting,,
IOW, you were a non-Kool and square kid.

IMO, another word for "Kool" is "stupid".

IMO, a good definition for the word "square" is "smarter than most others".

I wish I were as "non-kool" and as square as you were all your life.

Even though I did smoke for a short while, what did our bodies try to tell us when we took that first drag? How come so many of us do not listen? It seems so ridiculous that we must learn how to enjoy something that we dislike in the beginning and is bad for us. Hate it at first, but we must force ourselves to enjoy it so we can get addicted.

IMAO, us humans are mostly illogical.

-Don- Reno, NV
 
Well, I'm not sure what my original post in here said as far as years go, but since we're updating, it has been 34 years since I quit. Well, close to that (actual quit date was 9/11/1992).
 
In 2008 I kinda quit. I was working at one of our divisions in Spokane. They didn't allow smoking. But when I got there I saw lots of people, even the president of their company were smoking inside the office. He showed me something I'd never heard of, the new electronic cigarettes that ran on those new lithium batteries. At lunch he took me to his smoke shop. Since I'd been smoking 2 packs a day for 30 years the manager mixed up a 36mg nicotine blend for me instead of the standard 6mg. I started volunteering for trips to Spokane at every opportunity.

I had tried to quit smoking many times before but I quit smoking that night. Unless you want to call using an ecig smoking.

I was 56 then. After 2 years my doctor did a chest x-ray. My lungs looked like a non-smoker. He sent me for a complete lab workup and a stress test. After the results he gave me a life expectancy over 100. He started recommending ecigs to his other patients who couldn't quit. Even my dentist said that must be why my progressive gum disease went away.

Now I'm 71. My clothes, house, car, and RV no longer smells like smoke. I can breathe better now than when I was 25. I did have to start taking a high blood pressure RX last year but that's the only RX I've ever needed.

I may quit eventually. But I'm still able to walk 10 miles a day with my step daughter when we go sightseeing. While I'm puffing on this thing like a pacifier. So it may be awhile before I quit.
 
I had been up to almost 2-packs a day and decided to try to quit. So, over a period of about 6 months I whittled it down to about 6 a day. But, during the same period I had lost about 25 pounds over less than a year and I looked like a skeleton. I thought surely I had the "Big C", so in June 2020 I went to the doc who ran a bunch of tests, including a chest and abdominal scan.

Blood tests came back with ultra-low levels of vitamin B-12 and Folic Acid, both of which help with weight metabolism, and both of which are lowered by the presence of nicotine. OK, B-12 and Folate supplements. I couldn't quite get past that 6-per-day thing, so the doc put me on Chantix. Was supposed to be a 6-week regimen, but after 2 weeks I smoked my last cigarette on 07/02/2020.

Chest scan came back with a spot on my lower left lung - and minor emphysema. Diagnosis was a calcified "nodule". OK, no more smoking. And back for another CT in 6-months...no change. Then another one annually for the next 2 years...no change. I don't really feel the emphysema, but the doc said it was barely noticeable on the scan so maybe I got lucky.

Don't really miss it, but once in a while after a meal I feel like a cigarette. If I ignore it for a minute the feeling goes away. A carton was up to about $70 when I quit, so I figure just in 3.5 years I've not spent about $13,000.
 
I started when I was in Navy boot-camp. Every time we got a break it was "fall out, smoke em if you've got em" followed shortly after with "Wood, you don't smoke and I need you to run an errand." By the time that I got to submarine duty was pretty regular at it and most of my shipmates were smokers too. We could bet cigarettes with no federal taxes just before going to sea so most of us would stock up for about 10¢ per pack. By the time I left the Navy after 8 years I was an addict. I quit when my doctor told me that I was beginning to show signs of early stage emphysema. Today at 81 I do have some shortness of breath, but the doctor says that's more age that my previous smoking 37 years ago.
I'm puffing on this thing like a pacifier.
Of our 3 sons, only the youngest took up smoking and he was the one who gave us the most crap about smoking. Today he uses one of those pacifiers too, but medical reports are that while they are not as bad as cigarettes, they are bad for you.
Is vaping bad for you? There are many unknowns about vaping, including what chemicals make up the vapor and how they affect physical health over the long term. “People need to understand that e-cigarettes are potentially dangerous to your health,” says Blaha. “Emerging data suggests links to chronic lung disease and asthma, as well as associations between dual use of e-cigarettes and smoking with cardiovascular disease. You’re exposing yourself to all kinds of chemicals that we don’t yet understand and that are probably not safe.”

5 Vaping Facts You Need to Know

 
I started when I was in Navy boot-camp. Every time we got a break it was "fall out, smoke em if you've got em"
In the army it was often "take a smoke break if you have them" or else continue with the PT.

The army encouraged us to smoke back in those days.

-Don- Reno, NV
 
I'm lucky that I was heavily discouraged by my mother and grandmother who both smoked! I've never tried. I've always thought it disgusting.

A friend's 32 year old nephew has just been diagnosed with COPD likely caused by previous smoking and very heavy vaping.

They were supposed to only be to aid smoking cessation but of course they're now the new addiction for youngsters. Sad.
 

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