When did you start smoking

[Cbdave]

Gday

JustKay mention this in her post.

Started me thinking.

Not ready for an answer just yet

When did you start? Is only the beginning of the questions. Why. What was the world you lived in. Could you afford to smoke. Could you  not smoke due to per pressure. 
Why we started has nothing to do with why we quit. Or does it

 

 

[Doreensfree]

Hi Dave 

I was a 11 yr old kid .

Who started to hang out with older kids who smoked 

I wanted to be as big as them …

I took my turn to have a puff in the circle 

Soon got hooked

[QuittingGirl]

I was 17 and in high school and my friend and I bought a pack together.  I didn't smoke a lot in the early days and didn't think I would get addicted, boy was I wrong.  I smoked until 2009, (smoking 2 pks a day) when I quit for 6 years.  Unfortunately, I went back to smoking and here I am 2 1/2 years quit again and for the last time!!

[DenaliBlues]

A good set of questions to reflect on @Cbdave. 

 

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 8 years old - a mere child. I remember it vividly. It was wintertime and -20 F below zero. I stood outside in the snow, behind the wood pile, my hands shivering while I was trying to light a match. My fingertips went numb. I puked afterwards. I saw stars and my head hurt. But I went back for more, like we all did. I was hooked by the time I was 13 and was up to a pack per day by the time I was 17 or 18. 

 

Why did I start? It's so complicated. In part I was rebelling against a mother who hated smoking and mirroring an often-absent father who loved smoking. But on a deeper level, I think I was mostly trying to numb out trauma and avoid feelings I didn't otherwise know how to cope with. For me, smoking was not about peer pressure from other kids. It was internal. Unconsciously, I think I was trying to scorch out tough feelings, to escape, and to fast forward to adulthood. My brain was too young to appreciate the consequences of my actions, but it certainly did like the dopamine hit. So of course I got addicted. Smoking eventually became a strong part of my identity, as a rugged individualistic "outsider." That made it even tougher to quit. Because there were chemical and psychological factors all tangled up together. 

 

I absolutely could not afford to smoke. There were plenty of times that I had to ration how many packs I would buy in order to make rent or have enough food. But you know addicts, we'll always find a way to maintain our habit. 

 

In some ways I think that quitting can call us into a kind of reckoning with our inner selves as well as our outer behaviors. Why are we drawn to smoking? What do we think we're getting out of it? What stories do we tell ourselves about it, and how does that compare to the reality? Achieving abstinence from nicotine is certainly a big milestone. But I think one of the reasons my earlier quits didn't stick was because I stopped with just abstinence. I never was willing to attempt a deeper RECOVERY. I didn't examine the injuries I incurred from smoking (physical, mental, spiritual), or work to understand addiction, or become accountable for the ways that my smoking hurt others, etc. I'm working on all of those things this time. It fundamentally alters how I experience the desire to smoke. And that change is part of how I know that I have finally found my forever quit, here on the Quit Train.

           

[Doreensfree]

A Great honest post @DenaliBlues

Your reasons for starting as a kid …reminded me I also was running away from stuff …I try and keep forgotten …

I totally get it …

[intoxicated yoda]

why did i start?  probably because i thought it would make me somebody i wanted to be.  it didn't...but i didn't figure it out before I was addicted.  but isn't that the way marketing for cigs works?  make you think that everyone else will think you are one of the cool kids?  but we all know who we really are deep down.  the genius of the marketing isn't to fool us into thinking we will be someone else, it's to fool us into believing we will fool everyone else into thinking we are some different, but to everyone else we are still the same ol' idiots we always were with the addition of looking more stupid with a cigarette hanging out of our mouths.  then after you mature enough you realize that there are no such thing as the cool kids, we are all weirdos of our own brand but isn't that what being 'cool' is all about?  yep...we all got faked out but when you can appreciate the genius of the lie you can heal your own ego and walk away from it.  no shame in getting fooled, only shame is in staying the fool.  congrats all you quitters and happy new year.

[Cbdave]

Gday

I was 13 or 14 looking for exceptance in a little country town. Most adults smoked everwhere.  Inside buildings in homes at work no one would dare to ask you not to smoke. 
My cig of choice Winfield blue, .40c a packet of 25. TV adverts by Paul hogan ( in black and white) so they must be good.

Deceided to join the navy and see the world. So I gave the cigs away to get to my best fitness to get exceptance into the navy.

Once in I discovered everyone smoked. It was part of the culture. And it was encouraged. Cut price cigs on the bases, duty free on a ship. So I smoked off and on from then on.

Ends up the world changed when I got in my 50s. I became expensive and inconvenient to smoke. No exceptance in this new world. No one would dare to smoke inside, if someone complained you would not dare to say anything. 
Stage was set for the final quit but I’d always quit for periods before knowing I could always go back to smoking. 
The trigger was a cold then pneumonia. I was a pretty sick puppy.i asked my doctor for champix and he said No, wait for 2weeks to heal. I was back in 2 weeks determined!

Well I made it. A few complications along the way cancer, strokes, COPD all survivable because I didn’t smoke. My old Doc passed away more proud that I’d given away the cigs than survived other things. He didn’t have many patients the did  give the cigs away 
I’m determined to say NOPE every day. I reminds me I’m still that addict and I’m only ever one puff away from 20 a day.

Im pretty happy in my own skin these days. Exceptance? I except life has been what it’s been.

Don’t  need to tell people that I used to smoke and gave it away. 
The form says Smoker or Non Smoker I’ll tick the Non Smoker without a thought.