~~~~~~~~"Who Smokes?"~~~~~~~~

Post Reply New Topic

I have smoked on and off over the 24 years since had first cigarette. I stopped 3 years ago after reading The Sceptical Ecologist, and Michael Crichtons book " Fear", when realised for first time that i was more likely to die prematurely from smoking than from catastrophic climate change ( tho i still love the film "The Day After Tomorrow"! ).
I started smoking cigarettes occasionally aged 20 because bought them to make spliffs with, and began serious smoking habit the day i graduated from university. I was an adult!! It was scary!
I smoked a lot for 2 years, stopped for 6 months, started again, stopped again etc. Was def a stop-start smoker, for years. Only smoked for 4 out of the last ten years. When i did smoke in those 10 years i rarely smoked more than 5-8 rollies a day. But when first started i smoked easily a pack a day.
Smoking at one time was def an aspie prop because it was how i met the people i generally got on with at bigger gatherings. When i stopped i would find myself with the ordinaries. The nicey normals, the borings. That is how it seemed to me.
It was something to stim with, something to stare at other than peoples eyes. It was very handy.
It has been a long journey to giving up.
I suspect I eventually managed it not only because had had the fear-bubble blown up but also because i had begun to accept "me" in my real socially-non-clicking self, and the realisation that however many cigarettes i smoked wasn't going to change that.
So i was wondering how much aspies smoke, and why, and about stopping etc? ? ?

I dont smoke
to expensive
I cant even afford to ride the bus

I've never lit up a cigarette or taken one puff on one. Nor a joint. The closest I came to smoking is second-hand.

the smell of cig smoke makes me so ill.
I don't have a weak stomach, but that is one thing that will send me over the edge.

remember kids -- it's never too late to start smoking



i'm kidding -- it's disgusting. don't ever EVER start. it's like friggin' crack

Never have, and never will.

i had 1 fag or what ever u call em, where i live they called fag's and anyway i had 1.....well it was more like a pack just to see what it was like then i never had 1 again.....or a pack i did't like it so i wrote smoke kills all around ma house so my mum will know not to smoke near me because i don't want to die from smoking

Filthy habit...

Both my parents were smokers when I was growing up. My mother quit years ago. My dad recently died from the complications of chronic smoking (COPD and congestive heart failure), after living a severely disabled existence and being a burden on his family for the last 12 years. He even had to retired early from his career as a college professor, the only thing that he really loved (god knows he didn't love his family much ) and spent the reminder of his sad life depressed and angry, unable to do much more than sit in front of the TV and read. That's enough to make me repulsed by smoking for eternity.

growing up, even though both my parents were smokers, they never put it infront of anything...
we were always first (my brother and I) which is something I really admire about my parents-they're good people
and showed me you don't need money to have some of the best times I have ever had.
Some of the best memories were camping behind the forest of my old house with my dad and brother
roasting hot dogs
or my mom bringing me to the war museum on rememberance day (it being free and much more interesting) we still go, the savings is just a nice touch
we went to all sorts of museums
they also taught me the joys of giving to others

As a kid, with a few cousins, one was smoking and wanted me to try, I tried and got a coughing attack, since then I never tried again, and now I dispise cigarettes and smoking and secondhand smoking.

amazing .... so far totally non-smokers.

It fits with what i thought when i was a smoker about introverted serious non-smoking types like my sister etc. The sort of people that i def did not identify with until my opioid-high and/or narcissistic personality construct collapsed and i began to see the introvert/aspie hidden/lost underneath.( i'm still excavating)
This is so weird.
Please carry on voting and posting. This is fascinating. Thanks for replies.
The first time i stopped smoking for more than 5-6 months, or reduced dramatically my habit when did smoke, was after i had begun to find a very different me under all the bread and cheese and alcohol fuelled mania and narcissism, which had supported my social life from late teens on particularly.

I have never smoked because I have asthma.

I've smoked before, in an attempt to make myself blend in with the crowd a little, but it started to make me sick, and now I don't smoke at all, and never will again.

I don't smoke. Occasionally I use this stuff, though...

I smoke. I hate it. I don't do it for any other reason other then I'm totally addicted to nicotine. I plan to quit in a few months. I just can't stand it any longer. There is nothing positive about wasting my money, my time, and my health. I added it up one time, I actually spend about 2 hrs a day just going out to have a cigarette. Not to mention about $85 a month.

If I had a time machine the first thing that I would do is go back in time, and talk some sense into my teenager self. Of course, this would probably still not work, as my teenager self would not listen to my present self, since as I teen I thought I knew everything. lol