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Never smoked, foolish habit.

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Yep I admit I was a foolish schoolgirl

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I did smoke but haven't for 32 years. Apart from any health and anti-social issues, we must have saved a fortune by not smoking. It's such an expensive habit these days. I don't know how people afford it.

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I was lucky. Both my parents were trying – not that successfully – to give up by the time I was a teenager. I came to the obvious conclusion that it was better not to start.

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Looks a bit common to me.
LOL

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I packed up over 17 years ago going cold turkey from 60 a day. I still miss them now but not the smell. I then turned to drink and am pleased to say I knocked that on the head too last Christmas. Life is kind of boring but at least I have lost lots of weight too. I shall be sprouting wings soon! Lol

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Thats what its been like for me as well Barry, a huge love affair

I started when I was 11 and had a 20/40 a day habit by time I was 15. I remember when they first got hit by huge taxes and went up 15p from 35p to 50p, I said then thats it Im quitting

Took 30 years for me to quit. done 5 years and started again

Ive not smoked a cigarette now for over a year and still I know I could fold any time and pick one up

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I started to smoke (the odd one I could cadge) from about 8, but 'officially' began to smoke when I was 16. Thirty odd years later and I collapsed in the pub with chest pains. Was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and hospitalised for a week and dosed with Heparin and them Warfarin. I had three packets of cigarettes in my pocket when the ambulance scooped me. In hospital I was tied to two large cylinders of oxygen and a heparin drip clamped to the bed head and fed into my veins via a cannular in my wrist. By the end of the second day there I was climbing the walls for a cigarette. The Doctors took pity on me and slapped a nicotine patch on my arm. On release from hospital I then had to do the three month patch programme. I did slip one or twice and had the odd ciggie still wearing the patch, but did manage to give up entirely.

Nowadays my lungs are a mess, badly scarred by the Emboli, (I've had five) the smoking and various work-related damage. I am currently being treated for Emphysema and Pulmonary Fibrosis as well as a blood related disease.

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That reminds me of a woman I know. She had to go into hospital for a week and she cried the whole time. She told her family it was because she missed them and was homesick but she told me the truth was that she missed her cigarettes and was going mad craving them. She said that if she had to choose between a smoke or having her family there she would have chosen the smoke! It is indeed a very powerful addiction.

Re: Smoker or Non Smoker

Like you I smoked about 60 a day, often used to light one off the previous one. The best smoke was the first one of the day which I used to have before I got up.

I enjoyed my addiction no end but I am glad I gave it up.

The first inkling I had that I could give it up was years before I finally did when I had a job as a postman. Smoking was banned in the sorting office for obvious reasons so there was a mad rush at the breaks for the bar (yep the SW1 sorting office had its own bar!) so one could have a drink and a fag.