Comments on: Here’s (Cough) Looking at You, Kid

by: Arthur

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:51:59 +0100

To all of you that say: “I’m going to die sometime, it might as well be from cancer.” I ask this: do you think it’ll be like shutting off a light? You’ll die a long, drawn out, painful death. No thank you.

by: Sayit

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:28:21 +0000

Wow..this is a great site…and a real wake up call for myself and my smoking hubby who is in real denial and wheezing up a storm lately!
I was raised in a smokers household and surrounded by smokers and now I myself am one of those “social smokers”.
I know better, am more educated and yet…it is a nasty stupid habit and yet allow myself to fall into a trigger to light up…behavioural addictions at its best!
So enough of my excuses…I am quitting NOW and forcing hubby to see the light..not the lighter.

Thanks The C.O. to your kick in the butt…I needed it!

Good Work!

by: och aye the noo etc etc

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:03:36 +0100

BTW - in relation to this page (which is what I meant to comment on above, just went all tangenty!), my Mum’s particular wheeze which I can imagine her saying to her Dr is that her parenst both lived to a ripe old age (only grandpa smoked, cigras and not many but he ended up with bronchitis and a weird yellow phlegm he sometimes had to spit out).
She also claims to smoke about 5 a day to anyone who asks. She tries to prevent me from mentioning it (the secrecy - the denail - the pretence - all mentioned by this blog) to any of my friends or any other relatives. Again, the parent-child reversal which I can almost imagine her doing in any hospital.
Anyone she meets who still smokes becomes her instand ‘friend’, they could be the nastiest person on earth. And she is DELIGHTED if she finds out anyone fanous smokes, telling me each time ‘ The Duchess of Cornwall smokes’ . YES MUM, but she has
a) a horrible cat’s bum mouth as a result and
b) clearly not as many as you and anyway, last I heard, she gave up probalby as her highly expensive DR told her to.

At 1 wedding my Mum was practically doing cartwheels when she saw a Dr puffing on a cigar (his one for that year probably). She came back from a wedding in Spain and shoved the photos under my nose going ‘look, they gave out cigars, not chocolates’.
Go and live in spain then, Mum, ah I forgot, you couldn’t stand the slightly ‘dodgy’ Spanish people who live there.
Wonderful.
I think I will print out this blog and then report back on my Mum’s response, probably in denial or somehow trying to ‘excuse’ herself or differentiate herself from other smokers.
THis blog really touched a nerve and I don’t think it is meant to ‘judge’ smokers. I think it is saying that it is so upsetting to see sane, otherwise fit and healthy people trying to convince themselves that their smoking was either worth dying for or that it was unavoidable - that they were just ‘unlucky’. After all, just like my Mum, they probaby only smoked 5 a day…

by: och aye the noo etc etc

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:46:47 +0100

As I was saying..! Both my parents smoked until I was about 14 and then my Dad stopped. My Mum still smokes heavily. She has ruined her skin, probably beyond repair and her lungs will no doubt be a tribute to the delicately named ‘Silk Cut’. I remember the advertising for cigs and now, at 30, think it is shameful that it was ever allowed. Sometimes I wish my Mum had some otehr more ‘noticable’ addiction which she couldn’t ‘hide’ from guests in her house (she actually thinks they won’t notice the yellow windows and smoke filled carpets). In other words, no-one seems to understand the pain and embarrassment the children of smokers now feel. I’m delighted that Scotland (and now England) have banned it in public, wish it had been in force years ago when I worked in very smoky bars/restaurants. However, the ban in some ways forces people like my mother even more ‘underground’. When I visit her I may complain about the smell that is going on to my fresh hair (trying to delicately not be over-dramatic and say I am worried about my lungs) but she retorts that it is her house. She acts like a 12 year old if I ever try and talk about it. I have begun to think she won’t get to see any children I have. I think she does about a packet a day, but that has been for 45 years, and I’m sure I picked up that the length of time you smoke is important. I have said she will end up, if lucky, an old lady standing in doorways puffing and wheezing away. She is so addicted she doesn’t care. Having given up my Dad is subjected to her smoke, even though he has concerns over his heart and cholestoral.
I don’t know about anyone else out there but I have never seen much advice or help to the relatives of heavy or stubborn smokers. I have threatened my Mum, bought her herbal ciggies, tried to show her how good she would feel and how much she could recover, to no avail. It is like a very, very long suicide and I feel like there is something ‘wrong’ with her which children of non-smokers may not understand. It is so frowned upon (good) that people who live with or love a smoker may feel that they have done something wrong, or that they are to blame (bad). In otehr words, by telling everyone how filthy it is (in schools etc), how do the young people feel whose parents are doing that very ‘bad’ thing. I mean you wouldn’t stand in front of an assembly of kids and say ‘alcoholics are bad and they are goimg to kill themselves, it is banned and that is great for us all’, yet I have heard this said in a school about smoking. When I was younger I felt like if only I behaved better or helped mum out then she would stop (didn’t help that she often said she would stop when we left home as it was ’stressful’ having 4 kids - she then didn’t stop). to all the people above who are saying they smoke because it is their choice, yes it is. But it is a choice taken by many adults which stilll affects the quality of life of their offspring and that seems wrong. I want to cry when I see the way my mum used to look and when I hear her wheezing goimg up teh stairs. Hardly makes me enthusiactic about looking after her at 70, she’s only 60 now. And as for all those drives, us all squeezed in athe car with them puffing away - no wonder I used to feel headachy!
Smokeing should be banned fullstop. It is as addictive as class A drugs and ruins lives, many times of those who never chose to smoke. Only good thing to come out of my mum’s addiction is that all her children hate smoking. The smell of it makes me sick.

Sorry for this ramble.

by: och aye the noo etc etc

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:26:00 +0100

well

by: Heidi

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:57:15 +0100

I smoke too because it is my choice. I know I am going to die sometime, might as well enjoy myself before the time comes. And, I might add, if things get too tough, I’ll check out before then. So if I get the Big C, big deal.

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