Smoking at work........

[Blurock]

People are generally selfish. They will be tolerant of everything until it affects them directly. e.g. people will campaign for a bus stop in their street, but when it is placed in front of their house, the bus stop is suddenly not such a good idea.

As an ex smoker (had to give up due to asthma) I can relate to both sides. As a youngster I was hitch hiking once and was given a lift by two gentlemen. They really freaked out when I started smoking in their car. Of course I could not understand it at the time, but we all know how bad a used ashtray can smell.

I am tolerant of smokers as long as they maintain a 3 meter distance and ensure that the smoke blows the other way. It is a dying habit any way...

[tec0]

I sometimes wonder about people's priorities. It is not ok to smoke and people will stone you for doing so as seen on this thread. But where are there big mouths when it comes to more serious things. The big things?

How many lives did alcohol take last year? How much violence did it cause? Have you ever bothered to count the crosses on the side of the road? Do you even care?

Nah... This is just another form of persecution... A justifiable oppression nothing more.

[adrianh]

The thread is about smoking at work not about the misuse of alcohol. Just for the record, I don't condone smoking or drinking at work.

[Newretailer]

The most enlightening part of this thread, apart from finding out who smokes and who doesn't, is how freely strange attributes are assigned to non-smokers:

Because you are against smoking, it means that you:
- think you are God
- have a big ego
- think alcohol and drunk driving is ok
- turn blind eyes to someone dinging a car in a car park
- pocket mistakes cashiers make
- lie on your tax return
- don't care about road deaths
- are monsters
- wear funny clothes
- walk outside naked
- fill inthe blank with whatever you feel like...

I cannot quite see how that jump is made. I think you are just stating all the things that smokers are guilty of Or maybe you just don't have valid arguments to defend a filthy habit that is certain to affect your health and those around you and you have to grasp at straws

[Justloadit]

I sometimes wonder about people's priorities. It is not ok to smoke and people will stone you for doing so as seen on this thread. But where are there big mouths when it comes to more serious things. The big things?

How many lives did alcohol take last year? How much violence did it cause? Have you ever bothered to count the crosses on the side of the road? Do you even care?

Nah... This is just another form of persecution... A justifiable oppression nothing more.

I refer to my previous post again with respect to alcohol

Whilst I do not approve of drinking and driving, it is interesting that we judge alcoholics killing people, but if statistics be done, many many more people die from the effects of smoking than drunken driving.

How Many People Died from Smoking? yearly in the US over 440,000
About how many people die each year from drunk driving accidents? yearly in the US about 12,000

[Dave A]

I cannot quite see how that jump is made. I think you are just stating all the things that smokers are guilty of

I would expect the distribution on those attributes doesn't vary much between smokers and non-smokers.

Maybe there's lessons that could be learned from this that might give us insight into what makes people this motivated to lead SA in this particular respect yet turn around and cast a blind eye in so many others.

I agree.

I also find the way the issue is being dealt with from a regulation creep point of view an interesting reflection of society. There is little doubt that in today's world, if tobacco products for smoking were not present in society, and was introduced as a new product for consumption, it would be banned as a harmful product and removed from retailers' shelves without anyone so much as blinking an eye.

[Blurock]

I find it rather irritating when someone continuously have to leave a group to go and have a puff. On their return they expect to be bought up to date on what they have missed.

I know it is not easy to give up smoking. Apparently the earlier you start and the longer you have been smoking, the harder it gets. Years ago I had a chain smoking manager (more than 60 per day) who tried everything from acupuncture to hypnosis to pills and stickers. Nothing helped. Sadly he died of lung cancer.

[adrianh]

To me smoking is simply mind over matter. I stopped cold turkey. The biggest problem is that so many actions are linked to having a smoke, I clearly remember getting in the car and patting my top pocket checking to see if I have my cigarettes. The trick was to keep a packet of bubble gum in the same place as the cigarettes. Whenever I needed to smoke I would go through the exact same motions and have bubblegum and sometimes twiddle a pen between my fingers. That eventually broke the chemical addiction. Then I slowly broke the habits like going off for a smoke every hour, having to smoke when I wake up etc. The first three months was very hard. What I found amazing after that was that I could actually taste food and smell properly. Smokers don't realize how much they miss. My chest stopped getting sore and I got chest infections far less often. (There wasn't a winter that I didn't end up in bed with flu - In hospital once or twice as well - but always with my Camel in my mouth)

The most difficlt thing to overcome was smoking while driking, especially beer. It had become one of those things where the tastes had become synonomous. The trick was not to go out with people who smoked and of course not to take cigarests with - chilli biltong is a good substitute. I eventually reached a point where no matter how pissed I was smoking simply wouldn't cross my mind.

We went to a wedding about 3 months ago and we drank so much that I actually drank myself sober (I am sure that there are other people who have experienced this) anyhow, the cigars came out and everybody just had to have a puff, even some of the women did. One guy kept at me, have a puff, have a puff, the more I said no the more he carried on until I just stripped and told him to f_off and stick his cigar up his...The point that I am making through this is that it is mind over matter, nobody will ever talk me into smoking again.

It is as if a switch has been set in my brain never to be allowed to switch back.
I will never smoke again.

[Chrisjan B]

I am glad as I still struggle after 7 months - the itch or urge drives me up the walls....

adrianh - I have learned the hard way to never say ever: Never say never....

[adrianh]

chrismine - I can say NEVER because I know myself. I stoped taking drugs cold turkey when I was in the middle of STD 8 and that switch was flipped. I never took drugs again and I never will.

I have learned the hard way to never say ever: Never say never....

This is a very bad statement because you leave a backdoor open when you make a decision. Sometimes the best thing to do is to burn your bridges so that there is no turning back.

You make the decision to stop or you don't make the decision to stop, there is no middle ground.

[Chrisjan B]

You are absolutely correct!

Sent from my GT-I8190 using Tapatalk 2

[Blurock]

I stopped smoking by cutting out the first one in the morning and the last one at night. I took a decision never to smoke in bed. Not even after sex - it makes your mouth taste like a toilet that has not been cleaned for a week. I don't know how non-smokers can stomach kissing and making love to smokers. (Love is blind - and tasteless?)

I then set my next target: cut out the one just after breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not smoking while drinking was very hard. I set myself a target of not smoking half an hour before or after a meal. Keep it up for a week (for some two weeks may works better) and then increase the no smoking time by another half our each way.

Don't be despondent if you can not keep to the schedule. If you can not keep to the hour both ways, just repeat the target for the next or a couple of weeks, until you get used to it. Then move on to the next target. By the time you get to two or three hours both ways, you may even go back to a previous level before moving on again. The brain is a wonderful organ as you can programme it. As Adrian said "its all in the mind". Programme your brain to accept a no smoking period. Accept new habits.

To further reduce my nicotine dependency, I also changed to a much milder cigarette. So puffing became blowing smoke rings and not such a nicotine rush. I never used any pills, patches or chemicals to stop smoking.

[tec0]

the reality is you trade in one addiction for another. Giving up smoking it takes a bit. But giving up alcohol? Yea right... I know a man that gave up alcohol even after several years he is still afraid to go near a bar because he feels will order himself a drink. There is the reality for you Label it make fun of it shoot it down it doesn't change the facts.

If you are planning to drop an addiction the golden rule is to drop all forms of addiction not just one or two. because the truth is the one that is left over will become your new primary addiction.

[ians]

I have given up smoking 3 times, first time for 2 years the second time for 7 years and this time 12 years, I smoke a cigar ever 5 years or so and still love the smell of cigarette smoke. My fishing partner smokes and still after 12 years get the urge to light up, thats why my staff are not allowed to smoke near me. The craving never goes away.

I have given up drinking for just over 4 years. I dont drink anymore, because i have a drinking problem. I use to drink captian morgans by the bottle, once that was finished go onto what ever was available and just didnt know when to stop.

If you think giving up smoking is difficult, wait till you start loading on the kilos, and have to slow down the eating.

[adrianh]

the reality is you trade in one addiction for another. Giving up smoking it takes a bit. But giving up alcohol? Yea right... I know a man that gave up alcohol even after several years he is still afraid to go near a bar because he feels will order himself a drink. There is the reality for you Label it make fun of it shoot it down it doesn't change the facts.

That man does not have mental self control. You have to be able not to drink in a bar or not to smoke in a smoke filled club.

If you are planning to drop an addiction the golden rule is to drop all forms of addiction not just one or two. because the truth is the one that is left over will become your new primary addiction.

Rubbish!

I have never heard of having to give up smoking when one gives up snorting Coke, or of giving up gambling when one gives up smoking.

Your statement has to be clarified: You should give up additions within the same group of addictions simultaneously. Smoking and gamling and shagging prostitutes are all addictions but they are driven by totally different mechanisms. If you said one should stop taking Mandrax when you stop snotrting Coke then I would agree, or if you said one should stop smoking pipe when you stop smoking ciharettes, or if you said you should stop playing online poker when you stop going to the gambling joint I would also agree.

But making such a blanket statement about addiction is simply ludicrous.