Give your T-Zone that smooth, mild flavour….

My recently-widowed father-in-law has been hospitalized with a lung infection so I’m dog and house sitting for him while he’s admitted. This is a pack-a-day, smokes-indoors , never-opened-a-window-in-their-life boomer’s house. Were this ten years ago, it probably would not have bothered me because I would have just quit smoking at that time and no doubt would notice this musty rotted death smell.

When you first quit smoking, you’d (in your mind) step over your own child when you smell a cigarette to steal it from that smoker. After ten years of being cigarette-free, I smell that shit and it’s just “Jesus Christ, it was THAT BAD?!?!?!” This house smells like they were curing rotted ham in it. I threw away nearly twenty years of money and health on that trash. Never again.

Focus: Were/are you a smoker or lived with people who were? Did you manage to quit or are still active? Or, general discussion around nicotine and cigarette smoking.

 

My grandfather died of emphysema when I was a kid, despite quitting years before I was born, and that made it absolutely certain I would never smoke. Of my parents and their siblings, two smoked and the rest didn't. I'll give you two guesses which two are no longer with us.

 

When we bought our house we had to wash the walls and soak the blinds in the tub to remove the layer of smoke and nicotine. When we would take a shower the condensation on the bathroom walls would run yellow. It was incredible. Back in high school, a girl I was friends with smoked, and sitting next to her on the bus was awful because she reeked of stale cigarette smoke.

I’ve never really smoked, less than half a pack in my entire life. It was during an intense bar phase and I’m still not sure what I was thinking. It only took a day or two for me to realize how ridiculous I was being and I’ve never smoked cigarettes since. My dad quit cold turkey in the 70s specifically because he didn’t want me to see him and form that habit.

In the past year or so I’ve started smoking cigars again. I would smoke them very occasionally back in the 90s but stopped for about 15 years. Now I smoke a cigar maybe once a week- on garage night of course.

 

The aircraft I flew on has been around for decades. Up until the late 80's or early 90's crews could smoke during missions. Position consoles had ashtrays built in. Old timers used to say that on long duration sorties, you couldn't see from the front to the back of the crew compartment due to the cigarette smoke.

When these aircraft go in for system upgrades, they tear everything out down to the frame and clean everything. Similar to what you see a car shop do for a full restoration.

The guys who do the upgrade work have said that they still find nicotine tar coating the inside skin & structural framing of the crew compartment.

Video about the RJ:

 

I started smoking at 15 (gross, I know) during a very nihilist phase when lots of people around me were dying regardless of their lifestyle choices. A very fuck it, teenage, “I’m gonna die anyways so might as well do it with a lucky strike in one hand and a 40 in the other” vibe. By the time I was 20 I was down to a pack a week, and by 22 maybe a pack a month. But I kept smoking socially/while drinking until Covid. I didn’t want to wake up wondering if I was getting sick or if I just had a few too many drinks and cigarettes the night before.

Getting pregnant helped solidify it for me - if I hadn’t had kids I might have gone back to it, who knows. But I haven’t had a cigarette or been appreciably drunk since 2020. Weird.

 

Thankfully, smoking is one vice I didn't pick up even though I tried it a handful of times as a teen and a few drunken smokefests along the way.

I dated a girl who was a smoker and even though she wasn't one of those smokers who reek of cigarettes, I never got use to it. Between what I could smell and the "I need to go have a smoke", it wasn't for me.

 

I smoked habitually for 28 years up until about 8 days ago, closer to 32 year since my first one. I didn't stand a chance as a kid, had my first cigarette at about 12 years old. I had so many family members and friends that worked at RJR. As kids we all worked in the tobacco fields. Our local stores didn't care about age limits, if you could see over the counter, you could buy cigarettes. We still had a smoking area for students when I first started highschool. Mostly everyone close to me has quit by now.

I haven't smoked in a residence in about 20 years, alway step outside. I may have stunk, but our house never did.

I'm on the patch and lozenges. I just got some nicotine toothpicks, but they are a little strong for my needs while wearing the patch.

 

I absolutely love nicotine. I started smoking when I was 16. I think I basically used it to self medicate for adhd. When I couldn’t smoke I’d throw snuff in my lip. I used to be able to swallow the juice. I could eat with it there. I looooovvvveeedddd it.

I am happy to report that I have been nicotine free for 8 years. Kids will do interesting things to you.

I think I hit rock bottom twice during the addiction. The first time I was drinking with a friend. We ran out of smokes and had no way to get more. Much like a bum I found a half smoked cigarette on a side walk. Myself and my friend got in a fist fight over who would smoke it.

The second time I was at a Sam’s club and needed to buy diapers and formula for my child. But also wanted to buy my nicotine. I didn’t have enough money to buy all three things. I was trying to g to figure out how I could buy less of something and still get my smokes. I realized how dumb my moral dilemma was. Right then and there I knew it was time to quit.

Cold turkey made me angry. I almost lost my job. My wife threatened to leave me. I just gave in and went to get some cigarettes.

The next week I went to a doctor and asked for help. He advised me to try both nicotine gum and patches at the same time then taper off on a schedule. After two months I was completely off it.

I will never ever touch that shit again. No matter how fancy the cigar. No matter how drunk I am. No matter how down I am. The solution will never be cigarettes. I want to see my kids grow old. I want to keep up with them. And nicotine will never be worth giving that up.

 

I lived in a house full of smokers, which naturally led to me picking up the habit very young (first started at 15), luckily once I had moved out of my parents and wasn't living in the constant anosmia blindness of how truly bad it was, I was able to give it up. Haven't touched a cigarette in almost 20 years and never will again.

After both of my parents passed away and my siblings and I had to sell the aforementioned house, it was a real 'slap some lipstick on a pig' situation. We knew we weren't going to ever be able to fully reverse 40+ years of damage without completely tearing the house down to the studs and basically starting over. That's the next person's problem.

However, I did manage to snap one picture of when we were painting over the ceiling that really just shows off the damage they did. And this wasn't even the worst room in the house.

 

That's exactly how my parents house was. Pulling pictures/decorations off the walls and Helen Keller could see the outline of the item because of the shear amount of staining on the wall. Since none of my siblings and I were planning on moving in, we just slapped a coat of neutral paint all over the entire house and let the new buyers deal with it.

 

My mom was a 2-pack-a-day smoker. She started when she was in college, in the early '60s. She even smoked when she was pregnant with me.

She would drive around with the air conditioner on "high," with the windows cracked about one inch, because "the smoke is gonna blow everywhere if I roll them all the way down."
I ALWAYS smelled like cigarettes (More Menthol 120s) when I was growing up.
Kids would make fun of me about it (they always assumed it was my dad who smoked, for some reason. He dipped snuff, starting when he was eight. Hey it was the '40s. He ended up quitting it in the '80s, when he found out it could cause cancer.).

She died of lung cancer in 1996, and she kept smoking until the last couple of weeks or so, when she was too weak to hold her head up anymore.

I hated her smoking, but decided to give it a try when I was 16. Marlboro Reds, just like my brother smoked.

I kept it up for twenty years, smoking about half a pack a day. I had to stop when I was in prison, but immediately bought a new pack once I got released.

I quit about a year after I got with Jungle Julia, but not for the reason you'd think:

I don't know if I changed, or if the cigarettes did, but they don't hit the same anymore. The buzz just wasn't as good as I remembered it when I got out of prison, and I gradually smoked less and less, until one day I realized I hadn't had a cigarette in about a month. So I just kept it up.

I still kept a pack in my tool box at work in case I ever wanted one, but I never did; I ended up throwing the pack out when I left that shop.

 

To be fair, the reason I would have thought is brushfire risk.

 

I would never clean a smoker’s house without full gear. To a non-smoker is just straight-up dangerous, and you can get nicotine poisoning from it. When my father-in-law passes away in the next year, we’ll hire the pros to scrub the place.