So true about low income population the ones most affected! I've been there when married to an alcoholic, and it seems most about hopelessness. I grew up with budgeting ingrained in me but no amount of coaching, or calculating how to get out of poverty seems to work for some people. It's like they feel nothing matters and the money they should be saving for a better car, or paying off bills gets spent on such harmful and useless things as cigarettes, booze, and lotto tickets
I had the displeasure of getting my car from a shop where they smoked inside. I hadn't been around smoke for a very long time. I literally couldn't have stayed there much longer than I needed to- it was suffocating!
I started smoking at 12 on/off, but when in a psych ward for two years on/off every one smoked at all ages. I quit around 30-32 for good. It was very difficult, and I used the nicotine gum for about a year. Harder than cheese!
I never had the desire to smoke because I hated the smell of it. Both of my parents smoked when I was younger, and our house always reeked of stale smoke. Made me ill. It took my dad having a stroke to finally quit (he had tried three times before). My mother stopped when I was a kid; she saved all the money she would have spent on cigarettes for a family vacation. It's a tough habit to break, even when you want to break it.
Right. We don't have xxx TODAY, so it's okay to eat, drink smoke not exercise...when we get xxx then we'll have to changePeople don't think that they will get cancer; it will happen to someone else.
Even though its obvious that everyone dies, people are still shocked when they get a terminal diagnosis. We're just really good at ignoring unpleasant realities.
I smoked for 22 years, and quit when I was 40. Quitting smoking was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It was so hard that when I finally quit, I knew I could never, ever have so much as a single drag ever in my life again.
Yes! I started in my early teens and in my 20's tried desperately to quit! I don't admit this generally, but I smoked while I was pregnant. LOTS of stress in that marriage! When my younger son started catching me smoking he'd beg me to stop-"don't moke. Moking will make you die!". I tried the patches, then the Nicorette gum. I loved that gum! I stayed on it a year, as addicted to that 'lift' as I was the cigs! So much easier when you didn't have a whole bar or restaurant filled with smoke! My first assembly jobs we could smoke right at our benches, with the lead solder smoke!I smoked for 22 years, and quit when I was 40. Quitting smoking was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It was so hard that when I finally quit, I knew I could never, ever have so much as a single drag ever in my life again.
I finally quit when my husband was diagnosed with a blood cancer in the fall of 2000. I felt so awful waiting in the oncologist's office, smelling of smoke from the cigarette I'd smoked right before the appointment (to calm my nerves), sitting in a chair next to someone who had an oxygen tank. It was the wake up call I needed.
I quit with the help of nicotine patches, which were fairly new at the time. You were supposed to step down the dosage, from the big patch, to the medium and then to the small, over several weeks. When I was at the point were I was supposed to give up the small patch, I found I just couldn't. I just wasn't ready. At that point, I hadn't had an actual cigarette in several weeks, but I had such strong attachment to my little patch! So I cut them in half and wore a half for a few more weeks, then I cut them in quarters. Finally, when I found I was putting just a wee little piece of a patch right over a vein, I realized that I was probably only mentally addicted and no longer physically addicted and was able to stop. Nicotine is a powerful drug!
I'll give you a clue... when I smoked, if I was hungry and cigarette starved and somebody gave me just enough money to buy either food or cigarettes, I would buy the cigarettes and happily starve! After so many years of trying and failing to give up, I finally managed five years ago when I had to save money to visit Sweden the first time. I will never ever go back to it now I am finally free!I never started smoking, because I've always figured I have a tendency toward addiction. I'm almost 63, and I still chew my fingernails. I shudder to think of trying to break a habit that has an actual physical addiction component.