Do you smoke, do your friends and colleagues?

[listsandbudgets]

I was wondering about this. I saw someone smoking yesterday and realised I don't think that I know anyone who does.

When I was growing up though it was really common. My mum smoked 20+ a day until I was about 10 when she decided to give up. My dad smoked until I was nearly 20 (and probably carried on in secret!!)

People must smoke or they'd not be for sale and I'd not keep seeing cigarette butts on the pavement but how common is it now? Also they seem to cost a fortune - about £10 a pack - that must really add up for heavy smokers.

Hardly anyone I know smokes anymore and having lost my mum to lung cancer I am very glad.. I think this and drink driving are two examples where public health interventions and policy changes have had a massive and positive impact on behaviour and social norms, even though both took a while to really take effect.. The smoking ban in pubs etc was a real turning point.. .when i was a teenager the pubs and buses were always thick with smoke. Weird to imagine now.

My parents both smoked when I was a child. They both gave up years ago in theory, but I'm pretty sure DM still smokes occasionally.

I'm late 40s and have never smoked a single cigarette. Neither has dh. We have no friends who smoke, or colleagues to my knowledge. I had a couple of friends who smoked when I was in my early 20s.

Most of my friends smoke. I don't and never have. They are all quite keen runners as well but also enjoy fags and booze!

I have a colleague that smokes, but she is the only one I know.

Only person I know who smokes rolls her own as a lot cheaper.

Only one colleague out of 7 of us.

Only DH Bro does out of 19 of us- DH, Me, both sets of parents, all siblings and their partners.

DD is 15 and in her friendship group of 7 aged 15 and 16 2 of them smoke! I find that utterly ridiculous in this day and age.

It occurred to me that I had no idea how much cigarettes cost, so I just googled it. It says the average price of a box of 20 is £10 although I can see some of them cost more like £12.

Does this mean that if you're one of these people who smokes 20 a day, you're spending at least £300 per month on cigarettes? WTF?! I don't have that kind of money to spare every month. I'm sure a lot of smokers smoke far less than 20, but still, it's so much money.

@lachy - I didn;t know they were banning menthol cigarettes - why?

I thought menthol were already banned tbh.

I used to smoke from 13-27 .. I only know 1-2 people that smoke cigarettes

Ellanwood, it's an EU law that's coming in, despite us leaving the EU it will still apply for some reason.

No, I don't know anyone who does. My mum and dad both smoked when we were children and my brother and I have asthma, mine severe. My mum stopped straight away as the doctor told her to. My dad stopped when my grandfather died of lung cancer. A horrible way to go

Could never understand why people smoke, vile stuff.
Then aged 44 starting smoking a roll-up a day, then 2 after my DB died, the smell reminded me of him.
Loved the whole rolling, lighting up process of it and it calmed down my anxieties.
Year and half later, realised it was causing anxieties and taking over my thoughts.
Not being able to buy small packets of tobacco helped giving up.

Yes I do.
Don’t in public - due to judgements. Nor do i in front of the children or in my house.
I sit in the garage with my smoking jacket.

According to the majority on mn it is fine to do a line of coke or smoke a spliff with the kids around (they are sleeping is the most popular excuse) but you should have your kids removed if you smoke outside - make sense of that if you can.

Never smoked pregnant or breastfeeding

I do but I lot of people are surprised to learn that as I rarely smoke in public! Ex h, DSis and quite a lot of friends smoke, a lot of people in my area in fact. Never smoke in the house or round my parents, they disapprove, understandably

I don't know anyone that smokes.

I don’t know anyone who smokes. I’ve never known a coworker to smoke and I have a ridiculously sensitive nose. The last time I knew anyone who smoked was in grad school, over 20 years ago.

No and I don't really know anyone that does. I hate smoking always have. See it as pointless. Was brought up in a non smoking family though.
The cost these days I don't see how people would choose to spend that amount of money

• Yes I do. Don’t in public - due to judgements. Nor do i in front of the children or in my house. I sit in the garage with my smoking jacket.*

One of these?

I quit about 3 years ago. In my early 20s almost all of my friends and a lot of my colleagues smoke. Now I'm in my late 30s and very few friends smoke - if they do, it's mostly socially. There isn't one smoker at all in my entire office at work.

I asked my 17 year old niece recently whether anyone in her sixth form smokes and she said only 1 or 2 that she knows of, none of her friends do and most people her age think it's stupid. That's changed a lot since I was a teenager as that's when most of us started. It made me think that maybe in years to come there's a chance smoking might die out entirely.

@SillyCow6

Do you think that you do things that others dislike? They are perhaps just too polite to tell you.

I don’t smoke but I certainly don’t look down on others for smoking. In the same way that I don’t look down on drug addicts or the obese. As the saying goes “don’t judge others until you have walked a mile in their shoes”.

I have really struggled to overcome my smoking addiction and have had numerous long intervals (a year plus) of not smoking at all, including my two pregnancies.

I gave up in 2008 and didn't smoke at all for maybe 5 or 6 years? Then I started having one or two on special occasions and nights out. That has gradually increased slowly slowly over the last few years, to the point where I was smoking about 5 cigarettes per week prior to coronavirus. I have given up again!

But I can truly say sitting in the sun, after 6pm, with a glass of very cold white wine and a cigarette is my idea of absolute bliss and heaven. I can't think of a single other thing that gives me as much pleasure. Honestly, if someone said you can have one wish, I think it would be that smoking wasn't bad for you.

I don’t, but DH does, his father does (a lot) and a lot of our friends do. None of my family do.
We’re mid/late twenties and in the south west.

I do. NHS worker. I'd say probably 10% of my colleagues do too.

I used to smoke, but gave up when I was 26. At the time, almost everyone I knew smoked - I was one of the first to give up. Now I can't think of one person I know that smokes. I know two who vape, both former smokers, but literally no one who smokes cigarettes.

No/no/no.