What counts as an ex smoker?

[Columboo]

This is a really stupid question but I always wonder. I smoked socially from when I went through a bad break up aged 22 (11 years ago, was going out a lot and partying), up until I met now-DH about 10 months later. I had whole weeks where I didn't smoke at all during that time period. I always put myself down on forms as an ex-smoker but surely my risk of smoking-related diseases must be less high than an ex-smoker who gave up at say, age 35 and consistently smoked since they were 18? Any doctors or people in the know have any insight?!

Surly an ex smoker is someone who has only quit in the last 5 years.

So you partly smoked for a period of 10 months? Wouldn't consider that an ex smoker at all. Especially if you went weeks between fags.

I quit nine years ago and would consider myself an ex smoker. Had smoked a pack a day for twenty years.

I think there was something about the quantity of cigarettes rather than the months you spent smoking.

Something like an ex smoker is someone who smoked more than a hundred cigarettes in there life but now does not smoke

There comes a time in a smokers life when any damage becomes irreversible. My guess is that a 10 month bout of smoking years ago wouldn't really register.

You are an ex smoker if you have smoked repeatedly over a period of more than 7 days as far as I'm concerned. When I was younger I was a "social smoker" and never ever smoked unless I was drinking. But I would drink 1-2 a week. I was a binge drinker. Still am. It's a form of alcoholism. If you can binge drink, and while doing it you were binge smoking , then you are indeed an ex smoker.

Oddly, I did go through a state where I started smoking 24/7 and barely drinking. My lungs seemed to cope better with the constant inhalation of the chemicals and kind of " adapted " where as when I stopped and was socially smoking I had constant coughs from my lungs healing and then the smoke being reintroduced.

I have never been a binge drinker, I can't tolerate alcohol at all.

I smoked on nights out from 16-21. I didn’t have many nights out, maybe once every couple of months (I’ve always been a billy no mates!).

Then again the same from 31-33, the again from 35-38.

I’ve only ever smoked at the pub, never at home.

I’m 43 now and the last time I went out was when I was 38. I wouldn’t smoke again now though if I ever went out again, which is unlikely because, no mates 🤣

I was told by a urologist that my not having smoked for 13 years basically gave me the same level of risk as someone who'd never smoked. I was never a heavy smoker though, max of 10 a day if that.

I don't think it's as much about damage done as the possibility of restarting.
What I was told by someone was that once someone has smoked the chance of them taking it back up-even decades later, is considerably higher, often triggered by an event, but not always.

Oh really, this is interesting if so. I can't see that I would ever take it up again.

I'd say if there's ever been a point in your life where your honest answer to the question "do you smoke" would have had to be something other than plain "no", then you're an ex-smoker.

So someone who tried a cigarette at 16 and then had a few drags on a joint at a party once, would probably never have answered anything other than "no", because each was a one-off, and I'd put them down as a non-smoker.

But if there were times in your life when the honest answer would have to be "well, only cadging the odd one on a Saturday night" or "erm, sometimes I have a joint with my partner" or if you were asked on day six of a weird never-repeated week-long smoking jag and your answer would've been "only the last few days but it's over when I've finished this packet", then I'd put that down as ex-smoker.

But I guess everyone's going to put the dividing line somewhere different, and I don't know exactly where exactly the differences in health outcomes would be drawn.

Like you, I smoked socially sporadically 40-odd years ago in my early 20s, for 1-2 years. Never got addicted, and stopped altogether on meeting my DH. When answering the 'have you ever been a smoker' question a couple of years back at the docs, I explained this. He just said, 'non-smoker then' and that's what he put in my notes.

This is how my doctors determine it on their registration forms.

My husband gave up over 20 years ago, but smoked a lot before that so would refer to himself as an ex-smoker rather than a non-smoker.

I smoked a few cigarettes in my teens (probably fewer than 10) all of which I hated, and haven't smoked for over 40 years. I consider myself a non-smoker.