to think smoking when you need an inhaler is a tad stupid?

[Northernlebkuchen]

Car next to us in car park today - two people get in. One uses a blue ventolin inhaler - dh has one and we recognise it. It's for symptomatic relief when you're short of breath. So the woman uses it and then both her and her partner light up a fag. AIBU to think you have to be very, very dim to use a device designed to relieve your compromised breathing and then straight after smoke?

Those are possibilities, but it's unreasonable to assume that it is stupidity that keeps her smoking when she has breathing difficulties It would require a very unusually low intelligence to be unable to understand that quitting smoking would improve her breathing given the level of public and medical knowledge. So YAStillBU to assume stupidity.

That's interesting Bibi, I nevr knew that.

Of course it's stupid to smoke, but it's also quite nasty to call someone stupid just because they choose to do something to their own body just because you disagree with it. It is really none of your business.

People have a right to choose to smoke in their own cars, inhaler or no inhaler.

Incredibly stupid, but not at all unusual. Sadly.

curlymama so you're saying, then, that it's quite nasty to call someone stupid just for doing something stupid? Better delete swathes of MN now!!

And yes, it's stupid. But many smokers are, incredibly, in denial about the harmfulness of the habit.

Inhaler followed by fag is less dim than the other way around though! (inhaler to open up the airways so the cig smoke can circulate properly, obviously)

Most people who smoke with asthma (or COPD, or emphysema) know that smoking makes it much worse. Every single one I talk to I strongly advise to quit (part of my job) and they all say they want to. But not enough. And that they will when they're ready. Or when their children have children. Or .

I'm not sure they are stupid any more than someone with an eating disorder (from anorexia to obesity) is stupid. They are addicted. It can be overcome. It's their choice to shorten their lives and die a reasonably horrible way fighting for breath - we might think they are stupid to make those decisions but people make a lot of choices I personally think are idiotic. Doesn't give me the right to judge their mental abilities.

It's not nasty to call the action of smoking stupid, but imo, it is nasty to call the person stupid. It is also innacurate. OP has no idea of the intelligence levels of this woman.

Presumably she knows that smoking is unlikely to help her breathing, but she chooses to do it anyway. Not the most sensible descision, granted, but it doesn't mean she is stupid. She may have tried six times to give up for all OP knows, and gone back to it for a specific reason, or just because the addiction has got the better of her.

I smoked with asthma for about 15 years, apart from when pregnant/ bf.

I was being stupid, of course. My sister does it now and it makes me want to shake her.

The only thing that stopped me - a life threatening, severe asthma attack that left me on a respiratory ward for a week.

There were women there with severe emphysema who were still sneaking out for a fag. Terrifying.

Stupid behaviour, for sure, but it doesn't meant the person is stupid.

I'm asthmatic and an ex smoker, but smoking never triggered an asthma attack.

"I was being stupid, of course. My sister does it now and it makes me want to shake her."

That's the thing though, the con of the addiction or whatever anyone wants to call it (am not convinced it is an addiction since smokers can suppress the urge if really necessary)

It's not until afterwards that it becomes really clear what a stupid futile thing to do smoking really is.

While I was smoking I think I convinced myself I was invincible so that I didn't have to stop.

Sigh, there are no easy answers to this.

bluenordic, I used to say that, since I quit (and presumably that big attack (caused by a combination of a cold and someone spraying perfume) left me with damage) I can't even stand near someone smoking outside. If I am in a smoky area, I end up back on steroids. It's horrible.

But on the plus side, my everyday peak flow has leapt up - it was in the low 300s as a smoker, when I am well now it is sometimes up to 500. So even though smoking wasn't triggering actual attacks, it was not helping!

My mom was in hospital years ago, she and her hospital roomie both had pneumonia. The other woman only had one lung. Yet she would be standing outside, in the freezing December winter with her IV pole smoking. My brother has emphysema, and he smokes too.
Addiction rules some people, no matter what.

I gate the smell of smoke and the way smokers smell. But it doesn't trigger my asthma. Fragrances do though.

I work from home and my neighbour interpreted this as me being available to help out with her baby whenever she needed childcare.
Irritating but would still always help someone genuinely in need. Like the time she arrived in mid asthma attack - would I care for baby until she recovered. Of course I would and did despite pressing work matters which had to be ignored.
I was worried about her and then was less than impressed when she turned up to collect her baby several hours later, smoking a fag.
Yes, it is their own business whether they smoke or not but she made it mine by expecting me to pick up the pieces when she had an attack. It wasn't the baby's fault her mother was unwell but nor was it fair for the mother to expect me to help when she wouldnt help herself.