To wonder why people start smoking

[Leavingsosoon]

I know why people can't give up but AIBU to wonder why people start in the first place? I get that for an earlier generation they weren't aware of the dangers but I just don't understand why anyone under 40 smokes.

I was living in France in the mid-80s as a teenager and everyone was smoking so I did, too, to fit in.

I don't smoke and never have, except in primary school to try it.

But when I think of myself, I always see myself with a cigarette, as a smoker.

My mum was a heavy smoker, perhaps that's why my 'self image' has a cig at all times.

gamer as long as nobody suggests squirting the smokers with bleach or setting their dogs on them we might just be ok.

I started smoking at 15 tbh my mum and most of the extendedfamily smoked in the hous e I think i was addicted before i put a fag in my mouth. anyway i wasnt very popular at school andthe kids thought i was little miss perfect i started smoking to show them i was nt. I know i know its stupid. I am really suprised when I see under 30s(not 40s) smoke

For all its unhealthy, its still a really good stress reliever

That's a myth.

You think it is, when you're addicted to it. When you're not, you just as soon drink a glass of water for all the stress relieving effect it would have. Nicotine increases the likely hood of feeling 'stressed' as what you perceive as stress is actually withdrawal. Then when you smoke, your withdrawal abates, giving the 'ahh' feeling.

What you're actually doing is mistaking withdrawal symptoms for stress. Or its the withdrawal itself that heightens stress levels. It's a vicious circle.

I started at 13. Only very occasionally (I thought a friend who smoked 3 a day was overdoing it a bit). By 16 I was buying and smoking 10 a day, by uni 20 a day minimum.
I quit 1734 days ago according to the app on my phone.

Should add I quit at 29.

Because I tried dope at aged 16 and loved it. Someone handed me a ciggie and told me I would love that too, and I did.

I was 16, didn't think I would get addicted because I was invincible.

I quit 3 years ago but vape.

Heh give that time as well sparkling

YANBU to ask about why people start smoking. It might provide really helpful info to parents of teens. Around 40% of children who experiment with cigarettes become addicted so it's something to take very seriously. I hope the thread doesn't turn to nasty judgmental shit as so many smoking threads do.

The earlier you can stop smoking the better. Quitting smoking by age 40 erases most of the risk of an early death but whatever age you are, quitting will improve your health. We have a great Stop Smoking topic on MN if anybody is thinking about quitting.

I started because someone gave me a green and gold Sobrane cigarette that matched my dress!

But stuck with it because it was something to do with my hands when waiting for friends to turn up in the pub. Nowadays I wouldn't have needed to as my iPhone does the same job!

I don't even know why I started - I can remember the first mid-teens fag, and the coughing etc, but then I was certainly old enough to know better when I properly smoked. I was at University - sad and lonely and looking for a bit more rebellion, I suppose. And it's been a constant struggle of quitting and relapsing and quitting ever since. I'm certainly going to take it up again properly when I hit 80.

I started as a student, whilst I was doing the usual thing of getting drunk at house parties. No idea why I started, tbh. I think I just wanted to see what all the fuss about. I enjoyed it and it became more of a daily habit.

I have been smoking for 8 years, and last year I decided to quit. I've gone down from 20 a day, to 10, then 5, and now I don't buy any at all. I now only use a vapour cig and am hoping to have that binned by xmas.

minecraft its not actually a myth. Stress usually causes shallow breathing. Particularly if we're talking panic attack level. One very easy way to help is to take longer deeper breaths and concentrate on just that. When you properly inhale smoke, you breath deeply, thus it helps physically. Before you even get to psychological reasons.
Yeah, certainly smoking isn't the only way to accomplish it. But drinking a glass of water isn't the alternative cure to a stress symptom like shallow breathing.

I started because my friends did it. I didn't like it and never did it again.

Peer pressure. We can all pretend that we have been strong minded since the womb, but the reality is the teenage years are a point where a lot of us bow to pressure.

I started because everyone else in my dormitory smoked - it was part of the social bonding experience at school. We would all sneak off to the woods or out onto a fire-escape for a fag and a gossip. It was also a massive fuck you to my emotionally abusive mother. I continued through art college and working abroad and then gave up when I had DS. I stupidly started again socially when I stopped BF and have smoked off and on since then. DH and I are getting vapes next week as that is the only way he will contemplate giving up. If he smokes then I vomit from the smell if I haven't had a fag - so basically this all his fault that I am still smoking!!

I don't get it either. Guess I'm just weird. I grew up in a chain smoking family. My mum chain smoked all through pregnancies, fed us as newborns blowing smoke in our faces, burnt my communion veil with her fag, long chain smoking car journeys where I would be throwing up, we always had to travel etc in the smoking section on buses and planes. I hated it, always did. I used to cry at night in bed as a child because I didn't want my mum to die of lung cancer (she did).

I think I actually rebelled by refusing to smoke.

DD told me a lot of her fellow first year students smoke. I was surprised. Why would you even start now? Do young people see it as cool or rebellious? I thought the romance had gone. And how the hell do they afford it on student loans??

I used to work nights (15 years ago) and I found having a few fags (about four a night) helped break the shift up. I did a month of nights, then a month of days. I always gave up completely on days, which my colleagues thought was weird.
I haven't smoked since then. Incidentally, all of my friends who used to smoke have now given up. For a lot of them the catalyst was having kids.

I think when your young you're more up to try anything for fun. I know me and my friends did, smoking, drinking, sex, back flipping motocross bikes amongst others. When you have kids that changes because you have responsibility and life's no longer about fun and partying

I grew up in house of smokers. I remember my mum collecting Kensitas vouchers for a baby bath for her niece. The more she smoked the more vouchers she collected. I've never smoked. I hate the smell of it.

I am 40, my father died of emphysema, all my grandparents died of emphysema and yet here I am smoking, I have stopped, started, stopped, started again and stopped then started again, but why?
Couldn't tell you. Stress? Well, possibly. But I cannot leave the nicotine alone. I just can not. I have a stash of patches in my drawer, I'm planning to see my nurse to ask for champix.

I admit that I love smoking. That morning smoke is divine. With coffee....heaven.
It's disgusting, smelly, unhealthy and expensive but I just can't leave it alone. I can not leave it alone.
My only advise to youngster is just do not touch nicotine as it is the devil!!

I come from a long line of smokers who all lived into their 80s and a couple to just short of 100.

I can't remember why but in the first year of secondary school my 3 friends and I used to buy 10 Consulate and share one or two every lunchtime under a tree at the bottom of the school field.

It's impossible to grasp now but everyone smoked then.

In movies.
News readers smoked on air!
Later on everyone on chat shows was smoking. On all the soaps.

I love it too but am starting to show physical signs of excess.

I vape a lot, and roll cigs with 3 filters. But really, honestly, I don't want to stop altogether.

I have 3 kids in their 20s, all have dabbled to some extent but only one now smokes regularly - 3 or 4 a day.

Listen to Cain! Don't start.

But don't do Champix or Zyban Cain, they fuck with your brain.