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 moved to Italy, I was 23. Everyine smoked, everywhere. I smoked long thin elegant cigarettes like my sophisticated Italian flatmate.

I looked like a twat

Because I was 19, heartbroken, and a friends mum offered me one, telling me it would help.

I started smoking joints before fags. Fags more socially acceptable in public, so got addicted to nicotine.
Started at 17, quit at 25, four years ago :)

Oh yes and I had terrible mental health problems all through my teens and twenties, and when I cried or self-harmed, my mum told me to have a vodka and a fag to feel better. Why the hell not.

I could never smoke, my dad died of smoking related disease (heart attack) when I was 14 after being a heavy smoker for 30 odd years. That put me off for life and I have never touched a cigarette.

I still resent my dad for smoking and leaving me fatherless at such a young age when it could have been prevented almost 20 years later.

I started at 13 because I thought it looked really cool, I had just started to hang around with the popular kids who all smoked, so I did too. I carried on for so long as I work in an industry where a fag break is your only chance of a break on an 8 hour shift, which is considered a 'half day'.

I don't really consider myself addicted though. I generally never smoke more than 5 cigarettes a day, usually around 3. I often go whole days without smoking (when not in work) and it doesnt bother me, I dont feel like I 'need' to smoke, unless Im super stressed or annoyed. I do enjoy it from time to time, like having a lovely smoke on a freezing cold still evening like tonight, bliss. But then I think, fuck me, I could be giving myself cancer. I duno clearly Im just an eejit.

I started when I was about 12. My parents smoked and used to say it helped with their stress. I tried it as a stress relief as I had a terrible childhood! Funnily enough, no-one at school smoked. I was the uncool one for doing it.

Given up now though (pregnant). I hate the smell and bloody hell, it's expensive. Plus, ageing and all that!

I really don't understand starting even after the point where we knew the harm it does.

I'm 43. All my grandparents died of smoking related illnesses, my dad is on oxygen and my mum has just been treated for cancer again...and they're still addicted to nicotine!

I have asthma which vastly improved when I moved out and believe is due to being raised in a smoke filled fug.

I hate it and the sooner it becomes a thing of the past the better.

For those that are addicted I know its really hard to give up but surely the financial and health benefits are massive motivations.

Don't even get me started on pregnant women that smoke

DH took it up before he met me because all the managers at his work did it, and it got him in their good graces for socializing with them so he got favor-ability when asking for time off, flexible hours, and better pay. But then he got a different job where they didn't and found no reason to continue. So he stopped.

He just never got addicted I guess.