To say recovered smokers are way more judgemental than non-smokers

[lailamaria]

I just find it hypocritical, if you've smoked in the past i don't think you get too act holier than thou to people who still choose to smoke, i don't smoke i have a lung condition however my sister and best friend do, my dad is a recovered smoker and everytime my best friend leaves the house to smoke outside he always makes a snide comment and it's not just him either.

My best friend has never left in the middle of a meal to go have a smoke, my dad used to all the time, i'm happy he's healthier now but the judgment just makes us all annoyed.

I know this is a pretty boring aibu but i wondered if it was just me

I am an ex smoker (nearly 20 years since I stopped) and truly cannot stand it now. I will admit that there is a little bit of smugness in having completely quit and no longer having any interest in it at all. I suspect other ex smokers feel similarly. I do think you probably forget how hard it is to quit, but also there is a sense of thinking everyone should quit - it's one of the best things I've ever done for myself (and starting in the first was is one of the most stupid).

As an ex-smoker I can understand why we are like that.

Once you have achieved the willpower and successfully quit, it's often because you've done a lot of soul-searching and concluded that it's insanity to continue poisoning your body by setting fire to a huge portion of your income, so it's difficult to comprehend when you see other people doing it because its such a major turning point in your own life that you often forget that either the other person hasn't reached that same point yet, or that they simply don't care.

What comes across as sanctimony is usually just incredulity that other people continue to do something that absolutely will make them ill and likely kill them, but like I said, they are often in a completely different state of mind to an ex-smoker who has successfully quit.

Smoking is totally irrational to an ex-smoker, but obviously not to someone who is still enjoying it despite the consequences.

YABU

I'm an ex smoker, I also realise how bloody hard giving up is, and how you'll only ever succeed in quitting when you want to and not when others pressure you.

So no, I don't judge anyone because I've been there.

I'm an ex smoker. I can't say I judge others for smoking 🤷

Yeah same for junkies out any reformed holier than thou type. They can't help it, dramatic revulsion is how they stay off it

Two I find this! Also ex fat people are the worst at judging fat people.

I think the word a lot of you are missing is 'some'.

I’m an ex smoker of 17 years and hate it and miss it and still indulge in a fag when I’m especially pissed.

All I care about is no one smokes in the house otherwise I don’t give a shit.

I’m talking maybe 3 times a year.

I'm an ex-smoker and yeah I'm probably more judgemental than non-smokers.
I appreciate how hard it is to give up, though.
It took me 19,000,000,000,000,000 attempts before I finally quit by going cold turkey.

It's fear, innit. They're scared to backslide so they have to treat it like heroin.

I'm an ex smoker and I love smokers, love getting the odd illicit whiff of a fag and completely understand why they do it- after all, I did it for years.

They only thing I'd hate would be for my kids to start and I wonder whether your dad feels a bit like that about your best friend- either that she's going to influence you or else he feels a sort of quasi-parent and so entitled to encourage her to stop.

I'm an ex smoker but I vape now so still on the nicotine.
The smell gets to me now though, not a lit cigarette but the smell when someone's just been smoking. I'd never judge anyone though I'm in no place to judge when I did it myself.

Never smoked. Never been tempted. Told my mum she’d die if she carried on smoking (aged about 10). She did. I’m judgemental but very rarely say anything.

I think it depends on how a person reacts to the smell after they quit. Some people bodily respond with revulsion.

Me? I lurve the smell so much that I'm practically a street pervert lurking on your shoulder.

I try not to go out much.

Yes. I hate the smell of cigarettes. Cigarillos not so much. But haven't touched one for well over 20 years.

Nothing to do with smoking, but my mum and her sisters, all strict Catholics, used to hate converts to Catholicism because they would show them up - they took their religion so seriously and went to Mass on all the saints days etc. My mum used to say "they never stop going on about it" - pissed her right off 😀

(She also used to say about late converts, "It's OK for them, they do whatever they want all their lives and then say they've converted and they get treated just like the rest of us.")

Im an ex smoker but i go and stand next to smokers. I love the smell of lit cigarettes

Not for me it isn't.

Unless you have been a long-term addicted smoker, and suffered from the depressed and damaged health that goes hand-in-hand with that, then I don't think you can really grasp just how daft people who continue to smoke appear to us.

I have no carvings and people actually smoking in front of me doesn't bother me at all in terms of making me desire it. My revulsion stems entirely from knowing exactly what smoking did to me, and being puzzled as to how other people happily continue on knowing it makes them ill, antisocial, costs a fortune, and will eventually kill them.

But like I said, that feeling of revulsion is often so overwhelming that you forget you were once like them and everyone takes their own time to reach the point where they are ready to quit. Some never do unfortunately.

*no cravings, obvs

No I'm an ex smoker and I never ever judge people. How can you when you know how hard it is to stop? I will offer support if asked but otherwise let people crack on.

People that say that have never met me, I HATE the smell of smoke and people smoking all over outside places all the time and Ive never smoked

My experience of ex smokers (never been a smoker myself) is as many posters here say. They seem to love it, talk about it like an old friend they lost touch with, and many of them openly admit they would start again tomorrow if they had some major life trauma. It's one of the reasons I'd never go out with an ex smoker - there's a danger they're only one life event away from being a smoker again.

I’m an ex smoker and I recently stayed in a conversation that I really didn’t want to have, because the person I was having it with was smoking at the same time. Ridiculous. I don’t want a cigarette, but i’ll stand waaaay too close to you while you’re having one. Anyway. No, not all ex smokers are like that. I loved smoking, but I like myself much more now it doesn’t rule my life. None of my business what anyone else does.

I agree op. Some ex smokers are very preachy.