My father, the son of a son of a polygamist, would say of any non-Mormon who died, “smoker.” That’s how common smoking was in 1969, the year I smoked my first cigarette. I can’t recall if it was from one of the packs of Fatima cigarettes that my brothers and I won at a carnival game, or if it was a cig given to me by Noel Baker, Mormon bad boy, or if it was a half cigarette I’d picked up off the gravel shoulder of the highway to Reading. But I was smoking cigarettes off and on at the age of twelve. I’d given up on Mormon superstitions and was smoking with abandon like my gentile grandmother. She was my mother’s mother; Dad’s side of the family had been Mormon for four or five generations, which is plenty of time to eliminate any kind of individuality from the bloodline. Dad was a slavishly observant Mormon. His interests included church, money, church apologetics, Nixonian politics and church attendance. For a hobby he beat his sons. My brothers and I smoked in fields and behind buildings.

We moved from Pottstown, PA, to La Grande, OR, before I turned fourteen. In La Grande I met a boy named Randy, whose truck driving father had dropped out of Mormonism, taking his grateful family with him. Randy had a preference for the long cigarettes. His favorite was Benson and Hedges one hundreds. Those were long smokes. I was just a puffer until I met Randy. He showed me how to inhale, and it made me dizzy. I had noticed my grandmother inhaling, and I thought that she was swallowing the smoke the way she swallowed Coors from the can. Once I started inhaling, the hook was in. I was like a caught Marlin. The cigarettes might let me roam for a bit, but they would always reel me in at some point. On occasion I found it necessary to sneak off and have a smoke. I’d become an addict.

Throughout my teens I smoked compulsively. Cigarettes were with me at parties, drive in movies, trips to the mall, dirt bike runs, creek walks, rock concerts and even while hiking in the woods. The cancer sticks were ubiquitous. It became necessary to maintain a stash of cigs and a lighter or matches. A pack with only two cigarettes left in it triggered anxiety. Where would I get my next pack? What hours would the store be open? Did I forget my cigarettes when I got into the car? What if I woke up in the morning to an empty pack? The damn things were no fun anymore. So I quit cold turkey. My father was delighted. I even went to church a few times, but I found it no less boring than when I’d sat through the meetings waiting for a chance to smoke. Abstinence does nothing to improve Mormonism. Some things are best left behind.

I still miss it.

donbagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n/t


Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaha. Yes.

I came from a non LDS background. Both of my parents smoked when I was very young and I started in the fifth grade. I smoked all through school. Back in the day we could even smoke on the school grounds in designated areas at high school. Boy, have times changed. I met a Mormon girl who I later married and my smoking changed. I stopped because I hormonally converted to the LDS church and followed the WOW. For thirty years I gave up smoking and drinking. After the thirty years of servitude, we left the church as a family. I picked up the drinking immediately. Three and a half years ago I gave up the drinking. Now at the age of seventy I have once again started smoking. This time it is a pipe that I smoke. Now my son and I enjoy our pipes out on the patio. My pipe is filled with fine tobacco leaf while his pipe is filled with another herb.

nice :D

that's better than sharing a beer!

You do humanity proud.

https://youtu.be/B75qAZC1Bnk

For Frasier Fans

I dreamt of smoking from at least 9 years old (earliest I can remember smoking dreams)

I used to 'smoke' the paper sticks from lolly pops.... Did you know smoke can come out the other end of a paper lolly stick on fire?)

The first time I had a 'real' cig, i was 12. It was a Marlboro red. I inhaled deeply and it felt like coming home.


(No coughing)

I've been smoking off and on again since then.


Lately I feel like shit doing it since it killed my late husband....

Pyewacket wrote: "I dreamt of smoking from at least 9 years old (earliest I can remember smoking dreams)"

You too? I've also had smoking dreams, even though I've never smoked and I find cigarette smoke repellent. I've always figured that it had something to do with seeing smoking on TV and in movies.

If I was diagnosed with an incurable disease tomorrow, I'd buy a pack of marbs.

Started smoking in 1962 at age 13 (stole smokes from my Catholic aunt and uncle while mom and dad were visiting them). Smoked my last cig at 8PM on April 24, 1983 (don't ask me why I remember it to this day but I do). Missed it for a couple years but no more, thankfully.

RB

I ran out of smokes and had my last cigarette on Halloween Day 2007 and never had another one, and don't miss it. I don't see how it's so hard to quit. Just quit. I do like the 'keepable' things I buy with that money. And I always will like the smell of cigarette smoke and cigar smoke. And whenever I smell cigarette smoke and diesel exhaust, it takes me back to my youth and being outside the Eatons store when it was in downtown Lethbridge.

I went to a comedy show in LA a few years ago (ok, 20 years ago), when you could still smoke in bars & clubs in LA.

One of the comics got up on stage. Didn't say a word. Took out a cigarette, lit it, took a long puff, and blew the smoke out at the audience. A few boos, a smattering of applause.

"Oh, sure, boo me you self-righteous fucks," he said.
"I suppose you're going to tell me that if I keep smoking, I'm going to die, right? Well you know what? We're all going to die. And at least when I go, I'll know how goddamn good one of these things is!"

I finally quit smoking cigarettes permanently about five years after smoking on and off for ten years after I left the LDS church. I'm really glad I quit.

Since quitting I have a hard time being around people who smoke. The smell makes me nauseous almost immediately. I even get queasy seeing people smoke in movies or on TV.

I am wondering if anyone else has experienced this kind of rebound revulsion after quitting cigarettes.

My mom's dad died from emphysema brought on by smoking, when he was 62. He'd been a smoker since age 10, when he was orphaned, and spent the rest of his life working on the railroad.

Mom died in part from smoking related causes. After my parents temple marriage ended in divorce she took it back up, and became a chain smoker with her second husband until she died at 67.

I smoked off and on as a teen, and thank God was able to quit by 19 for good. Because of growing up with second hand smoke, two of my brothers like me suffer from respiratory problems. One of our brothers died from childhood cancer - during the time our parents were heavy smokers. That's what brought them around when they did, to going through the temple.

Don't miss it, and second hand smoke makes me nauseous too.

I tried many times as a kid and teenager, probably starting at age 7 when I took a cigarette out of a pack that was in our fireplace and went out into the woods to try it.

My TBM dad got 2 packs of Pall Malls in the mail back in the late 60's. Some type of advertising, free sample thing, and tossed them into the fireplace where they stayed until we had another fire.

I could NEVER get the hang of smoking no matter how hard I tried. My friends could do it, but I always felt dizzy and sick, like I wanted to puke.

Good thing though, I never became a smoker because of that.

I smoked my first and last cigarette when I was a kid. I don't remember how old I was, but I do remember clearly watching with great interest as my grandfather rolled a cigarette. Seeing my rapt attention with the cigarette, he lit it up and offered it to me. I don't know if it was his intention, but I took a long, full drag on that cigarette and immediately started coughing so hard that I threw up. To this day I can't think of having a smoke without feeling a little queasy.

My brother had a similar experience when he kept pestering my dad to try chewing tobacco.

Two of my relatives were diagnosed with terminal lung cancer within the past week. In one case the cancer has spread rapidly from the lungs. Both have been smoking since they were teenagers. They have never been Mormon, but I'm glad that I was the one member of my family who completely avoided that habit, and it had nothing to do with Mormonism. It hurts to see so many of my relatives succumbing to cancer from smoking. My mom died young because of the same habit.

My two TBM brothers wives mothers developed Stage 4 lung cancer. Neither one had ever smoked. Both were life long Mormons.

One died soon after being diagnosed with it. It metastisized quickly to her other organs.

The other mother-in-law was cured (we're talking stage 4!) after undergoing experimental treatment in Colorado at that time.

Both were given death sentences basically. Why one was cured was nothing short of a miracle.

I never smoked, besides trying it in high school and not liking it, but my dad did for a brief time. I remember back in the dinosaur age, we'd walk down to the neighbourhood 7-11 getting my dad a pack of Salem cigarettes with a note from him . Of course now a days , they'd never allow that. I hate even smelling cigarette smoke, bit something about pipe tobacco I like.
Remember all of the old cigarette commercials ? " Come to Marlboro country".

At least four of the Marlboro ad men died from smoking related illnesses. The last one, according to this Los Angeles Times report in 2014 ...

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-marlboro-men-20140127-story.html

Wow, good article, never heard this before.
This is one ad about Marlboro , not in their favour.

I LEFT Mormoni RIGHT back there in the smoke (and mirrors),

Smoking kills!
Mormonism kills (buzzes) FASTER.
Bad, BAD habits!

Glad you got away Don.lol

giving up vices does not increase your lifespan, it just feels longer.

My ex-husband was once photographed by a freelance photographer who was on assignment for Phillip Morris in a search for the next "Marlboro man". He was spotted when we were attending the National Western Stock Show in Denver. We had stepped outside for a cigarette when the photographer approached him. This must have been at least thirty years ago.

I was BIC, mission, BYU, temple married...the whole 9 yards.

When I was 5 I had a non-LDS kid I hung out with who smoked.


One day the friend stole some cigarettes from his pappy and gave one to me. I took it home.

We lived in my uncle's ground floor, unfinished basement. At five I gave smoking that thing a lot of thought, not whether to do it or not but HOW to do it. Doing it was not in question!

"If I smoke it in the basement my family will smell it", I reasoned. So, I opened the window and sat in front of it. I lit it up, sucked in the first puff...and held it in my mouth for a second or two...and blew it out. After two or three of those tries, I thought, "There's gotta be more to this than that", and I visualized the people smoking on TV.
They weren't just sucking the smoke into their mouths and then blowing it out. Dang! They were inhaling the smoke!! WTF??

"I can't do that! I'll choke to death!", I told myself, and thought, "Well, maybe if I started with just a small puff." I did and, shoot! It worked!

After 3 such puffs I experienced the nicotine dizzies and not one cough and finished the rest of that cig. like a PRO...and I was hooked...until I got caught stealing a pack from the local grocery store a while later. The grocer knew my dad, called him and dad drove me straight to the police station. I was wailing like the mother of a suicide bomber, so much so my dad relented and seemed satisfied with my promise that I'd "never do it again".
(Curiously enough, he seemed more concerned with the stealing than my smoking!)

I didn't smoke again until someone passed out cigars at our HS Graduation party. The smoking continued for the next year. Quit for the next 3 years (my mission was tucked in there somewhere). A 3 year Army stint followed, smoked all 3 years and continued at BYU, in my dorm room or at the local Bowling alley. I continued smoking on and off (mostly ON) for the next 30 years.

The tobacco sticks began hurting my lungs such that I had a hard time sleeping, and was shortly introduced to Smokeless tobacco. It got me off smoking for the next 20 years...and, bingo! my lungs quit hurting!

I'm STILL addicted...thanks to that stupid 5 year old!!
However, I now get my nicotine via vape-ism---and quitting is not in the picture. Screw that agony!
Wish they had this Vape Technology 50 years ago!

I'm 75 and not experiencing any ill effects of tobacco use...that I know of...knock on wood! I'm not promoting anything...in fact, don't be a-tryin' this at home!
(Will that pass as a disclaimer?)

I have never smoked, but I can eat almost a full dozen glazed doughnuts.

I've never smoked myself--tobacco or anything else--but my Dad was a PhD Biochemist and a heavy smoker. He had a femoral artery graft in his late 60s and pretty much gave it up after that, although we suspected that he would sneak one occasionally. But that's better than 2-1/2 packs a day.

When I was in high school in the early 1960s, there were a couple of restrooms in the building--one for each gender--with ventilation fans, and it was understood that the administration would not go there very often. When I got to college, smoking was fairly widespread, even though illegal for many of the younger students. They sold cigarettes in the student snack bar, and weren't too particular about IDs. When I went back to the same school in the mid-1970s, tobacco had fallen from favor--but every dormitory on campus absolutely reeked with some other pungent odor.

A former girl friend of mine was also a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer some years back.

IIRC from my graduate courses in Public Health 20+ years ago, tobacco is one of the most addicting materials--if not THE most. Starving concentration camp and PW camp inmates in WWII would trade what little food they had for cigarettes. Cancer survivors with laryngectomies will get rubber tubes and smoke more cigarettes through their throat stomae. I could go on, but you get the idea.

So fortunately, for whatever reason, I never got started in that direction. Alcohol is another matter, of course.

I have smoked for 50 years, but my smoke was marijuana. I would go to church stoned, which is how I got through the mind destroying boredom of sacrament meeting.

Lest you think it has affected my cognition, I have a doctorate from UC Berkeley and a second masters in religious studies from Princeton, and a college instructor.

*