tobacco

[Bowdiddley]

Hypnosis worked for me, haven't smoked a cigarette in over 22 years and honestly haven't even thought about putting another in my mouth. It worked in my case.

 

Now in all fairness I do bark at the walls when I have a drink! j/k

[grampa]

I think it's wrong to blame the substance for the addiction. People become addicts because of their personality. Tiger Woods, as an example. His addictive substance, sex, is not the cause of his problem, it's his personality. Tobacco is rather nice when occasionally smoked but the addictive personality cannot be moderate.

[Big Bill]

I think a lot of us here may have Wood's addiction, our way of dealing with the urge may differ.

[Twiz]

Camel Lights. I freakin' loved 'em. Then I quit...3 years ago. I'm at the point now where I can bum one every once in a while and not go full-on smoker again. -A couple years ago I couldn't do that. It's kind of difficult to explain, but I don't want anything to have that kind of control over my life again. -When I smoked a pack a day, I would schedule my life around cigarettes (leaving for work early so I could huff one before I went in, driving a certain way on my lunch so I could get one...that kind of crap). Now that I stopped, I don't want the non-smoking to control me either. I'm not going to avoid going to my favorite rock and roll bar just because people are going to be smoking their faces off.

 

In a strange way, I kinda wish I grew up in the 50's or the 60's. People smoked, and nobody really flipped out about it.

[Artie Owl]

My Grandfather was the man I respected most in my life, ever. He passed away this February, after a 4 year battle with an extremely deadly form of lung cancer. He's the one who got me interested in history, music, sports, books everything, and our family had to spend agonizing months watching him basically suffocate from the inside. He was a quiet intelligent proud man, he quit cigarettes for a long while, but started the occasional cigar when I think he knew there wasn't much time left. After seeing what he went through and what my grandmother went through with him that's more than enough for me to never get the habit. Like I said, I'll try a cigar someday but anyone who's been affected by watching someone suffer through that would be nuts to keep doing it, regardless of how their personality is.

 

My stepdad quit smoking using a gameboy, he said it wasn't the cravings that beat him it was the habit of going outside and doing something with his hands. He used to take my old gameboy to work and take it out side with him to keep from smoking, it worked, it's been 11 years now clean. Try it people.

[dem00n]

Its really akward to run into a teacher smoking...i have no idea why. It just is!

[AXE®]

Marlboro Red.

[dROK83]

I wish it was as simple as "to each his own." Nothing pisses me off more than somebody I've never met in my life or is nothing more than a casual acquaintance telling me that I should quit or that smoking is bad for me. "Oh really' date=' Captain Obvious? I must have missed the warning that covers up an entire side of the box!" More times than not it's a middle aged to older woman with a big fat *** who's going to die from a heart attack due to overeating and lack of exercise. I wonder how they'd react if I told they shouldn't eat so many damned Twinkies because their heart is going to explode.[/quote']

 

 

There is actually a South Park episode that portrays this scenario very well, and is very funny. It's called "Butt Out", very funny.

[tulsaslim]

Smoked for 20 years. Quit for 10. Started up again, and quit again 2 years ago. damn glad I quit because I feel so much better and with Marlboros over $40 a carton I'm saving $150/mo. (enough to buy a good guitar at the end of the year).

At the same time I resent the way society has turned smokers into criminals. Low-life criminals at that. Just because they're an easy target.

[cabba2203]

Weed isn't Tobacco is it?

 

I used to smoke it as such. No more of a drug than nicotine IMO.

 

Anyway, to get back on topic, I smoked Camel for about 15 years as well before I had to quit due to asthma.

[GIANTRobOT420]

I wish it was as simple as "to each his own." Nothing pisses me off more than somebody I've never met in my life or is nothing more than a casual acquaintance telling me that I should quit or that smoking is bad for me. "Oh really' date=' Captain Obvious? I must have missed the warning that covers up an entire side of the box!" More times than not it's a middle aged to older woman with a big fat *** who's going to die from a heart attack due to overeating and lack of exercise. I wonder how they'd react if I told they shouldn't eat so many damned Twinkies because their heart is going to explode.[/quote']

I agree. The other day I had guy with a cig in his hand tell me smoking is bad for me.

[zigzag]

Nothing pisses me off more than somebody I've never met in my life or is nothing more than a casual acquaintance telling me that I should quit or that smoking is bad for me... More times than not it's a middle aged to older woman with a big fat *** who's going to die from a heart attack due to overeating and lack of exercise.

 

Watch how your skinny butt expands when you quit smoking.

[RichCI]

Heh! It started doing that after I met my girlfriend!

[milod]

Demoon wrote...

 

"Its really akward to run into a teacher smoking...i have no idea why. It just is!"

 

Yup, and someone else asked why "politics" should be dragged into this.

 

It's not a matter of politics, but of cultural change that I'm looking at.

 

It's also not a matter of "the power to tax is the power to destroy," although that argument is made.

 

My personal interest has more to do with watching patterns of cultural change from a half century ago when we had an entirely different set of informal cultural imperatives.

 

For example, nobody thought ill of a school district's 1960 rule expelling a pregnant 17-year-old girl from high school, but the teachers' lounge expelled a cloud of tobacco smoke throughout the day.

 

Diet has make a drastic change since the 1950s - and I mean what we eat and what's "politically correct" to eat compared to back then. Talk about sashimi and you'd likely have two thirds of the U.S. population getting literally ill just thinking about it. Hey, lard is great for cooking, right?

 

Wear a helmet while riding a bicycle? Are you crazy? What for? Next thing is you'll make all cars have seat belts!

 

Rock 'n' Roll destroys young people's natural and proper inhibitions and... of course all the young people naturally saw that as a good excuse for what they'd done forever but that no older generation would admit to the younger. <grin>

 

Few folks much younger than I am recall the tobacco rituals that were solidified in WWII and were then destroyed by whatever brought a cultural change against that generation. You never refuse a ciggie even if you don't smoke. You puff enough to get it lit just as the Indians smoked the peace pipe because that's almost exactly what you're doing. If you have 'em, you offer one back... etc., etc, etc. It was a ritual like the tea ritual or the peace pipe, literally.

 

I see little in the way of "peace" ritual today. Sad, ain't it? Oh - and "swing" was considered by the earlier generation as just about as evil as Rock by the swing generation. <chuckle>

 

m

[retrosurfer1959]

Smoking and the health related issues it causes cost the USA in excess of 150 billion dollars per year, and that was two years ago other than heart disease it's the single greatest cost factor in American Health care. So it isn't just the smokers choice anymore since on average as much as 32% of health care costs someone pays at work for their health insurance coverage goes to care for people that smoke and the diseases that it is a known cause for. The other argument is that smoking not only affects you the smoker but has the same health risks for everyone around them plus it's an annoying and disgusting habit if your not a smoker.

 

If you want to argue that it's 100% the smokers choice and society should not be involved than fine smokers should cover 100% of the cost of their smoking caused health issue's ( before you jump on obesity it's a similar point but most doctors agree it's a medical issue for excess weight made worse by choice, but nobody is medically predisposed to smoke). Oh and in regards to smoking in public that bullshit it annoys everyone around you so smoke all you want just don't exhale.

[craigh]

Demoon wrote...

 

"Its really akward to run into a teacher smoking...i have no idea why. It just is!"

 

Yup' date=' and someone else asked why "politics" should be dragged into this.

 

It's not a matter of politics, but of cultural change that I'm looking at.

 

It's also not a matter of "the power to tax is the power to destroy," although that argument is made.

 

My personal interest has more to do with watching patterns of cultural change from a half century ago when we had an entirely different set of informal cultural imperatives.

 

For example, nobody thought ill of a school district's 1960 rule expelling a pregnant 17-year-old girl from high school, but the teachers' lounge expelled a cloud of tobacco smoke throughout the day.

 

Diet has make a drastic change since the 1950s - and I mean what we eat and what's "politically correct" to eat compared to back then. Talk about sashimi and you'd likely have two thirds of the U.S. population getting literally ill just thinking about it. Hey, lard is great for cooking, right?

 

Wear a helmet while riding a bicycle? Are you crazy? What for? Next thing is you'll make all cars have seat belts!

 

Rock 'n' Roll destroys young people's natural and proper inhibitions and... of course all the young people naturally saw that as a good excuse for what they'd done forever but that no older generation would admit to the younger. <grin>

 

Few folks much younger than I am recall the tobacco rituals that were solidified in WWII and were then destroyed by whatever brought a cultural change against that generation. You never refuse a ciggie even if you don't smoke. You puff enough to get it lit just as the Indians smoked the peace pipe because that's almost exactly what you're doing. If you have 'em, you offer one back... etc., etc, etc. It was a ritual like the tea ritual or the peace pipe, literally.

 

I see little in the way of "peace" ritual today. Sad, ain't it? Oh - and "swing" was considered by the earlier generation as just about as evil as Rock by the swing generation. <chuckle>

 

m

[/quote']

 

 

Rock 'n Roll is bad for you? Now you tell me!!!!!!

 

Craig

[milod]

Retro....

 

One of the odd things my Dad taught over the years was how to prove what one might wish to prove. Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending tobacco usage. Nor fast cars, nor alcohol, nor marijuana nor...

 

Bottom line is that as I said, there are certain cultural changes that change society's perspective and its inclination to find "proof" to support whatever that perspective might be.

 

It's not politics at all - although it affects politics.

 

It's the same "cultural change" that brought a majority of a huge vote against Socrates some thousands of years ago for his being a danger to society. It's the same cultural change that makes electric guitar pleasing to our ears and yet a horrid jangle to my grandparents.

 

As a newspaper "outdoor editor" I found it interesting that in a lake on a multi-state border, the statistics proved you should not eat more than one walleye a week for fear of dying from mercury poisoning due to EPA statistics, where in another state it was perfectly safe to have one per day by FDA statistics.

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, some groups were screaming about how the mercury got there in the first place and...

 

I'm not lessening the potential impact of either mercury or tobacco smoke. But I find it interesting that obesity and asthsma and ADD among children and adults have increased in the same time period as the increasing anti-smoking push.

 

No, I'm not suggesting the two are linked except in a sociological sense of what is considered important by the culture.

 

There was an AP story today noting how people who cut any "non-vital" spending in today's economy dump just about everything except ... high speed internet service and alcohol. I'd suggest that would not even pass understanding in the 1950s. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

 

m

[Jantha]

Did someone say Walleye?

 

Never got into smoking. Tried it a few times, and didn't much care for it. If I did smoke though, I'd hit Marlboro's or Camel's... just cause, you know, that's what me Dad smokes.

[milod]

Yupper...

 

Walleye.

 

Talk about something becoming a major subject in a strong lake fishing area - it was walleye fisheries and mercury and how the mercury got there and whether you should follow the EPA recommendations or the FDA recommendations which were significantly at odds with each other and each adopted by the two states on either side of the little lake.

 

Sheesh. It was one of the few times I saw the normal "comment" folks disappear. In fact, when it came out that the mechanism of the mercury getting into the fish was because of high lake waters in grasses bringing the concentration and that no point source at all could be targeted... folks kinda let the subject drop and ate the things as they wished. Never heard of anybody dying from it at that point but then, nobody was checking cadavers of angler families for higher than usual mercury concentration.

 

Frankly I don't particularly care for walleye. Love trout and that's about the only freshwater fish I like. But then, I'm told I'm nuts for that preference by those who incline toward the perch family. <grin>

 

Catching any of them is great fun, though.

 

m

[retrosurfer1959]

Milod some interesting points but not sure how germane they are I'm sure the fish mercury levels go up and down and how people want to perceive that changes also the EPA and FDA often disagree I think that's pretty normal when defending your existence is competing with actual fact's.

 

I'm also getting up there in years also so have allot of the same social memories you do but as a city boy and let's be real cigarettes were never considered healthy we just figured the average man would die of other causes before cancer got em and health wasn't a concern, so they set at a table smoking and eating fried food and a potato with 3 lb's of butter on it - but then they got up the next morning and did 9-10 hours of hard labor so it was somewhat mitigated. I think the health issue ids used to justify the dislike of cigarettes by the larger non smoking public. Kind of like the tax on booze and cigarette's they keep raising it because people ***** but keep on smoking and until they can't afford it anymore they still will so it's a big moneymaker

 

As for obesity being new it's not. But its now an epidemic because of lifestyle choices we have made especially here in America are kids are slugs that eat nothing but processed foods while sitting on their butts playing video games and drinking a 42 oz. soda. doesn't take much to figure out that issue really. As for ADD same issue plus it's a over medicated and over popularized condition when we were young a child that acted out like that got spanked by whatever adult could catch it now they say it's ADD and medicate them and then again sit them in front of a TV because god forbid with both parents working full time to buy crap they don't need they can't be bothered to actually interact let alone raise their own children.

[milod]

Retro...

 

My only point really was that if one wishes to prove something, and if there's the media to pass on the message, it's remarkable how pretty soon one finds it has become a "truth" within a culture.

 

And it's certainly an old saying within our culture that we all agree with until it counters our own beliefs: There are plain lies, damxd lies and statistics...

 

m

[stevef]

Smoking and the health related issues it causes cost the USA in excess of 150 billion dollars per year' date=' and that was two years ago other than heart disease it's the single greatest cost factor in American Health care. So it isn't just the smokers choice anymore since on average as much as 32% of health care costs someone pays at work for their health insurance coverage goes to care for people that smoke and the diseases that it is a known cause for. The other argument is that smoking not only affects you the smoker but has the same health risks for everyone around them plus it's an annoying and disgusting habit if your not a smoker.

 

If you want to argue that it's 100% the smokers choice and society should not be involved than fine smokers should cover 100% of the cost of their smoking caused health issue's ( before you jump on obesity it's a similar point but most doctors agree it's a medical issue for excess weight made worse by choice, but nobody is medically predisposed to smoke). Oh and in regards to smoking in public that bull**** it annoys everyone around you so smoke all you want just don't exhale. [/quote']

 

These are a couple of "bullet" points from an older study (There's a newer 1 from 2006 I think from Duke Univ, I couldn't find quickly, it breaks down all costs involved with smoking, drinking, obesity, STD/AIDS-HIVs, etc.) done for National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence.

*From 1985 to 1992, the economic costs of alcoholism and alcohol-related problems rose

42% to $148 billion.

*Based on inflation and population growth, the estimated costs for 1995 total

$166.5 billion.

According to a 2009 govt sponsered study obesity costs annualized to $147 billion. As for it being a "purely" medical issue, it has as much to do with the lack of control to stop shoving twinkies and Mcdonalds into one's mouth.

 

I did quite a bit research when the company I worked for decided it should cost me $100 more a month for my health insurance because I smoke. I kept sending the benefits folks all of the research showing these and other stats from studies (mostly to break chops). Finally I got a phone call from some executive VP in the benefits dept telling me he understood my points completely but, there was nothing he could do. We discussed why the company wasn't weighing people as they walked in the door, or watching bars for staff drinking (or blood tests, similar to the drug tests). He said "how could we do that, it would be discriminatory?"

retro, you're right. I smoke cigs and there's no excuse for it(although I can recite a few).

[Big Bill]

It's not a matter of politics' date=' but of cultural change that I'm looking at.

 

[/quote']

 

Milo, you may have been discussing cultural change, however it calls out the members that can't resist displaying their political beliefs within a guitar forum. Knowing that you are a much wiser man than myself, I am surprised that you would take the discussion so close to the taboo knowing the it will bring the political junkies out of the woodwork. Isn't these types of discussions frowned upon by Gibson and the forum members?

[retrosurfer1959]

Retro...

 

My only point really was that if one wishes to prove something' date=' and if there's the media to pass on the message, it's remarkable how pretty soon one finds it has become a "truth" within a culture.

 

And it's certainly an old saying within our culture that we all agree with until it counters our own beliefs: There are plain lies, damxd lies and statistics...

 

m

[/quote']

 

 

 

Understood and I agree with you but it goes back to a even older saying Fact's are Fact's and statistics can spin them but usually it starts somewhere with a truth and a real botom line we as a country and a world are learning that right now.

[retrosurfer1959]

Before anybody starts thinking I'm a tea toddler or gets the wrong impression about me I smoke cigars, drink too much alcohol, consume as much caffeine as possible without using a patch and abuse a few other substances on a regular basis. So I'm not preaching here.

 

Just having a conversation on some of the statements people made that I thought were interesting I have nothing against people doing whatever the hell they feel like if it doesn't effect me. I think it's important that we look at it logically the people I feel sorry for are the health nut's that eat right, don't drink, and exercise that have heart attacks at 50 I refuse to eat Tofu and Vegtables and someday when I die people will say well hell what did you expect.

 

Nothing is dumber in my opinion in this life then dying young with a pretty corpse I plan on sliding into a grave sideway's coverred in scars, overweight, smelling of booze with a stogie in one hand.