Zer0

I started the same way as most people really, being a teenager and surrounded by friends that smoked, giving into peer pressure and doing it just to be 'cool' i guess. Now i'm in my early 20's and i'd really like to kick the habit now so i won't be smoking for life but it's not exactly that easy. Smoking when out drinking is the big thing though, cigarettes and beer just go so well together. It's just a hard habit to kick.

__________________

VEGANGELICA

Thanks for answering, Zero. I think you are very right that smoking is a very hard habit to kick for most people. One of my aunts who has smoked her whole life developed breast cancer and wanted to quit then, but she *still* couldn't get herself to do so, even after trying patches and all sorts of things. A person I talked with once online said that 25 years after quitting, he still smoked in his dreams!

I wonder sometimes if people who smoke perhaps think life should feel really fun and pleasant or stressfree, or expect themselves to be in a good mood, so it is hard to face the physical and psychological effects of withdrawal, which I hear are pretty bad.

I imagine that quitting does involve avoiding the situations that make one fall into old habits. It's funny though, how people are different, because I absolutely hate the taste of beer (and wine), so I'd never want to combine beer and smoking! It sounds like your fun night out would be my nightmare!

I like your post-it notes, by the way.

__________________

TheCunningStunt

Why? My mum has smoked all my life, but she's always refused to smoke in the house so she's always stood at the back door to do so. My Uncle however... smokes no matter who's there.

It's just about being a good parent really.

__________________

Last FM

VEGANGELICA

I had a grandma like your uncle. When she died, I wasn't sad at all. She was sometimes a nasty, self-centered, barb-tongued woman who belittled my mom and my dad, and was even worse when she drank.

In answer to your question about why smoking outside the house doesn't protect children from the harms of secondhand smoke:

__________________

TheCunningStunt

I love my Uncle loads, but he's a bit of an inconsiderate wanker at times. But meh, his house his rules I guess...

Your grandma sounds a bit mean.

Yeah, that study means AWAY from their kids. I.E when their kids are upstairs, they smoke downstairs. My mumsy has always blown the smoke outside.

__________________

Last FM

VEGANGELICA

I would never visit your uncle then or take a child there. If someone consistently does something that hurts me in pursuit of her or his own selfish pleasure, I just don't develop much love for that person.

And yes, my grandma was sometimes nasty and cruel. Not as bad as one of MY uncles, though. Even as a child, I think we hated each other. He was a smoker AND a hunter AND a racist. Now he's very ill though, which is too bad.

The study on kids exposed indirectly to smoke included mostly families in which no one ever smoked in the house: "Indirect exposure group (17 households): the mother smoked every day; all cigarettes were NOT smoked in the same room or in a car with an infant. In 14 of these 17 households, all cigarette smoking was done outside the house."

The study should have been improved by separating the indirect exposure group into two groups: those whose moms, like yours, smoked only outside the house, and those whose moms smoked inside the house but not in the same room as the children.

I agree that is a flaw in the study, but it still suggests that children such as yourself (when you were a child) whose moms smoked outside the house ended up with exposure to smoke and its harmful effects.

"Mumsy." That is so cute! I always wonder why we say mom instead of "mum" over here in the U.S.

__________________

The Monkey

You forgot Lucky Strike.

__________________

Now another stranger seems to want you to ignore his dreams as though they were the burden of some other

My Last.fm

Freebase Dali

That's kind of a misleading test, and position you're taking if basing it on that test.

Firstly, the tests performed only tested for the presence of Nicotine itself in the houses. Nicotine, in and of itself, is not a carcinogen and in healthy children and adults, the worst it does is constrict blood vessels, resulting in higher blood pressure for a period of time. Considering the vast difference in nicotine levels between first and second hand smokers, this can be concluded to be a nearly moot point unless there's some initial underlying illness being exacerbated by these effects.
Here's a quote from Wiki about Nicotine:
Furthermore, why didn't they test for the actual carcinogens that harm smokers? It certainly can't be "assumed" that just because Nicotine is there, proportionate amounts of other trace elements from cigarette smoke will be there as well. I would like a more thorough study regarding that.

I won't assume that your opinion regarding people who smoke outside still harming their kids is based on that study alone, but I'm interested as to why you would use that study to fortify your statement, because it's a pretty shoddy backup.

Burning Down

My parents smoked inside the house for years when I was growing up! They stopped smoking inside a couple of years ago. I'm 20 now and so far my lungs are in good working order. I can still play the flute! Of course I've inhaled all the stuff that is present in second hand smoke but I really don't want to know what. Each of my parents has gone through periods of not smoking. Everything in my house is permeated with a strong smell of stale cigarettes, including MY clothes. And if you walked up to the door without knowing anything about us, the one thing you could be sure of is that there are smokers inside the house.

As a kid, the fact that my parents were smoking in the house was more embarrassing than anything. I would have friends over for short periods once in a while but I never had any sleepovers, I guess because those parents didn't want their kids being exposed to all that crap. I always had to go to somebody else's house.

I've heard that kids whose parents were/are smokers are more likely to pick up the habit. I'm not the least bit interested.

Zer0

Both my parents used to smoke around the house when i was growing up and they both managed to quit, my dad gave up about 10 years ago and my mum gave up about 15 years ago or sometime before that maybe. I admire them both for being able to quit like that and not go back. They were never heavy smokers but there was always the smell of cigarettes in our living room and the danger of second-hand smoke, i'm not sure if there was much damage done to my lungs from second-hand smoke growing up.

I think it's true that kids whose parents are smokers are more likely to pick up the habit. My grandmother on my mother's side was a very heavy smoker, she would go through at least a pack a day, and all my aunts and uncles on that side of the family as well as my mum are/were smokers, and now i'm a smoker. I suppose when you grow up in that environment it just seems like a natural thing to do because your parents are doing it, so the children pick it up easier than those growing up in an environment with no smokers around.

__________________