Need a puff of cyanide and nitrosamine soup everyday before work? Can't live without your cancer?
Do you smoke?
I do, and it's beginning to piss me off and hurt my lungs. I actually want to stop because it is retarded (I am smoking as I type this and it feels nice so really I'm just all talk right now and my word is about as sincere as a cake in pietown).
A smoking ban on public places commenced about a month ago in Northern Ireland and now everytime I'm in a bar I have to go outside like a big ostracized criminal and puff on my cancer sticks. It actually sucks more for non smokers, as most bars now stink of nonsmoker b.o and farts. Idiots. And now they complain about that? Whining little maggots.
Anyway, just as a tiny and absolutely unscientific experiment, how many VV'ers smoke?
Edit; Where the fuck did the poll go? Can teh mods plx fix?
Last edited by Nick on June 1, 2007, 6:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Pyrella - Illusionist - Leader of Ixtlan on Antonia Bayle
if you were walking around and you came upon a tulip with tits, would you let it be for the rest of the world to enjoy.. or would you pick it and carry it off to a secluded area to motorboat them?
-Cadalano
*Just so I can dress up in a dressing gown and sit in a green leather chair, holding a glass of whiskey in one hand, that cigarette in the other, and verbally fellate my fellow guests with hilarious witticisms about that time I went to Provence with my African concubine Celeste and we had to go 3 days without baguettes because the local boulangerie workers were on strike. Bloody French communists!.*
I Quit about 2 years ago after 13 years of addiction. Although, on a regular basis, I was only a half pack a day smoker. Would go through 2+ in a night of drinking though.
Quit while\after I was in the hospital last Nov, still want one now and again but starting down that road again would be pretty stupid. Tried to quit for a couple years and couldn't until I had no ability to go and smoke.
"Life is what happens while you're making plans for later."
I quit a number of years ago, I don't know how long. It was when New York State mandated all cigarettes sold in-state have those little paper rings so they go out instead of (EEEEEK!!) burning some morons house down. My problem is that they go out unless you smoke them constantly. I would be playing guitar and have to re-light my smoke every time I stopped. I would be playing Morrowind and have to re-light my smoke every time I took a drag. At $5 a pack I should be able to smoke the whole cigarette without needing to re-light the damned thing every 45 seconds.
And an off/on topic rant: I don't believe the government has any right to step in and tell a business owner what can and cannot go on in their establishment, as long as it is legal. I don't mind them saying it is against the law to murder people in a bar, because murder is also illegal outside the bar (unless you live in Rwanda or someplace as lawless), however smoking a cigarette is just as legal as drinking a beer. Why is it against the law to drink beer on the street and smoke cigarettes in a bar? I do not approve!
I do smoke a joint every couple of weeks however, however, I'm pretty sure that's done now too since I'm going to be getting a company vehicle and a big raise and thus will be up for random drug testing and I'm not willing to throw my job away for pot.
It's been 2 months, haven't touched the stuff.
And here I go off on a tangent... It should be none of your employers god damn business what you do on your own time. THC in your piss doesn't mean you're high and impaired. It doesn't make you stupid or evil and it doesn't make you make bad decisions because you're not high.
While that point is correct, it is 100% connected to the status of marijuana as illegal and 0% connected to the actual use of marijuana. If marijuana use was not illegal, the point would not apply.
Your employer must of course react to the legal landscape as it exists, I just want that argument's status an an argument for drug testing as opposed to an argument against legalization or against marijuana generally to be clear.
Heavy marijuana use while not permanently damaging does lower you mental abilities. Smart people can become average or below, average people can descend into idiocy.
Of course that level of consumption frequently prevents someone from getting\keeping a decent job in the first place. Or perhaps the issues that cause that level of consumption do, I don't know. I saw it in my teens-20s, and I've seen it again recently in my kid's friends and a few co-workers.
"Life is what happens while you're making plans for later."
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
There's no doubt that marijuana has effects on your brain. I've actually just decided in the past week to quit for good, but it's taken me a while...
I'd characterize it as a general hazy, detached feeling. I've felt pretty apathetic towards life, and there's been a serious lack of motivation. Things that used to be a lot of fun are much less enjoyable...From everything i've read, this feeling lasts for a few months or more after you quit, depending on your body weight and how much you used to smoke. It's definitely a feeling i'm willing to be rid of. Does this warrant a reconsideration of my intelligence?
Heck, I'm all for using smoking to deny employment. We've had three people in the past 2 years on our team that were smokers and they spent (spend) half their time out on smokebreaks. And the current one has health issues, more than likely due to smoking (but I don't know that for sure) and he's out to see the doctor a couple times a month. That's not exactly fair for nonsmokers. Where's our smokebreaks? If anything I'm discriminated against because I don't smoke!
Last I checked - everyone is given 'break times', smokers just happen to do something consistent with it (good or bad, decide for yourself, regardless, it is consistent)
Here in California, for every 2 hours worked, you get 15 minutes, and every 4 hours, either 30 mins or an hour for lunch. Several people at my work use it as an opportunity to take a walk, go for a cup of coffee, read a book at the lunch area, etc.
Obviously you non smokers are taking your breaks, as you do surf the net from work ;P - and if you're not going outside, or doing anything besides sitting at your desk....that's your fault.
In the end it comes down to use/abuse, just like with anything else.
Pyrella - Illusionist - Leader of Ixtlan on Antonia Bayle
if you were walking around and you came upon a tulip with tits, would you let it be for the rest of the world to enjoy.. or would you pick it and carry it off to a secluded area to motorboat them?
-Cadalano
With all due respect to the smokers here, smoking nowadays doesn't make too much sense beyond flat out admitting you do it because of the extremely high chemical addiction factor involved.
The only real cool thing left that you can do is blow smoke rings. Cigars and poker games is sort of traditional as well I suppose.
Socially, I don't care if someone smokes as a friend. I don't preach about it. It doesn't bother me to the point where I won't hang out with smokers at a bar. Sitting at a table with Sylvus, Py and Lali all smoking didn't bother me. It wasn't even on my mind in a negative sense. What was on my mind was how fast I could drink my Warp Core without getting brain freeze. I also wondered a few times what would happen if I sucked down a piece of dry ice accidentally that was in the bottom of those drinks. OK, that was later...don't think we had Warp Cores until heading up to the bar.
Christ, my mind is going. I remember doing some sort of shot with Py at the Go Go dancer club. What was that stuff!? you picked it!
Anyway, as Seebs said, finding a non smoker at an EverQuest FanFaire would take a "Where's Waldo" type effort.
Smoking = Addiction
EverQuest/MMORPGs = Addiction
Booze = social thing!
makes sense! How many here can say, at their highest playtime EQ peak, that they weren't addicted? (you're lying or never made it to the end game!)
Seriously, Would you not have sex with a woman solely because she smoked? (or a man if you're a woman or gay) Of course not! Especially if you're three sheets to the wind drunk! ...same as I'd have sex with a super religious Mormon chick for example. Why let that sort of thing get in your way of short term gratification? Now, long term, things would have to work out one way or another. I can't picture a scenario where I'd have a relationship with a heavy smoker unless they were capable of some sort of circus freak sex otherwise unobtainable with 99.9 percent of the population or were so smart they could convince me that smoking wasn't going to shorten the lifespan of someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
I take bong hits in Second Life!
When I take a break, besides the bathroom trips, is usually spent relaxing listening to the radio, podcast or catching a quick 10 minute nap which doesn't seem very long but still helps.
My partner and I quit 3/21/07 with the aid of a prescription called Chantixthat was not covered by my insurance
They describe it better than I:
There are receptors for nicotine in the brain. When smoke is inhaled, nicotine attaches to these receptors. This sends a message to a different part of the brain to release a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine gives a feeling of pleasure. But it only lasts for a short time. The body wants to repeat this feeling. Based on research, it is believed that CHANTIX™ (varenicline) works by activating these receptors and blocking nicotine from attaching to them. However, CHANTIX does not contain nicotine.
Technically I had stopped and so I didn't take it buy my girl had been smoking since she was 13 and it was mostly for her. The doctor said to take it for a week but keep smoking and after 7 days QUIT! By day 3 she would light up and smoke half and then it would taste too bad and she'd let it burn out. The next day it was a random puff here and there and on day 5 she just quit and hasn't gone back yet. The mental temptation is still there (so hard to play the computer and not smoke or during the commute as well) but it was the best decision we've made so far.
Smoking is only a minor chemical addiction - it's far more a psychological addiction. It takes a maximum of 3 weeks for all the nicotine to disappear entirely from your system along with the physical dependancies (most likely it will only take 5-6 days). The main problem is the brainwashing that's occurred over time due to smoking: we, as smokers, believe that we can't function without nicotine, but what we're really doing is just fighting off a craving that does fuck all for us. We don't feel better because of the cigarette, we just feel less shitty - we're trying to reach the state that non-smokers are in all the time. It's pitiful, really.
There's no stress relief from smoking, there's no joy or pleasure. There's just sad gits in a steady decline, panically attempting to stave off a rather mild physical addiction and through doing so, getting more and more hooked - on a psychological level - every day.
IT'S HARD TO PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT; SOMETHING IS WRONG
I'M LIKE THE UNCLE WHO HUGGED YOU A LITTLE TOO LONG
Drolgin Steingrinder wrote:Smoking is only a minor chemical addiction - it's far more a psychological addiction. It takes a maximum of 3 weeks for all the nicotine to disappear entirely from your system along with the physical dependancies (most likely it will only take 5-6 days). The main problem is the brainwashing that's occurred over time due to smoking: we, as smokers, believe that we can't function without nicotine, but what we're really doing is just fighting off a craving that does fuck all for us. We don't feel better because of the cigarette, we just feel less shitty - we're trying to reach the state that non-smokers are in all the time. It's pitiful, really.
There's no stress relief from smoking, there's no joy or pleasure. There's just sad gits in a steady decline, panically attempting to stave off a rather mild physical addiction and through doing so, getting more and more hooked - on a psychological level - every day.
That's why I made a concerted effort to maintain my smoker's habits sans smoking for the first month or so after I quit. Most importantly, I'd still go outside with my smoking friends at work for "smoke breaks" and try to keep a pen or pencil or pretzel sticks in my hand during the times that I normally smoked. Being around the smokers was tough at first, but my willpower held out, and in the end I think that going through the motions, the social habits especially, helped me greatly. I smoked for about 10 years in total, with one multi-year, but ultimately failed attempt to quit when I was 21. I quit for good in 1997, and have never been tempted to start back again.
"When I was a kid, my father told me, 'Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it.'" - Russel Ziskey
Can teh mods plx fix?
