About quitting analogues...

[solaar]

I'm in my 4th week now of not having touched a cancer stick and while I was so far spared from experiencing most of the common side effects of quitting I'm starting to feel a bit weird about this.

I used to smoke 15 a day average for over 30 years, in stressful periods up to 30. The first 10 years mostly Gitanes or Gauloises without filter - strong ****.

Certainly my sense of smell has somewhat improved and I had one mouth ulcer that disappeared after a couple of days but that's about it. I can't say that my physical condition has noticeably improved. I could do 5-8 km brisk walks uphill (fairly steep) without wheezing or coughing when I smoked and that hasn't changed. I haven't pushed it to 10km yet though However I still feel the same as far as breathing when excercising. My heartburn disappeared in the first 2 weeks after kicking the cigs but now it's back. I figured out that it's most likely due to spicy food and the mad amounts of hot sauce which I have developed an insensitivity for and too much orange juice.

Anyway, I keep reading a lot about all the benefits of quitting but most of them are subjectively inexistent for me. (Perhaps the cancer has already got the better of me... )

What is it then with all those generalised horror stories? Honestly. Isn't it all a bit blown up and exaggerated by the media and the anti-smoking lobbyists? Aren't those stories about people dying prematurely from 5 fags a day way over the top and very unfortunate exceptions (if not lies)? And what about those theories that smoking a pack of super lights with 1mg tar a day is as bad as a pack with 15mg?

On a side note, I had my lungs x-rayed last year and the doc and his colleague were unable to tell from the picture if I smoke or not. He asked me first if I smoke and I said 'you tell me from the x-ray'. He said you can never tell until it's basically too late.

Could it just be that some people are unfortunate enough - by genetics, physical constitution etc - to become one of those cases of smokers who should have really never touched a cig and others who can puff away without any discernible trace? Like some people who drink a glass of Vodka and bam! they're alcoholics right away. Or is it simply the amount of cigs a day? I have never heard about studies about life-long smokers who always stayed relatively healthy and peacefully died in their sleep at a high age. I'm starting to believe that this is the majority but everybody wants to keep it down low.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way trying to justify or promote tobacco smoking nor to make it appear harmless. I'm merely trying to get my head around what I'm experiencing, or rather lack thereof, and to get it to match up with all the stuff I'm reading. I can't believe that I'm that much of an exception.

I'm still glad to have found a way out through vaping but in all honesty, more for simple practical and social than for personal health reasons.

(Sorry about any clumsy wording. English is not my native language.)

cheers
sol

 

[cluster]

As a smoker I ran up to 30 km a week (including at least one 10km session) in my best moments. But when abusing cigarettes at specific moments, i spent bad nights coughing and had a bad wheezing on the following mornings. So there is that. And as you note, improved sense of smell.

And I think that you're right: getting cancer is a quesion of luck and genetics as much as unhealthy life choices, and some smokers have a long happy, mostly healthy, life. And some people with perfectly healthy lifestyles die relatively young, of cancer, strokes, etc. One still may want to put the best chances on his side.

And our governments have elected to tax cigarettes into oblivion, thus making technological alternatives cost effective. And the western world might be engaging in one of its puritanical phases. So that's another good point for vaping, that saves us a good deal of trouble until everyone's getting reasonable again. It's all cycles anyway.

Last, vaping is pleasant for me. I probably won't miss analogs a lot, especially since i stopped smoking them for one year on my own before getting back to them.

("Sorry about any clumsy wording. English is not my native language" either )

 

[solaar]

It's all cycles anyway.

Good point.
It seems like we're in a phase for the past 10-12 years where there's more focusing on finding scape goats for the wrong that's going on than for making genuine efforts to actively improve or even revolutionise things. One exception is e-cigarettes and seems like it doesn't quite sit well with 'certain' others... (I'll refrain from name or abbreviation calling )
The evil guy in Hollywood movies is always a smoker, so smoking must be THE evil, isn't it?

Nobody of the anti-smoking military seems to have any interest in taking a deeper look at the international comparison charts for average life expectancy. Even less so, in analysing how it can be that countries like Andorra, Japan, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, France etc rank so much higher than the USA or the UK for instance, despite the fact they are smoking like chimneys? Most of the countries with high life expectancy have enforced stricter bans only recently.

We'll see in a few decades if those countries will get even more advance as opposed to those who have strict non-smoking laws in place already for a long time. To be quite honest, I doubt it.

 

[dubnluvn]

Oh Gauloises....how I loved thee.....

If I was going to make a conscious choice to buy tobacco cigs, I'd buy a bag of Gauloises Shag. I loved the process of rolling them and the robust taste. They stopped selling them in the U.S. so thats out of the question anyway.

 

[LoneWolf]

me and my girl have both went from analogs to eciggs, now i dont know about the cancer causing effects of smoking, and I also might have my doubts as to really how dangerous they really are, i've known people 80 - 90 yrs old that smoked all their lives, and I personally dont want to live that long anyway, but i also know people in the 30 - 50 age range that have fallen over dead and non smokers. So its hard to say wither way, but I can tell you this, I dont cough in the mornings like a damn idiot like i was when I was on analogs, there is a lot less wheezing and coughing in bed at night for both of us, so yeah I have to say that smoking is for sure a bother if not worse. I can smell better, and take deep breaths. Smoking is not good for you, period, but is it in fact deadly? I cant answer that. But most science will tell you that it is.. you can look up a healthy ling vs a smokers lung, and you will see there is for sure bad side effects from smoking.

 

[solaar]

me and my girl have both went from analogs to eciggs, now i dont know about the cancer causing effects of smoking, and I also might have my doubts as to really how dangerous they really are, i've known people 80 - 90 yrs old that smoked all their lives, and I personally dont want to live that long anyway, but i also know people in the 30 - 50 age range that have fallen over dead and non smokers. So its hard to say wither way, but I can tell you this, I dont cough in the mornings like a damn idiot like i was when I was on analogs, there is a lot less wheezing and coughing in bed at night for both of us, so yeah I have to say that smoking is for sure a bother if not worse. I can smell better, and take deep breaths. Smoking is not good for you, period, but is it in fact deadly? I cant answer that. But most science will tell you that it is.. you can look up a healthy ling vs a smokers lung, and you will see there is for sure bad side effects from smoking.

Hey more power to you guys! It's definitely good to hear about that kind of success story.

I never had those cough bouts but I've heard (of) them more than once. The reaction I always had was 'what or how are those guys smoking?' With all respect but it struck me as strange as I never experienced smoking as that much of a bother for my health. I'm just saying that because after having quit now for more than 3 weeks I should feel like Batman on steroids. Obviously, reality looks different and I don't solely blame that on the fact that I'm close to 50.

All I'm saying is that although I'm fully aware of the benefits of kicking the cigs I still believe that it's also way overrated in general terms. Some certainly should but I'm still very hard pushed to believe that everybody should. Purely in terms of health, that is.

As for the medical evidence, well I have to repeat myself, or rather repeat what I've been told by several MDs (non-smokers) over here in Europe. It cannot be determined in vivo if a lung is from a smoker or a non-smoker. Unless they take direct samples of the surface of the lung to detect traces of tar or other residues you cannot tell the difference. Those shock pictures of cancer ridden lungs on cig packs could also be lungs of a non-smoker who was unlucky enough to catch lung cancer. It might as well be someone who was exposed to asbestos or any other carcinogenic. Those comparative pictures of "non-smoker's lungs vs smoker's lungs" are potentially misleading as a comparison of pictures of "healthy non-smokers lungs vs diseased non-smoker's lungs" would look basically the same.

(Don't shoot the messenger )

 

[bbl63]

Both my grandmother and mother smoked for over 70 yrs and were rarely sick with anything. I've also known four people with lung cancer and only one of them was a smoker.
I smoked for 49 yrs and had my last cigarette over a month ago when I started vaping. The cough had gotten bad and is not anymore, but I still get out of breath as easily. I'm hoping that passes in time.