I will be 41 this Christmas. Smoking was our family tradition - if we had a dog, it would smoke too - and I used to nick fags from parents, grandparents, uncles... The only limit was kids were only allowed to smoke when they grew up, so I got recognized as an occasional smoker when I was 15 or 16. That was the first time I got regular pocket money - so I could buy my own fags. In 18 I went to the university as a regular packet-a-day smoker. Never managed to quit, never really tried. Couple of years ago my heart started doing tricks, blood pressure ditto, I had to cut down to 10 a day. Ordered e-cigs and had my last analog the night before the first batch arrived. I hope I will never light up again. I still have an unfinished packet at home and one cig in my car. If I did not, I would start fretting. But I intend to keep them at their place until old age
Anecdotal facts:
My grandfather stopped when he was 86. Never could explain why. Did not have any reasons apart from "I started at eleven, I had enough". Died at 98 from a pneumonia.
My father says to everyone willing to listen that nothing is easier than quitting. "I just threw them away and that was it". Not many outsiders know why the rest of the family are grinning. The other option for him at that time was to have his leg cut off (literally).
My stepfather got scared to death by an obsessive lung doctor who brought him to morgue showing him "his" lungs, tons of tar, ad nauseam. He quit cold turkey style and never relapsed. Still lives at 72 after smoking 40-a-day for some 30 years. The
much younger anti-smoking fanatic doctor died some 10 years ago from a particularly nasty cancer.
When I was a kid, the pediatrist we went to used to smoke in his surgery. I still remember his very well after all the years. He was a very nice man and could make a sick child feel better just by describing how this perfect medication will help. Today he would probably be labeled criminal.
My grandmother suffered from old age dementia. One day she just came to unexpectedly. Sat up in her armchair, suddenly recognised all her children and
grandchildren and
asked us for a cigarette. I had the luck to be nearest and give her one of mine and a light as well. She smoked it in extremely old-fashioned ladylike manner saying
This is my last one, my dears. She lived a couple days, maybe even weeks longer, mostly in hospital, but that is how I remember her sort of going away.
We should also remember that these oldtimers smoked unfiltered cigs for most of their smoking lives. And I swear everything of the above is true.