When did you start smoking and why?

[trouble2k]

Started?? Somewhere around 10-11 (1980-81). I always say 12 because that's when I remember smoking on a regular basis; it was also the year I was suspended from school for having cigs in my locker. Oh, what a rebel I was!! I would have to say the reason is because everyone in my family smoked. I saw it every day.

I've only made two decent attempts to quit since then. Once when I was 15 to run in track (I lasted 6 mos.). Then again when I was 27. That lasted a whole 6 weeks.

This really is a good question to start a thread with. Thanks FireHorse.

 

[wearemany]

I guess I had my first cigarette at around 10. Me and a friend of mine used to shoplift them from the grocery store. This was back in the days when cigarettes weren't secured behind a counter.

I didn't really start smoking until I bought my first pack at 17. Most of my friends smoked. I was around it all the time. I was just waiting for a friend to get off work and got bored. Walked into the drug store and bought a pack of camel lights. Among the stupidest things I've ever done, and I've done a lot of stupid things.

 

[FireHorse]

Started??
This really is a good question to start a thread with. Thanks FireHorse.

You're welcome! It's fantastic that we can come here and discuss these things with people who truly understand what we have gone through and are going through. We've all "been there, done that" and support each other instead of judging. I only wish the rest of the world worked the way this forum does!

 

[Poppa D]

One more,
I used to walk down through town with my .22 rifle, stop at the local one stop, grab some cigs at .55 cents, and a box of bullets around a buck. And walk down our little main street to the edge of town, and plink at any thing that moved or not. Never a problem, not ever a problem. I was around 15.

 

[lisabsn]

Summer of 1974, it was the summer before freshman year of high school. My best friend's mom said we could smoke so we did. I can remember sitting on a split rail fence on the corner by her house smoking and thinking we were so cool. we turned 14 that summer and it was the best summer of our lives. We were laughing about it a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated our 50th birthday, I'm 1 day older. Still best friends and I'm the last hold-out or was until 8-8-10. .50 cents a pack with tax. I can even remember smoking at the nurses station!

 

[DivaB]

Regretfully I started at age 13 (peer pressure) and am now 41. I always knew I should quite, but never really wanted to put them down until my husband suffered a severe heart attack...due to smoking. He literally had no other health issues, not even high cholesterol. After another 4 years of trying to stop smoking, but really not trying...if you know what I mean, I ran into these and am now hooked. I am still guilty of having 2-3 analogs a day, but that is far better than the 2.5 to 3 packs a day I was smoking and I'm proud of myself no matter what. I also feel much better and I am not taking all the breathing meds I used to take!!!! Oh yea....as a person with chronic nasal infections, I have had non since vaping! So we are saving money in many different ways.

 

[croman67]

I started smoking for real when I was 13.
My mom would ask me to go get her a cig (light it and bring it to her), and I'd always take a couple drags.
She would also have me run to the store and buy her some whenever she needed them. She smoked
Pall Mall straights. Eventually I started to buy her a pack, and use the left over money to buy me a pack
instead of the candy and soda I was supposed to buy. lol
Smoking wasn't talked about as being bad then. Sheesh, we had smoking lines in our high school!
It was definitely the "cool" thing to do.

 

[Rhetoric Camel]

I started smoking when I was 10. I'd steal the occasional cig from my dad (marb light) and smoke it on the way to school or on the way home. I then would get them from friends who would also steal them from their parents. I'm not going to lie, I was able to steal them at one store without any problems. The cigarette rack was facing the register, but it was right next to the candy. I'd walk in grab a random pack of cigs (GPC or Mustangs, eeewwwww) grab a candy bar, pay for the candy walk out and enjoy my new pack of smokes that would last me over a week. I started smoking a pack a day at the age of 14.
What got me into smoking... I always really enjoyed the smell of the first drag or the lighting of a cigarette. Wanted to try it and I did. I don't blame the fact that my dad was a smoker, he didn't make me do it, it was my decision. Neither of my parents wanted me smoking, and didn't just accept it until about a week before I turned 18. I quit when I was 25, and here I am at 27 cig free, but still puffing on my e-cig.

 

[foggy1]

It was 1968, I was 15 yrs old. School had an 'open' campus with a smoking area just off school grounds.
Didn't fit in with the eggheads or the jocks and that left the smokers. Gas station down the street had them
for 45 cents and didn't care who bought them. And they WERE very easy to steal at the grocery store when they had them at the counter.. just reach behind you and stick them in your back pocket (no addmision of guilt here) Now where do I go for that refund ??

 

[googabee]

I started in the mid 1980s, when I was 12-13, though I may have been puffin on'em at 11. We could buy from machines and some stores even at that age, sometimes claiming we were running an errand for the parents. Though it wasn't unheard of for us to grab a choice .... from an ashtray or the sand at the beach. Taught myself to inhale by Jr High. At first, a few friends and I just thought it was cool, and it was fun.

I didn't like being a smoker, but I never planned to quit. Made my own for the last 3+ years which kept it affordable. Got my vaping kits on 8/27 and unless the government stops me, I intend to never smoke again.

 

[Winzz]

I started smokin when I was 14, both my parents are smokers, so it's like I came to it naturally, nothing to do with friends thinking it was cool as I remember....

 

[Sgt.Taz]

Started around 13, parents smoked but never wanted me to start ( no blame here). Remember running to the store for Salem 100's for my mom on a regular basis and getting a pack for myself as well. Also recall trying to find change to buy packs (those were the days). Quit for almost 7 months when I was off on an injury leave from work. An hour back and it was like I never stopped. I've always enjoyed smoking even knowing how bad it was, glad this came around and I can say "I am a 25 year smoker no more!" Cool factor didn't work for me either

 

[nerdygirl]

I started in the '80s at 19, old enough to know better. I never smoked in high school because none of my friends were smokers, but when I got to college the folks I became buddies with were all smokers. They never pressured me, although they were always polite and asked if I wanted one. I always said "No thanks, I don't smoke." Then one weekend at a party we'd all had a little too much beer (another vice I picked up at 19), and I hollered, "Hey, gimme one-a them cigarettes!" A few more parties like that and I started buying my own packs -- all downhill from there.

 

[cskent]

I joined the US Army at 17, "smoke 'em if you got 'em" was the way they told us to take a break. I got 'em and smoked 'em. That was in 1979. I started vaping in June, had 3 analogs since then an none for the last 2 months. I don't know how I did it for 31 years, those things are downright disgusting.

 

[Luvs5rugrats]

I was 14 and did it basically because all my friends did. We used to sneak behind my house in the woods to smoke. My dad smoked, so I would take his after he went to bed because he used to leave them down in the living room. I used to go buy his for him, too back then. (back then? LOL I'm old.)

The year I graduated high school was the last year they allowed smoking before they banned it, so from 9-12 grade, everyone had six minutes in-between each class for a smoke break. It was actually called a smoke break period. If I didn't have any, I would bum from the teachers that would be out there hot-boxing it up with the rest of us. Ahh, the good days. It really was fun.

It's been 20 years since I graduated, so that would make me about a 25-year smoker. My juice I ordered should be arriving today and I have already committed myself and in my head, this is already a success for me. (I would already be in 4 days if the lady that sold me my kit didn't tell me the carts equaled a pack each I figured I had at least a week.) I'm so excited! I have gone cold-turkey 2 times, once for 3 years when I got pregnant with my first son and again when I found out I was pregnant with my twins. I ended up caving in both times and started back up. I'm done.

 

[vincentk18]

I was 12 years old in a small no-name town in south Texas.

What else was I going to do for fun? I didn't have any cousins! (LOL that was a JOKE people )

 

[Bozzlite]

I sort of "dabbled" in cigarettes during my senior year in high school. 1966. It was peer pressure for sure. I never really got hooked on them, in fact I don't think I smoked at all during my 2 years of business college at Durham's in Austin, Tx.

It was in Army basic training..We were on a work detail, mowing the grass on the side of an abandoned road, lol, with sling blades no less. After an hour or so the DI said, "All you smokers smoke 'em if you got 'em. The rest of you keep working." Thats when I decided I was a smoker. Yes you could actually smoke in basic training back then. In fact they even included a small pack of 4 cigarettes in the C-ration box.

By the time I graduated from AIT, advanced individual training, I had become a full fledged, addicted, half a pack a day smoker.

Of course, as the years passed I went to a whole pack, then two packs, and eventually 3 packs plus per day on the weekend. That is chain smoking my friends. One every 7 minutes!

Fast forward 42 years later: July 22nd, 2010. My Ego kit arrives in the mail. 4pm that day was my last cigarette. 8 weeks ago today. Hoo Ray!.

 

[markmcs]

1975. I was 11. George K. (he was much older, like 13!!) and I split a pack of Marlboros (about a $1.00) and smoked a bunch of them in the Mcdonald's bathroom. I would keep the packs in my left sock to get them past Mom and Dad. I finally got caught, so I had to switch socks!!! I thought I was very cool!!

 

[ChRi$]

started around the time i got into smokin weed, i'd say 13-14 (1996-97) over summer vacation friends and i would go to the fairs and beach. just happend to start both habbits in the same summer while going to partys. its been 8 years since weed, and 2 months for analogs.....never goin back.

 

[Ragman]

When I was 14 (1984) I dabbled a bit (friends, sister, was the cool thing to do) but started smoking a pack a day when I was 16 cause I worked at a restaraunt and most everyone I worked with smoked. Smoked a pack a day with 2 or 3 quit periods for no more than 8 months at a time since I was 16 (1986) Dropped to half a pack a day about 3 years ago. Quit for good when I started vaping last year.