Why did you start smoking in the first place?

[SpitfireSMS]

I started smoking cigars with a few of my friends maybe 4 years ago, when we were 15. We used to just go out back and have cigars at night.
We always used to say "i dont get why people smoke cigarettes, they just taste bad"
We all ended up getting a pack of random kinds each and sharing them, and we all took a liking to various kinds.
Fastforward 5 years and were all smoking packs at a time lol.
Guess thats just the way it goes.

 

[Raven_Blackblade]

I started initially when I was 15 years old. I will never forget my first pack. It was Harley Davidson Cigarettes which later got changed to Mavericks.
My Aunt found out because of a few careless ashes and I was in trouble.

When I went to Colorado a few weeks later I started again. This time with Cloves. Since then it has been a downward spiral.

What started me you ask? Stress. I always remembered those around me who smoked smoked when they were at their most stressed moment. So I started because of stress.

What would possibly stress out someone at that age? Well for me it was the perfection of being thin. Always having to have the perfect grades. Having a job. Being in Beauty Pageants. The constant pressure from my family to be this perfect little christian (southern baptist to be exact) young lady.

So I smoked. Cloves were perfect because my mom thought that it was incense. Go figure.

I still say to this day.... My smoking has saved countless lives.

Except I suppose I should say now.... my vaping has saved countless lives...... hell.... Holly is still alive (you few know who I am talking about Grrrrr )

 

[gashin]

I got started in high school but quit until I got into my third year of college. I started chain smoking to keep up while studying and it did help me remember a lot of info.

 

[celticflame99]

I started at 10, my best friend was 14 and all her friends were 16 or 17. I used to spend weekends at her house, and we would sneak out her window and down the porch rails to go drink and smoke with her high school friends. She and I were both home schooled. We thought we were really cool. It stayed at about a pack a week bummed off people for a while. Bought my first pack at when I started college at 14. I wanted to look older and fit in more (being 4-8 years younger than everyone else) and after loosing every friend I had met in the first few weeks because I made the mistake of telling them how old I was, I wanted to make sure that no one who saw me would think I was young. I quit once for a year cold turkey at 16, no problem. My mom had found out and almost killed me. But when I moved on campus I went right back to it. I was 17 at the time. I honestly don't know how she didn't notice before that, because I never really tried to hide it, and no one in my family smokes, not one single person other than me. All my friends do however, every single one of them. Like attracts like?

Brittany

 

[Bryn]

I was nineteen years old...on my first job at a bank in Miami, FL. I thought I was so child when I had milk with donuts in front of sophiscated co-workers. They were having coffee, donuts and SMOKING. I decided to be like them...sophiscated and wordly so I started to drink coffee..barf at first and then cigarettes..cough..cough, but eventually I became sophiscated like them...drinking coffee and smoking. LOL price for a pack was 55 cents. Practically everyone was smoking...everywhere! That was back in 1970.

Ah, those good days when anti-smoker nuts didn't exist!

 

[rfun6]

Oh I think I was 16 or 17. It was cool to do then. We smoked in bathrooms at school too. Teachers smoked there or in lounge. Everyone know a woman looks more sexy smoking. But you know, I don't think then that they had as much junk in them, as they do now. Additives and all. Commercials on TV said 9 out of 10 doctors preferred a certain cigarette. Shows you that professionals tell you one thing and later change it. Who knows maybe in 10 years they will say it's good for us again. LOL. Not to long ago, bacon, eggs, coffee, wine, went through a time of being bad for you. Oh well.

 

[Surf Monkey]

I was a horny 16 year old virgin. This girl who I was TOTALLY into was giving me all the signals. We got together and did the nasty. Afterwards, she sparked up a smoke. Had to try it. Hated it at first. Practically made me throw up, but the positive association was already made. We dated for about 1 1/2 years after that and, needless to say, that's when my habit really got rolling.

 

[daniel2828]

I started as a teen because I hung around some older guys who smoked and I thought it was the cool thing to do at the time. In fact, at the time, it WAS the cool thing to do if not downright acceptable. Remember that airline commercial where the flight attendant pulled out a lighter and lit up the passenger's cigarette? And they were certainly cheap and easy to come by. I was underage, but no one carded back then. I could get them at the gas station for $35 a pack. (Sheesh...am I THAT old?) My first pack (when I wasn't sneaking my dad's Kool menthols) was Kent. The first 10 or so tasted like crap but from then on I was hooked.