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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Are Smokers Bad Tempered?
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Starbug
Shipmate
# 15917
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Posted
I have a member of staff who has had a number of complaints about his poor customer care skills. He is now on a final written warning because of this. In his 'defence', he has previously tried to blame everyone else from the customers to his colleagues to me as his manager.
Now he is telling me that his poor phone manner was caused by being a heavy smoker and the nicotine cravings between cigarettes. (He has recently quit.)
He gets two smoking breaks a day as well as the usual lunch break, so was never more than two hours from lighting up.
Now, I've never smoked, but some of the other things that he's said in mitigation have been so ridiculous that I'm finding it hard to believe this story either.
Is it at all possible that having to wait a couple of hours for a fag could turn you into the customer service agent from hell, or is this yet more proof that he thinks I was born yesterday? I'd be very glad to hear from Shipmates who are either present or past smokers, to see what you think.
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“Oh the pointing again. They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?” ― The Day of the Doctor
Posts: 1189 | From: West of the New Forest | Registered: Sep 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Having a bad temper/feeling grumpy etc is no excuse for being less than professional.
I am a teacher and can't let my feelings affect the way I treat my class, neither should he.
I imagine nicotine craving does make a person grumpy - but that's no excuse for a change in behaviour.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Spike
Mostly Harmless
# 36
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Posted
As an ex smoker, I know that when you quit, it's a living Hell and causes out of character irritability. That said, it usually only lasts a couple of days. If he's been stopped longer than that, then it sounds to me s if he's just making excuses.
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"May you get to heaven before the devil knows you're dead" - Irish blessing
Posts: 12860 | From: The Valley of Crocuses | Registered: May 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I've lived with smokers more than once, though I don't smoke myself. One very heavy smoker went for decades with no attempt to quit, then quit cold turkey. At the same time, she went from being a real hellion, with rages and depressions and God-knows-what-all as smoker to being a much milder, temperate personality (minus a week from hell just post-quitting) as a non-smoker.
In the other situation, I saw no personality changes at all in the then-current-smoker, to quitter, to non-smoker (though he gained a little weight).
That said, people who consistently blame their own behavior on others well into adulthood tend to have trouble changing their ways. He may not be having you on, but is so committed to his self-image as the poor misunderstood victim that he honestly thinks it's not him, but the world.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
I've smoked on and off for twenty years. I don't think that going without a ciggie by itself can make someone bad tempered but if you are already in a bad mood, going without can certainly make it worse. I recently switched to snus. The good thing about that is that you get the nicotine hit without having to take a cigarette break. problem solved. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I don't think that going without a ciggie by itself can make someone bad tempered
The Hell it can't. No, not everyone gets snappy if they are jonesing, but a fair number do.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Desert Daughter
Shipmate
# 13635
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Posted
I get bad-tempered when I've got smokers around me. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
Posts: 733 | Registered: Apr 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Nicotine is one of the most powerful and addictive drugs around. Would you expect someone withdrawing from heroin to be even tempered?
I quit once, when I had been smoking for about ten years, and the withdrawal lasted about a week. It was so easy, that when I went through a bad time (divorce) a few years later, I thought I would let myself resume smoking for a few months and then quit again. Fifteen years passed and that time, when I finally quit, I was an emotional wreck for about a year.
It's now been over twenty years and I'm still not as happy or even-tempered as I was when I smoked. Hardcore, two pack a day smokers, like I was, know how to use their nicotine. When I smoked and was feeling irritable or anxious, I would take a smoke break, take long deep drags (to flood the brain with nicotine) and feel much more relaxed afterward. If I was working late and needed to focus better, I could smoke in fast short puffs and concentrate better. A cigarette on the porch in the evening could give me a sense of well-being and contentment that I haven't felt sense quitting.
So the moral is; don't start, if you've already started quit before it changes your brain, too much.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
I don't smoke and have never smoked. Both my parents did and it had a lot to do with killing my Dad.
I've worked with any number of smokers. Some very even tempered, some not so equable, but nowadays smokers tend to be grumpy but my opinion, FWIW, is that they feel they are an "out group" which is got at by everybody else, especially the health promotion industry.
Maybe it's worth separating your staff members smoking from his bad temper and treating both separately. Just an idea.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
...[T]hey feel they are an "out group" which is got at by everybody else, especially the health promotion industry....
How very perceptive of them.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
So smokers are visiting their dying loved ones, or possibly receiving some terrible news about themselves, and they reach for the one thing that helps them handle stress and then they see the no-smoking sign in the room. So they stagger through the hospital looking for a smoking lounge and find none. Finally, after they've searched a few floors and navigated through the lobby and gone completely outside to stand in the freezing rain and think about the "You have a terminal disease," news they just got -- some guard says, "No you can't smoke out here in the wind and rain, some innocent passerby might get a whiff of it and keel over on the spot." It's ridiculous. Give the smokers a place to smoke and quit acting like second hand smoke is the only health danger on earth. I'll bet the NHS is serving more carcinogens for lunch than all the tainted molecules on the grounds put together.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Twilight: quote:
...some guard says, "No you can't smoke out here in the wind and rain, some innocent passerby might get a whiff of it and keel over on the spot."
If they're standing outside the asthma clinic that is a distinct possibility.
FWIW I agree there should be designated areas for smokers in the hospital grounds, ideally including an indoors area. But if you allow smoking inside any part of the building the insurance premiums will go up... that's definitely why my former place of work went smoke-free before it was a legal requirement, it makes your buildings insurance cheaper.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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lily pad
Shipmate
# 11456
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Posted
I'm one of those people who can't get into buildings if there is a smoker outside. I'm severely allergic - one breath of it can ruin a day or cause a problem for even longer.
Why has your employee not started wearing a nicotine patch if it is causing him such a problem that he might lose his job? I suspect a reasonable adult would do that.
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Sloppiness is not caring. Fussiness is caring about the wrong things. With thanks to Adeodatus!
Posts: 2468 | From: Truly Canadian | Registered: May 2006
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
So smokers are visiting their dying loved ones, or possibly receiving some terrible news about themselves, and they reach for the one thing that helps them handle stress and then they see the no-smoking sign in the room. So they stagger through the hospital looking for a smoking lounge and find none. Finally, after they've searched a few floors and navigated through the lobby and gone completely outside to stand in the freezing rain and think about the "You have a terminal disease," news they just got -- some guard says, "No you can't smoke out here in the wind and rain, some innocent passerby might get a whiff of it and keel over on the spot." It's ridiculous. Give the smokers a place to smoke and quit acting like second hand smoke is the only health danger on earth. I'll bet the NHS is serving more carcinogens for lunch than all the tainted molecules on the grounds put together.
Hear hear.
As a smoker of twenty years I'm horrified at the diminishment of our lack of right to smoke.
We are now an oppressed minority.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Chill
Shipmate
# 13643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
from the article-
"Patients, relatives and visitors can become verbally aggressive to staff when politely asked to move away from buildings to smoke elsewhere.
"The usual reply is 'Why?' or 'What are you going to do about it?'" [/QUOTE]
Its telling isn't it that we now live in a society where the question why when directed at authority constitutes abuse.
Posts: 343 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2008
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
from the article-
"Patients, relatives and visitors can become verbally aggressive to staff when politely asked to move away from buildings to smoke elsewhere.
"The usual reply is 'Why?' or 'What are you going to do about it?'" Its telling isn't it that we now live in a society where the question why when directed at authority constitutes abuse.
I think you are being a little facetious here. Depending on the tone, it's clearly an inappropriately aggressive behavior as well as anger illogically directed toward a person who didn't make the rule. I rather think it more telling that people seem to think it appropriate to feel they can break laws and rules if there is not an immediate threat of violence hanging over their heads (as per the second quoted question.)
[ 19. December 2013, 14:27: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Chill
Shipmate
# 13643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I rather think it more telling that people seem to think it appropriate to feel they can break laws and rules if there is not an immediate threat of violence hanging over their heads (as per the second quoted question.)
I feel it more telling that people blindly follow rules which have no legal force subverting and surrendering there freedom to seek and follow their own hearts and minds with such alarming regularity.
Posts: 343 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2008
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
If it isn't against the law, I agree with people who have said there should be a designated outdoor (preferably sheltered) area to smoke with benches and ash receptacles. IMO it makes more sense to manage smoking than to ban it helter-skelter.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hear hear.
As a smoker of twenty years I'm horrified at the diminishment of our lack of right to smoke.
We are now an oppressed minority.
Right. In past we ripped your smoking ancestors from their lands and forced them into slavery. Now we deny them jobs and tell them their poverty is their own fault.
When smokers take jobs we can't be arsed to do, we say they are stealing our jobs and should go back to their country even though some have been here for generations.
We rape them and tell them it's their fault for smoking provocatively.
Oppressed? Not even close.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Chill
Shipmate
# 13643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hear hear.
As a smoker of twenty years I'm horrified at the diminishment of our lack of right to smoke.
We are now an oppressed minority.
Right. In past we ripped your smoking ancestors from their lands and forced them into slavery. Now we deny them jobs and tell them their poverty is their own fault.
When smokers take jobs we can't be arsed to do, we say they are stealing our jobs and should go back to their country even though some have been here for generations.
We rape them and tell them it's their fault for smoking provocatively.
Oppressed? Not even close.
Yer cause the poor disproportionately smoke and the poor know nothing of all that stuff.
Posts: 343 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2008
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Gwai
Shipmate
# 11076
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I rather think it more telling that people seem to think it appropriate to feel they can break laws and rules if there is not an immediate threat of violence hanging over their heads (as per the second quoted question.)
I feel it more telling that people blindly follow rules which have no legal force subverting and surrendering there freedom to seek and follow their own hearts and minds with such alarming regularity.
A, If the hospital owns the grounds and building or has the rights to administer them then there is legal and binding force to it's rules. B, well we may just have different views of violence. I'd say that unless it's to protect my family or myself it's definitely the last refuge of a scoundrel. Fighting to preserve my right to poison myself on someone's property. Fuck no. Doesn't fit the morality I think myself bound to follow, and it doesn't fit my version of good sense; risking life, limb, and perhaps liberty for the right to smoke on someone else's property.
For god's sake it's a big deal just smoke in a little less comfort and then write a furious letter to the governors, campaign in the local election, or do whatever else is necessary to change the rule. Either you'll win, or if you can't because most people disagree, then you might be wise to question why you think your opinions are so much more important than other's. Clearly smokers and non-smokers both feel very strongly, so it's that the harm or putative harm is all on one side.
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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
Posts: 11914 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hear hear.
As a smoker of twenty years I'm horrified at the diminishment of our lack of right to smoke.
We are now an oppressed minority.
Right. In past we ripped your smoking ancestors from their lands and forced them into slavery. Now we deny them jobs and tell them their poverty is their own fault.
When smokers take jobs we can't be arsed to do, we say they are stealing our jobs and should go back to their country even though some have been here for generations.
We rape them and tell them it's their fault for smoking provocatively.
Oppressed? Not even close.
I'd agree with this EXCEPT for the fact that (A) Nicotine addiction seems a very difficult one to kick, and (B) Many of the smokers I've known became addicted while still under-age in some cases, as young as 10-11, Plus cigarette companies have deliberately marketed to underage potential customers.
If all smokers got hooked only after the legal smoking age where they live, lilBuddha's point might stand. That said, I still have a lot of trouble with the whole "It's my right to smoke" notion when most of the people claiming this are responding to an actual addiction at least as much as (possibly more than) they're responding to a right to behave in a certain way.
There's a lot cognitive dissonance for me in claiming "addiction" as a "right" or "freedom."
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I rather think it more telling that people seem to think it appropriate to feel they can break laws and rules if there is not an immediate threat of violence hanging over their heads (as per the second quoted question.)
I feel it more telling that people blindly follow rules which have no legal force subverting and surrendering there freedom to seek and follow their own hearts and minds with such alarming regularity.
You think that staff should ignore the rules that they're required to enforce? Do you not think they might get into a teensy bit of trouble for that?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Reply to Porridge
No, it is not completely black and white. Never meant that. But we expect heroin addicts to try to quit, even though it is difficult, even if their addiction started in youth.
[ 19. December 2013, 15:31: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Judging by the abuse directed at NHS staff by smokers, I'd say yeah, the smokers are a pretty grouchy bunch.
from the article-
quote:
"Patients, relatives and visitors can become verbally aggressive to staff when politely asked to move away from buildings to smoke elsewhere.
"The usual reply is 'Why?' or 'What are you going to do about it?'"
Its telling isn't it that we now live in a society where the question why when directed at authority constitutes abuse.
That news item wasn't a very good example. I've had first-hand stories of security staff being physically threatened, or one when the smoker offered to "****ing stub it out in your ****ing eye" - charming.
And no, people who've just been given bad news aren't hounded off the premises. There're told where they may smoke - off the premises. In many hospitals patients and their carers will also be offered help with stopping smoking. It's an offer that is also sometimes met with aggression and abuse.
Smoking was a significant contibutory cause of the death of both of my parents. I'd be surprised if it hasn't affected my own health, growing up as I did in a house where both of them were on about 20 a day. There is no safe dose of the tar and other gunk you inhale from a cigarette: the damage is being done from the first drag. If you smoke all your life and it isn't a significant contributory factor in your death, you've beaten the odds.
Your smoking doesn't only affect your own health, it affects the people around you. Smoking outside a hospital also gives the impression the hospital condones it, and signals to others that actually it might not be that bad. It is bad. It's very bad.
An oppressed minority? Only if you think that banning Russian Roulette makes an oppressed minority of people who like pointing a gun at their head and pulling the trigger.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
Back to the OP I was a smoker from the age of 14 until my 30’s. I gave up for a spell several times and tried to give up countless other times, in all of these times and also when I had no money to buy them as a student, I was very, very irritable and irrational. Sadly my daughter no smokes and she is appalling when she hasn’t had a smoke in a while.
Yes it is awful to have to walk into a building with a crowd of smokers outside, but given that smoking is legal, why can’t there be a covered shelter, tucked away from anywhere that other people can be affected by it?
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Russian roulette? Let's see, my father smoked from age seventeen till his stroke at age 86, there must be a lot of bullets in the average smoker's gun.
Tobacco is legal, heroin isn't.
"Help?" Nicotine patches help a little bit but not much. I was an Air Force spouse when I quit and they wouldn't provide the patches unless you were willing to take the "help," the hospital offered. That meant taking a class one night a week for three months, where some doctor droned on about how smoking was a really bad habit. We all agreed that class night was the night we most craved cigarettes. I spent a whole year crying and thinking about suicide. In eight months my weight soared from 110 to 190lbs. My own family met me at the airport and didn't recognize me. It was awful and I'm not sure I would put myself through that again if I knew how bad it would be.
I wish every person who gets judgmental about how horrible smokers are and how they're poisoning themselves would look at their own habits and see how much sugar, mercury, insecticides, and alcohol they're ingesting. Check whether they always wear they're seat belts, how often they wash their hands and if their whooping cough shots are up to date. We're all going to die of something and I just wonder who we'll blame when the smokers are gone.
I don't like to walk past smokers at building entrances either because the smell of it brings back my withdrawal nightmares, so I just hold my breath till I pass them. They wouldn't be there if a space was provided for them. It all sounds logical to say they should smoke on their own property but if they're having to spend the entire day at the hospital, while they or their loved one is having tests, it's not practical to ask an addicted smoker who typically has very intense cravings after two hours without, to suffer that all day long.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Russian roulette? Let's see, my father smoked from age seventeen till his stroke at age 86, there must be a lot of bullets in the average smoker's gun.
Shouldn't that be a lot of empty chambers ?
I too have known several folks who have smoked many many years, yet still they defy the medics by living up to or beyond the age of 75 without days off work sick .
ISTM that our individual chambers are loaded at birth as far as cancer is concerned . Lifestyle may add or subtract a bullet or two but our genetic makeup is a greater influence.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Vulpior
Foxier than Thou
# 12744
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Posted
I'm a smoker. I can go a whole working day without a smoke, or a long-haul flight. Being able to have a smoke every two hours seems perfectly reasonable. I couldn't see myself claiming lack of opportunity to smoke as a cause of performance/behaviour problems at work.
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I've started blogging. I don't promise you'll find anything to interest you at uncleconrad
Posts: 946 | From: Mount Fairy, NSW | Registered: Jun 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
(Reply to rolyn)
"Oh, yes, Old Sorensen, used to dive with sharks, naked and covered in fish blood. Lived to be 85. Lifestyle might shave a few years off, but its genetics, really."
On average, smoking shaves 6.5 years off your life expectancy. Not incredibly much. But it is the reduced quality of life in those last years that is the real problem.
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
it's not practical to ask an addicted smoker who typically has very intense cravings after two hours without, to suffer that all day long.
But is it fair to ask people who've no wish to smoke to breathe yours?
[ 19. December 2013, 21:57: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Tobacco is legal, heroin isn't.
Its legality, and general acceptance, contributes to it being difficult to quit.
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I wish every person who gets judgmental about how horrible smokers are
There are not merely two stances where, smokers and those who hate them. There are many of us who sympathise with the addiction, understand the complications of quitting and actually care about smokers. This does not mean we must be quiet.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I'm down half a lung due to cancer. Passive smoking may have contributed to that and it's left me with mild asthma.
I feel people have the right to smoke or drink or shoot up. They need to do it in a way that doesn't affect me, be it smoking in the entrance way of a building or in a bus shelter, drunk driving or leaving used needles around public spaces. I'm really happy that public spaces like bars and restaurants and hospitals are non-smoking spaces where I live.
I'd be happy if there were isolated, ventilated sheltered areas in most buildings so as not encourage smokers to violate the law. Short of that expense, I'd like to see stricter enforcement of the no smoking in entrance ways regulations. I'm waiting for the city to figure out that fines for this are a revenue opportunity.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
There are not merely two stances where, smokers and those who hate them. There are many of us who sympathise with the addiction, understand the complications of quitting and actually care about smokers. This does not mean we must be quiet.
Quite. I don’t hate the cigs because I think smokers are bad people. I hate the cigs because they killed my grandmother (emphysema, for what it’s worth – and she wasn’t a particularly heavy smoker).
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
There are not merely two stances where, smokers and those who hate them. There are many of us who sympathise with the addiction, understand the complications of quitting and actually care about smokers. This does not mean we must be quiet.
Quite. I don’t hate the cigs because I think smokers are bad people. I hate the cigs because they killed my grandmother (emphysema, for what it’s worth – and she wasn’t a particularly heavy smoker).
Any number of things could have killed your grandmother. The only evidence against smoking we have is that she may have died earlier than her time and possibly uncomfortably (not being able to breathe is no fun).
I proffer you a third type of person that smokes lilBuddha.
How do you feel about smokers that enjoy their smoking and choose not to give it up?
We have been shunted out of the public sphere and now are not even allowed to smoke outside. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
But its cool. Now I know what the lepers in Jesus' time felt like.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Personally, Evensong, I think they're bloody idiots, or possibly eternal optimists. Me, if I smoked, I'd be paranoid that I had terminal cancer every time I coughed. Every time you go to the doctor the first question is "do you smoke?", because if you've got virtually any unexplained symptom, and you're a smoker, the chances you've got something sinister are high enough to warrant a referral to oncology. If you're not, the bar is much higher. There's a reason for this, and the graveyards are full of 'em. Smokers that the fags never harmed. Right.
[ 20. December 2013, 10:57: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
it's not practical to ask an addicted smoker who typically has very intense cravings after two hours without, to suffer that all day long.
But is it fair to ask people who've no wish to smoke to breathe yours?
No of course not, I'm only pleading for businesses and hospitals to provide a ventilated room for smokers to go have a cig away from all the legions of asthma sufferers. No, it doesn't mean they're advocating smoking, anymore than the vending machines mean they're advocating candy bars.
I haven't had a cigarette in 23 years but I still have sympathy for them. I found smoking to be extremely pleasurable and I can see why some might be willing to shave a few years off the end of their lives in order to have that pleasure everyday.
There's lots of evidence that eating a reduced calorie diet of about 1500 calories per day extends life by several years, are all of you non-smokers doing that? Quality of life counts, too.
As for feeling great right up until the day you die, don't count on that just because you don't smoke. I'm getting to the age where it seems like my friends are dropping like flies. I've recently lost several, non-smoking friends to skin cancer and then I see the horrific ravages of diabetes, something more likely to catch the overweight than the skinny smoker. Be real, very few of us get the instantaneous neck-snapping, car accident that my MIL had.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
It's the funeral of our school clerk today, died in her 40s due to emphysema - caused directly by smoking.
She was in her 40s ![[Frown]](frown.gif) ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
I am also an ex-smoker, I stopped for good in 1985; anything which prompts others to become ex-smokers is good imo.
Yes, I could start again at the drop of a hat - and loved the feeling of relaxation smoking gives. But it's not worth it. 100% not.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Personally, Evensong, I think they're bloody idiots, or possibly eternal optimists.
Death comes to us all eventually.
As long as I'm aware of the risks of smoking, I fail to see why I'm a bloody idiot.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Personally, Evensong, I think they're bloody idiots, or possibly eternal optimists.
Death comes to us all eventually.
As long as I'm aware of the risks of smoking, I fail to see why I'm a bloody idiot.
Because it's blindingly stupid to do something that massively increases the chances of death coming long before it need do, after a decade or two of gasping for each breath through an oxygen mask. My grandfather would be able to explain how stupid that is, but he can't, because he's dead, and has been since just before he retired and just as his grandchildren were starting to grow up. Lung cancer. 64. Absolutely fucking stupid thing to do. He didn't hsve the advantage in the 1930s of knowing just how stupid; folk today have no such excuse.
Death comes to us all, but we still look both ways before crossing the road, avoid drinking mercury, and if we have any sense, avoid coffin-sticks.
Indeed quality of life counts. I've seen the quality of life of many later middle aged smokers, and it's fucking shocking.
[ 20. December 2013, 14:00: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I proffer you a third type of person that smokes lilBuddha.
How do you feel about smokers that enjoy their smoking and choose not to give it up?
I think them misguided.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
We have been shunted out of the public sphere and now are not even allowed to smoke outside.
So then, what is your solution? How do you propose to contain your smoke?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So then, what is your solution? How do you propose to contain your smoke?
We still have a couple of members of staff who smoke, smoking isn't allowed in the building, grounds or outside the gate - so they go and sit in their cars to do so.
I know exactly how hard it is to give up - but they should. They'll save a fortune two. Enough to go on a couple of fabulous holidays every year.
I watched a TV programme which was set in the 60s last night. Every pub, home and workplace full of smoke. I remember and it was awful! It doesn't seem long since the UK 'no smoking in public places' ban but what an improvement it has made to so many experiences!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
He didn't hsve the advantage in the 1930s of knowing just how stupid; folk today have no such excuse.
The well-researched medical findings had not yet appeared, but folk wisdom said that smoking was very bad for you.
Cigarettes were called "coffin nails". I remember a song which had the lines quote:
Tell St. Peter at the golden gate
That you hate to make him wait,
But you just gotta have another cigarette.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
He didn't hsve the advantage in the 1930s of knowing just how stupid; folk today have no such excuse.
The well-researched medical findings had not yet appeared, but folk wisdom said that smoking was very bad for you.
Yes, I think this is why Mark Twain had the joke about quitting.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chill:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hear hear.
As a smoker of twenty years I'm horrified at the diminishment of our lack of right to smoke.
We are now an oppressed minority.
<snip> Oppressed? Not even close.
Yer cause the poor disproportionately smoke and the poor know nothing of all that stuff.
The poor are oppressed. Not because they smoke. You might as well argue that white men are oppressed because many poor people are white men.
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
...I'd like to see stricter enforcement of the no smoking in entrance ways regulations. I'm waiting for the city to figure out that fines for this are a revenue opportunity.
And at bus stops. It really pisses me off when people smoke at bus stops - especially if they do so on the bench/in the shelter, because they're barring that space to anyone with breathing issues. And, IMO, more often than not, even when they try to stand away from the bus stop, they do so upwind instead of downwind. I really don't get that.
On multiple occasions, I've had smokers deliberately blow smoke in my face when they learn I'm asthmatic. Most of that happened in the '90s, before it was illegal to smoke in so many places. One place I worked - a TV station - I had coworkers who were openly hostile to me because I asked them to please not come into my work area to smoke. So my experience has been that smoking makes some people really rude.
At the same time, I've known lovely people who were smokers.
I think the persecution complex, though, doesn't help.
I'm fairly libertarian when it comes to personal behaviors, and I'm against "sin taxes." But you also have to balance public health, and this particular behavior affects others, against their will, who choose not to engage in it. I'm sure people thought their rights were being stripped when it became illegal to drive drunk, too. Right now, it must be hard on smokers to go through these changes, but soon enough it'll seem as normal to everyone as the laws that say you can't carry alcohol in the open (hence the paper bag) or drink it in public. Those laws are much sillier, IMO; I can't see the harm to the public if someone's walking home with a bottle of booze they just bought not in a bag.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
I proffer you a third type of person that smokes lilBuddha.
How do you feel about smokers that enjoy their smoking and choose not to give it up?
I think them misguided.
Misguided in enjoying their smoking? That's not your call.
Unless of course you think I'm lying.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
We have been shunted out of the public sphere and now are not even allowed to smoke outside.
So then, what is your solution? How do you propose to contain your smoke?
I go outside.
What about you? How do you propose to uphold my right to smoke?
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Because it's blindingly stupid to do something that massively increases the chances of death coming long before it need do, after a decade or two of gasping for each breath through an oxygen mask. My grandfather would be able to explain how stupid that is, but he can't, because he's dead, and has been since just before he retired and just as his grandchildren were starting to grow up. Lung cancer. 64.
Well seeing as how we've resorted to anecdotes:
My 89 year old smoking grandmother did just fine dying quietly in her sleep.
I'm 39. Been a smoker since age 15. Just had a battery of tests for a pre-employment screening and am healthier than my non-smoking husband.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Francophile
Shipmate
# 17838
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Posted
Glad that you're currently healthy, Evensong. And that your grandmother made it to 89. She might have made it to 99, like my grandmaw did, if she'd been a non-smoker.
But if you want to be healthy at 49 and at 59 and at 79, it would be a good move to cut the smoking now.
I think you'll find that, statistically, Karl is right. If you want a long and healthy life, cut the smoking.
[ 21. December 2013, 12:11: Message edited by: Francophile ]
Posts: 243 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2013
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Francophile:
I think you'll find that, statistically, Karl is right. If you want a long and healthy life, cut the smoking.
I'm not after a long and healthy life.
I'm after a fun, enjoyable and fulfilled life. If that means it's shorter - I'm not fussed. Meeting God face to face at death will be fun too.
[ 21. December 2013, 12:22: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Francophile:
But if you want to be healthy at 49 and at 59 and at 79, it would be a good move to cut the smoking now.
I think you'll find that, statistically, Karl is right. If you want a long and healthy life, cut the smoking.
There are individual differences in how tobacco affects people. One of my aunts smoked like a chimney for more than seventy years. She died at eighty-eight, which may well have been her normal life-expectancy. One of her sisters, who also started smoking in her mid-teens, died of lung cancer at the age of sixty.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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