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January 17, 2005
Woohoo, Michele!
Looks like Michele at ASV has made it to day 4 in kicking the cigarette habit. This is one of the tougher addictions to fight, not just because of the nicotine but because smokers find smoking so pleasurable. And smoking just doesn't impair one's day to day functioning in society. So the motivation to quit is almost entirely internal and certainly 100% social. When you get a chance, visit Michele and add your kudos and support.
I'm a lifelong non-smoker. Not because of any philosophical leanings -- heck, I'm a child of the late 50's through 60's, a time when everyone smoked. My parents smoked, their friends smoked. Cigarettes were advertised on TV with smoking protrayed as sexy, relaxing, masculine, even as a feminist statement (Virginia Slims). I loved being allowed to flip open my dad's Zippo lighter and lighting his cigarette. The coffee table always held beautiful ashtrays and a large lighter of marble or crystal.
In grade school we made ashtrays out of clay for Mother/Father Day's presents. When the Rat Pack appeared on TV, they were dressed in tuxes with a mic in one hand and a lit cig in the other (and usually a scotch, neat, within reach). Long had cigarettes been called "coffin nails" but people chose to smoke -- for the glamour or the pleasure or the social niceties -- it was a choice. I didn't only because smoking just didn't interest me for me. I think I tried smoking one or two in high school and realized they were a lot more trouble than they were worth.
Being a non-smoker by personal rather than political choice has kept me from being a militant non-smoker. I don't harangue people in public and I don't lobby my congressman to round up and publically flog those that indulge in the politically incorrect weed.
I really don't know why the anti-smoking movement crossed the line from reasonable health warnings and offers to help those who choose to quit to a quasi-religious crusade reminiscent of Carrie Nation and Prohibition, but Dennis Prager once brought up an interesting question that puts cigarette smoking (and the modern tendency to encourage and support governmental nanny-ism) in it's proper perspective: Would you rather your teenager smoke or cheat?
Posted by Darleen at January 17, 2005 02:02 PM
Comments
Heck, my hospital roomate (and all her visitors) were smoking in the room, when I had my second in 1979.
The crusade gained momentum because smoking is the only vice you can share with an innocent bystander. If you drink, you're not pouring liquor down my throat, but if you smoke in my vicinity, you're sharing your cigarette with me, willy-nilly. The dangers of second-hand smoke have been over-hyped, but I still might not want to breathe it. Just think of smoking as atmospheric littering.
Posted by: Sal at January 17, 2005 04:10 PM
Sal
I don't like litter, and smokers ought to be polite enough (my husband is) NOT to light up without the permission of those near them.
But, have you ever heard of a guy who just beat the sh*t out of his girlfriend blame it on nicotine?
Posted by: Darleen at January 17, 2005 04:37 PM
Oh, I see - where does smoking rank on the list of vices? Well, lower than PCP, certainly...
My views pertain only to public venues: if it's someplace you don't have a choice about going - medical facilities, gov't buildings, schools - no smoking. Everywhere else - restaraunts, clubs, theaters, stores - let the market decide.
I try to describe to my kids how much smoking there was when we were kids (I think we're pretty much the same age) and they find it incomprehensible.
Posted by: Sal at January 19, 2005 08:32 AM