Why do I smoke?

People tend to ask this question of me a lot. I have yet to offer them a decent answer. I suppose the real reason should be 'I am a fucking moron', but the reason I started was one of my friends, who I suppose really shouldn't be referred to as a friend. It's a decision I regret daily, but a habit I can't seem to break. I think I'll go outside now, and have a smoke. Shit.

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After reading prole's comments, I discovered something else. One can never stop being a smoker. One can merely stop lighting cigarettes. You'll always be a smoker, even for years after you quit. You'll always have that desire, always want just one more fucking cigarette. *sigh* Wish me luck.

in cigarettes cheaper, a franchise operation that sells only tobacco and tobacco related products, they have in a frame above the door something titled the 'smoker's creed.' paraphrasing wildly, it says 'i smoke because i want to smoke. i am responsible for my own choices. i am healthy and happy. i am free to make my own decisions.' before they hung that up, i always liked cigarettes cheaper. it's cheap (duh), and the guy at the counter is nice to me. but that's fucked up. obviously the chain gets some kind of kickback from big tobacco corporations, and this is going too far in their attempt to make smokers feel as though they are a dwindling minority of freedom fighters, last adherents to the bill of rights, true patriots, respectable.

yeah, i do smoke because i want to smoke. isn't that why humans do anything? that doesn't mean i want evil corporations speaking on my behalf, trying to rally me toward some cause that is unimportant and ultimately designed to ensure that they can continue the same morally repugnant practices they've prepetrated for decades. i smoke because i'm a stupid hedonist, not because i want to lend power or money to an evil industry. and if i ever quit, that will be the reason.

jes04: try zyban.

I love smoke and smoking. The nicotine fix is really the addictive part that keeps you coming back for more, but I've smoked marijuana as a substitute for nicotine, and tried other alternative smokes. Aside from that, I will start a campfire or burn incense just to see the smoke... But when I'm thinking or drinking, there's nothing that satisfies me more than inhaling, then exhaling, a nice large puff of smoke and watching it as my lungs expel it, and the hundreds of tiny air currents flowing around the vicinity break apart it's initial form and cause it to go spinning in all sorts of curves and spirals. It lets me see the shape of the air, which spawns many a philosophical thought about things in motion that affect us, but we never see.

I initially started smoking cigarettes when I was 16. I had just moved to Vancouver, the "big city" near my hometown, was looking for work, and spending many hours walking in the drizzly spring rain, getting cold and wet, learning my way around. Most of the people I met (and i didn't meet many, since I'm shy) were smokers, and after trying a few here and there since they were offered to me, I found that they made these long walks and bouts of boredom a lot more tolerable. That, and it was a lot cheaper than weed, which, being jobless, I couldnt afford... but as mentioned above, I love the smoke itself... and I guess I needed something to satisfy that need.

I've noticed that I tended to smoke more when I was depressed. Sort of a subconcious self-destructive reaction, I guess, since smoking more wouldn't make me feel better.

Full agreement with jes04; you never stop being a smoker, even if you quit. Whenever I am around people smoking, I still feel the desire to light up. I haven't been a "smoker" for over a year now, but in the past few months, I have had a couple, while under the influence of alcohol. I have purchased cigars since you don't inhale those, therefore you aren't killing your lungs - at least, not as much. They are also so much more flavourful and last a long, long time.