# Quitter!



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Regular readers of this forum will recognise me as something of a hard core tobacco afficianado, having smoked like a chimney for just shy of forty years, and never far from a roll-up cigarette, a cigar, or a pipe.

However, I am today able to report that it is now over five weeks since my last indulgence of the stimulating leaf.

As I age so it seems that my vices must desert me one by one. More's the pity.

'My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!'

- Edna St. Vincent Millay


----------



## drlivingston (Jun 21, 2012)

“If you didn't do anything that wasn't good for you it would be a very dull life. What are you gonna do? Everything that is pleasant in life is dangerous. Have you noticed that? I'd like to find the bastard that thought that one up.” 
-Lemmy Kilmister


----------



## Andy (Aug 25, 2002)

Shaver:

And just when I was thinking about taking up smoking! 

Always too cheap, all my life, to start! (Figured it would cut into my shoe budget!)


----------



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Andy said:


> Shaver:
> 
> And just when I was thinking about taking up smoking!
> 
> Always too cheap, all my life, to start! (Figured it would cut into my shoe budget!)


Quite so - it is an expensive old do.

Aside from the myriad health benefits associated with cessation, and from which I am already beginning to notice significant improvement, I now enjoy a further £160 (that's over $200) per month disposable income.

I never should have trusted Dr Batty......


----------



## Mr. B. Scott Robinson (Jan 16, 2017)

Good on you!

I still smoke my pipe at least once a week with a group I smoke/drink with in Pakistan on Friday evenings. I like the temporary pause from the day-to-day that smoking provides as well as the excellent company it affords. Smokers, in my estimation, are typically the best people. 

Cheers, 

BSR


----------



## 16412 (Apr 1, 2005)

"However, I am today able to report that it is now over five weeks since my last indulgence of the stimulating leaf."

Perhaps the leaf has captured millions of people? Though they think it is stimulating. 

Five weeks is quite an accomplishment. Keep up the good work.


----------



## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Count me as impressed. Though I have never smoked, I have had a number of family and friends who did so and I have tried mightily to convince each and every one of them to stop. A few did, but many did not...quitting is a very challenging undertaking! Shaver, my friend, there are so many things about you that I admire and quitting smoking is one more item that I will add to that list. Congratulations!


----------



## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Congratulations Shaver, keep up the good work.


----------



## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

Well, time to short tobacco stocks! 

I have to say, though, in the USA I never encounter smokers any more. The other day I went to my office (I only actually go there once every week or two), and their was a lone fellow outside the building having a smoke, looking very out of place. He kept his eyes downcast, as though admitting "yes, I'm a dinosaur"; perhaps it was my amazed glance which unnerved him.

That said, I was camping in the mountains a couple of weeks ago, and met an old man walking along smoking a pipe. Plaid coat, white beard, pipe, mountains: a classic scene. We chatted a while, and he was a man living in the mountains, in a log house with a wood-burning stove; we discussed fire-building (an interest of mine.) I'm happy such folk still exist; I just don't want them ruining my alfresco dining experience!

DH


----------



## Charles Dana (Nov 20, 2006)

Mr. B. Scott Robinson said:


> Good on you!
> 
> I still smoke my pipe at least once a week with a group I smoke/drink with in Pakistan on Friday evenings. I like the temporary pause from the day-to-day that smoking provides as well as the excellent company it affords. Smokers, in my estimation, are typically the best people.


BSR: I enjoy your posts. Do you by any chance moonlight as the copywriter for the J Peterman catalogue? Sure seems like it.

And Shaver: Such welcome news! May you live to be 110. Congratulations.


----------



## 16412 (Apr 1, 2005)

Back in the seventies the regular down hill skiers didn't smoke. It is one of those sports where you need all the oxygen you can get. Clogging up ones lungs with tar and whatever else comes from smoking tobacco destroys the purpose of skiing - the most fun that can be gotten.


----------



## drlivingston (Jun 21, 2012)

WA said:


> Back in the seventies the regular down hill skiers didn't smoke. It is one of those sports where you need all the oxygen you can get. Clogging up ones lungs with tar and whatever else comes from smoking tobacco destroys the purpose of skiing - the most fun that can be gotten.


Unlike water skiing which just requires a boat and copious amounts of beer.


----------



## Mr. B. Scott Robinson (Jan 16, 2017)

I can't manage cigarettes, but a good pipe or a quality cigar is a real treat. Like POTUS W.J. Clinton, I don't inhale. 

I do collect tobacciana. Tobacco was such an integral part of daily life (and death!) just a few years ago. I have my grandparents heavy crystal ash trays which are real treasures. There are some great tobacco related objects out there that can be converted to contemporary, and more healthy, usage. 

Cheers, 

BSR


----------



## vpkozel (May 2, 2014)

Good for you Shaver. 

My dad was a big smoker and it was the COPD that killed him. While the damage done cannot be reversed, quitting does allow for the damage to stop and some healing to take place. 

Plus, as you said, it is bloody expensive. As a kid, I totaled the costs up for my dad one day. 

He didn’t like that very much, lol.


----------



## vpkozel (May 2, 2014)

drlivingston said:


> Unlike water skiing which just requires a boat and copious amounts of beer.


Then you ain't doing it right lol. You can't touch a shoulder to the water with a buzz


----------



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

vpkozel said:


> Good for you Shaver.
> 
> My dad was a big smoker and it was the COPD that killed him. While the damage done cannot be reversed, quitting does allow for the damage to stop and some healing to take place.
> 
> ...


Thanks VP and to all for the kind words of encouragement.

My paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather both made it to 99 years of age, Old Ma Shaver is in her late 70's and still going strong, most of my aunts and uncles remain in remarkably fine fettle despite their advanced years, and so there is a very real possibility that, with a little care, I may yet receive a telegram from Buck House.


----------



## drlivingston (Jun 21, 2012)

vpkozel said:


> Then you ain't doing it right lol. You can't touch a shoulder to the water with a buzz


Nah, that was just when we were out having fun. Whenever we hit the slalom course, it was in complete sobriety.


----------



## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

My Father stopped smoking 30 years and now he has some slight COPD and he uses those inhalers and My Mother stopped before My Father stopped. My Mother now drinks coffee probably for her caffeine addiction.


----------



## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

Shaver,
Congratulations.
Gurdon


----------



## Pentheos (Jun 30, 2008)

Mr. B. Scott Robinson said:


> Good on you!
> 
> I still smoke my pipe at least once a week with a group I smoke/drink with in Pakistan on Friday evenings. I like the temporary pause from the day-to-day that smoking provides as well as the excellent company it affords. Smokers, in my estimation, are typically the best people.
> 
> ...


This sounds like fun...smoking and drinking in Pakistan...I would love to come.


----------



## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

Sincere congratulations. I know that most smokers start when they don't know any better and keep going in part because of how hard it is to stop.

I've never smoked but my father probably smoked for almost fifty years until a heart scare scared him out of it; my mother smoked until her stroke, when she pretty much forgot. Still, it was the cancer that got my father but quitting gave him another good fifteen years or so, so it was worth it.


----------



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

The myriad and unforseen benefits of ceasing smoking continue to reward me. Having just cleaned my windows for the first time since I quit I was delighted to note that the customary yellow residue was no longer to be encountered.

I greatly enjoy this view, from my settee:


----------



## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Shaver said:


> The myriad and unforseen benefits of ceasing smoking continue to reward me. Having just cleaned my windows for the first time since I quit I was delighted to note that the customary yellow residue was no longer to be encountered.
> 
> I greatly enjoy this view, from my settee:


That's a beautiful view, Shaver.


----------



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Howard said:


> That's a beautiful view, Shaver.


Thank you Howard.

Living, as I do, so close to the city centre I am extraordinarily lucky to enjoy such a view.


----------



## dks202 (Jun 20, 2008)

Well done Shaver! Maybe your god smells and tastes better too? 

I was able to quit the evil zigaretten about five years ago. I was on the back smoking area at the office one day and I just said “I don’t want to do this any more” and I walked away. Hadnt given it much thought before that. The urge somewhat returns when I go near a smoker and freshly lit cig. I do still enjoy a cigar with whisky a couple of times a month.


----------



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Well, here we are then - over a year has now passed and I remain splendidly nicotine free. 

What I had neglected to reveal, however, when opening this thread last December, was that I simultaneously quit alcohol - for I could not countenance the pleasure of a Speyside without the customary enhancement of a Cuban. Moreover, the disinhibiting effects of whisky triggered an overwhelming temptation toward tobacco. Thus I chose to become, and am still, a teetotaler.

Whilst I lack the zealotry often associated with born again abstainers, nevertheless, permit me to note that even a modest and once-a-week imbiber, such as l was, is able to readily appreciate the improvements (both physical and spiritual) that temperance has bestowed. 

Healthier, wealthier and..... wiser? 

Heh. Let's not get carried away. 

I'll settle for the first two.


----------



## Peak and Pine (Sep 12, 2007)

^

Do you still have what Howard calls "a beautiful view" of brush and brambles from that curtainless oriel, or did those get torched in the neighborhood clean-up? Congrats on the smoking thing. Now repaint your house. I stopped cold one cold day in March, four years come this one. Fifty-seven years worth of good times up in smoke. Now explain this, I never met a man who smoked who wasn't likable. And now that I've forsworn, I think I'm tainted with the converse. Attest, this post maybe.


----------



## derum (Dec 29, 2008)

Shaver said:


> Well, here we are then - over a year has now passed and I remain splendidly nicotine free.
> 
> What I had neglected to reveal, however, when opening this thread last December, was that I simultaneously quit alcohol - for I could not countenance the pleasure of a Speyside without the customary enhancement of a Cuban. Moreover, the disinhibiting effects of whisky triggered an overwhelming temptation toward tobacco. Thus I chose to become, and am still, a teetotaler.
> 
> ...


Congratulations on passing a year!
I stopped smoking in April 2016, stopped drinking at the same time, for the very same reasons you stated.
I now drink in moderation, but the trifecta of good wine, good conversation and a good smoke is gone. I still miss smoking occaisionally, but am certainly healthier, and more curmudgeonly.


----------



## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Congratulations on passing a year Shaver.


----------



## 16412 (Apr 1, 2005)

Congratulations!
That is quite an accomplishment.
One person I worked with for a small time was told to quit or died. I don't think he made it. It seemed like he couldn't get away from it. He certainly tried. It had a power over him that he couldn't seem to beat no matter the struggle.


----------



## Mr. B. Scott Robinson (Jan 16, 2017)

Quite the inspiration. I still enjoy a pipe, cigar and and occasional Davidoff cancer stick but I realize that all good things must come to an end or I will prematurely.

So much of my profession is rooted in social drinking that abstaining completely with the constant temptation is beyond my current capacity. But knowing it can be accomplished gives me encouragement.

Cheers,

BSR


----------



## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

My Father stopped smoking over 30 years ago but now he has small bouts of coughing and must take an inhaler.


----------



## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Peak and Pine said:


> ^
> 
> Do you still have what Howard calls "a beautiful view" of brush and brambles from that curtainless oriel, or did those get torched in the neighborhood clean-up? Congrats on the smoking thing. Now repaint your house. I stopped cold one cold day in March, four years come this one. Fifty-seven years worth of good times up in smoke. Now explain this, I never met a man who smoked who wasn't likable. And now that I've forsworn, I think I'm tainted with the converse. Attest, this post maybe.


Curtainless?

It matters not - if this bay window, its drapes and its view, do not satisfy Peaky then there is but one reasonable course of action available to me.

I have made an offer, which has been accepted, on another property and expect to undertake the move early in 2019.


----------



## Gurdon (Feb 7, 2005)

Shaver,
Good news, and good to catch up.

I never smoked, except for a few months following my father's death from emphysema, when I tried to learn to smoke his pipes. That was about 30 years ago. More recently, about 15 or so years ago, I decided that I prefer clarity of mind to the pleasures of alcohol and marijuana.

We smell better and, with luck, may live longer and in better health than would otherwise have been the case.

Happy Winter Break and best wishes,
Gurdon


----------



## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

vpkozel said:


> Then you ain't doing it right lol. You can't touch a shoulder to the water with a buzz


Actually, it's not a problem to touch the water with your shoulder. It's doing it on purpose ad then getting back up!


----------



## Adventure Wolf (Feb 26, 2014)

I stopped smoking sometime ago. It's a hard habit to kick. I applaud you.


----------

