Moments of Permanence - A vast and building resentment

From: willow Date: August 23rd, 2011 05:05 am (UTC) (Link)

There was a William Shatner tv series called TekWars; where indeed there were Smoke Clubs. And those were the ONLY places where people could light up - not in their homes affecting other people, not in public, not in public or commercial buildings. Just in those smoking clubs, for which they paid an entrance fee to boot.

I thought it was BRILLIANT.

I loathe the fact that people can't smoke inside a place, but wait right outside, so your hair and clothes get stinky anyway and your lungs get triggered as they form a fricking prison barricade around the place you need or want to be.

I loathe smokers at bus stops, especially those who don't even think to move DOWNWIND and side-eye me, or anyone else who starts coughing or sneezing or heaven forbid wheezing at the smoke.

There's the fricking gums and the patch and there's always been chewing tobacco. The cancer companies have diversified to still keep their money. So just ban the damn cigarettes already.

Oh the things I loathe; walking into what's supposed to be a smoke free hotel room and smelling smoke; the various personal compromises I've made to spend time with someone who does smoke - which now seems ridiculous because since I was five I'd been bugging my own father to quit smoking and he eventually did, so if I didn't put up with it for my own dear FATHER, why am I compromising for acquaintances (or people I had thought I wanted to be friends).

Not being able to open a window sounds bloody awful when there's expectation of fresh air and tolerable noise level and the like.

Something else that boggles me? Schools have huge 'drug free' zones. But people can still sit outside a SCHOOL and smoke.

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From: sami Date: August 23rd, 2011 06:17 am (UTC) (Link)

Seriously. And people point out that if cigarettes were introduced today, there is no way in hell they would be legalised, and yet, somehow the fact that they're not a new drug means that we should make exceptions to all the public health issues that would otherwise apply.

I mean... if it was a new activity, that amounted to, "Hey, I want do do this thing, that will cause serious damage to my own health, damage to the health of anyone around me, and has a small but definite chance of causing immediate, life-threatening seizures in small children who happen to pass by," that shit would be criminalised instantly. Instantly.

It's been well-established that prohibition doesn't work, but no-one's really trying to prohibit nicotine. And "freedom" and "personal liberty" shouldn't apply to activities that harm other people.

Not being able to open the windows does, indeed, massively, utterly suck. Because otherwise, yeah, we would have fresh air and tolerable noise level most of the time, and I want to open my windows and my resentment for the near-constancy with which I can't is boundless.

When it comes to making compromises to spend time with someone who smokes - when I've done it, it's generally been in a group situation, and there's this distinct "... but you smell" aspect to it. And it ends up that I've never yet become close friends with a smoker, really, because the stinkiness and unpleasantness are just this huge great barrier to the possibility of true affection.

Not to mention that, with one exception who is a friend I've known since I was 12, I just tend to think slightly less of people if they smoke. Smoking says, "I have, knowingly, chosen to develop an addiction to an expensive, toxic habit that will definitely have a moderate negative impact on my health, and potentially, in the long term, condemn me to an agonising and unpleasant death, and in the interim will make me smell unpleasant and pollute the air in my vicinity."

Smoking is a way of announcing to the world that you're a selfish arse with very bad judgement.

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From: willow Date: August 23rd, 2011 06:37 am (UTC) (Link)

I think I still have the mentality that people get hooked as teens and then... Except in the US at least there's SUCH an awareness of the harm it does and all these TOOLS to help quit or keep the nicotine addiction w/ less health risks for everyone around.

My Dad quit the old fashioned way - cold turkey and the determination that when we next met up, he wanted to be able to tell me he had (and because of our complicated situation, he also quit so he'd be ALIVE in order to meet up w/ me again in the future).

So I think it depends on the AGE of the person involved and their access to media that shapes how I view their smoking. People over fifty and sixty, lots of things come into play. People in the 30's and early to mid 40's? I'm way more side-eye 'Are you for real?!'

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From: sami Date: August 23rd, 2011 06:59 am (UTC) (Link)

Yeah, my grandfather quit cold turkey, too. In his case his doctor told him that if he didn't quit he'd quite possibly be dead in six months. Grandad threw the rest of his packet in the bin, and just never touched another, even while his wife still smoked.

People with access to nicotine gum, patches, etc, just have no excuse.

The thing with people over 50/60 is... dudes, it's been decades, your excuses ran out an awfully long time ago. Time to grow up and quit. (My parents are both over 60, both smoked, and both quit about thirty years ago.) Anyone of their generation, to me, just qualifies as old enough to know better.

I get that breaking an addiction sucks. I went through hell breaking my own dependency on opiate painkillers a few months after my bad accident. But I did it anyway, and I was still in pain - it wasn't even recreational drug use.

People saying they've tried to quit smoking and they "just can't" - given the available resources, to me that seems more like an admission of inadequacy. They can. They just can't be bothered.

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From: willow Date: August 23rd, 2011 07:08 am (UTC) (Link)

See, I think it's genetic, how one deals with addiction. I was able to slow wean off caffeine; because it disturbed me that my doctor thought it was a 'safe' addiction. How can any addiction be safe? And I have slips (hopes and misremembering) with various food stuff and losing all my usual comfort foods etc. But even while my personality can quit some things totally cold and move on for the sake of my health; sugar for example? I cannot imagine a life w/o any sugar at all.

So it could depend on the addictive substance and how genetics leans one towards it. I guess I have less of a problem with people saying they can't quit - back when the ONLY way was cold turkey. But the addictive substance is nicotine and there are options for that NOW. So, yeah, I can't get anyone not just switching over AWAY from the health problems of tar and filter carcinogens.

And I have problems with people who aren't really admitting they have an addiction. Who use it as an excuse. I'm not really a big fan of 12 step programs. But I do believe the first step in stopping something is to admit it has a hold over you. You may want that hold not to be permanent, but if you don't admit something currently has you in its grips and come to terms with that, then everything else will just be excuses and flailing in my mind; pretending to make progress to hide the fact you aren't.

People who say 'I just can't - whatever' and don't find it disturbing that THERE IS SOMETHING CONTROLLING THEM?! Then I start getting twitchy. Because to me, that lack of looking inward is a kind of extreme selfishness, they don't even give that much of a damn about themselves, y'know? That I find fearsome.

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