Why are smokers so selfish?

[Tom]

I don't smoke because I'm a wimp. Same with drugs and alcohol. Lol

It's a fortunate sort of wimpiness. I gave up on alcohol early on, in part due to a very weak stomach for it and becoming sick easily. Blessing in disguise.

 

[GrownupGirl]

I don't smoke because I'm a wimp. Same with drugs and alcohol. Lol

Welcome to the wimpy club. Although I probably have it easier because I'm a woman.

 

[Lemon Zing]

I really wish my mum and gran quit smoking years ago.

 

[Toirtis]

Cigarettes stink. Pipe tobacco and cigars I enjoy smoking, but I do so in the privacy of my own castle. There is also Mary Jane, which is illegal to smoke in public spaces, yet the last few concerts I went to had people lighting up their joints in the crowd.

I rent, so my home is non-smoking, so I do not have the option to smoke a pipe or cigar in my home (I do have a balcony and yard which I can utilise when the weather permits), but I do enjoy the fact that smoking (tobacco and cannabis) is legal in most public spaces still. I just hate that cigarette smokers are not respectful with their litter.

 

[Judge]

Rather than look at smokers as being mean or selfish, I just look at them pathologically for who many, but not all of them tend to be behaviorally speaking. They are substance abusers hooked on nicotine.

That they literally can't help themselves. Where even people like my kind and loving mother would suddenly clench her fist at you at any thought of her giving up her habit.

Reminds me as well how many decades it took my brother to stop smoking. And why it took me three long and agonizing years as a teenager to get my mother to stop smoking in the house.

Exposure to cigarette smoke puts me into a "fight or flight" mode unlike just about any other unnatural substance made by man. As a child it didn't seem to bother me until puberty when that all changed. Made my life hell until my early 20s when while working in San Francisco, some of the very first ordinances prohibiting smoking in the workplace came about. Good timing, as the constant exposure to smoke began to make me suicidal. With no one truly understanding beyond the reality of carcinogens.

My mother never did quit smoking, and according to her primary physician it indeed was an aspect of her death at the age 81. "Hardening of the arteries" from a lifetime of smoking. I still look back in sadness in how her smoking created a physical barrier between her and myself, even though I loved her very much.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My wife smoked, quit when her quitting and restarting got to me she finally quit still puzzled why it bothered me so much her getting cancer or some other issue bothered me her dad died from smoking related reasons. Some people just do not get it. my being on the spectrum accentuated many of my senses including smell.

 

[Judge]

My wife smoked, quit when her quitting and restarting got to me she finally quit still puzzled why it bothered me so much her getting cancer or some other issue bothered me her dad died from smoking related reasons. Some people just do not get it.

Some people just don't want to care.

Like actor Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) who loves smoking, is acutely aware of the pathological risks and simply doesn't care.

 

[Jeff T]

Smoked for a very brief time in junior high- a friend had recently gotten that habit and wanted company. Trying to look "cool" while struggling to keep from coughing didn't work out too well!

Encountering a smoker outdoors isn't a big deal for me, they are quite rare in the region I live anyways.
Campfires are a bigger issue- I seem to be the one that the smoke seeks out no matter where I park myself.
The forest fires here over the last 10 years would be my biggest concern. Some days the sun would be a vague purple disc in the sky and visibility down to a quarter mile......

 

[Au Naturel]

Smoked for a very brief time in junior high- a friend had recently gotten that habit and wanted company. Trying to look "cool" while struggling to keep from coughing didn't work out too well!

Encountering a smoker outdoors isn't a big deal for me, they are quite rare in the region I live anyways.
Campfires are a bigger issue- I seem to be the one that the smoke seeks out no matter where I park myself.
The forest fires here over the last 10 years would be my biggest concern. Some days the sun would be a vague purple disc in the sky and visibility down to a quarter mile......

There is something about tobacco smoke that is especially disturbing to me. The scent of a woodfire doesn't bother me a bit. Doesn't feel like camping without it.

Unprecedented forest fires are all up to climate change, though if you go back a couple of centuries, there was a fire in Canada that blotted out the sun in the northern colonies.