I was in a group of six people the other day and I was the only person that didn't smoke. It struck me as odd even though I reckon this area has a larger than average

So have you ever smoked .. still smoke .. or never did?

I gave up about three and a half years ago (and have saved over $15,000 in the process)

I smoked casually in high school/university, and just kind of stopped. I may again in the future, I don't know, but not as a regular habit (well, hopefully not!)

I am an ex-smoker, for over six years now. Prior to that I smoked for over 30 years, but in those days, the percentage of smokers was much higher.

I gave up as the result of a dare- a New Years Eve party and a $50 bet with a mate. We are both too stubborn (or too cheap) to take it back up again. Prior to that, I had tried patches, chewing gum and various other means of quitting, but none worked for me.

I used to smoke, for about twenty years from the time I left school. Then one day I just stopped. I didn't tell anyone until a few weeks later when someone offered me a cigarette and I said "no thanks, I don't smoke". Honestly, my giving up nearly killed quite a few people - they all keeled over with shock!

I smoked for 20 years and gave up 15 years ago.
I never actually tried to give up, until I did.
Result? I am vastly overweight, but quite healthy apart from that.

Smoked for ten years, gave it up nearly thirty years ago. There aren't a lot of smokers around here anymore - or maybe I should say "I don't know if there are a lot of smokers around here anymore." It's illegal to smoke in most public places except outside, so you could know someone for quite some time and not know that they smoke.

I started smoking when I was 19 and said that I would give up when there was s definate threat to my health other than it not being good for you. I was diagnosed as diabetic and my GP said that the chances of complications were twice as high for a smoker, I have a half empty packet in the cupboard. That was March 2000 so when I was 52.

I smoked an occasional cigarette in my mid-teens, and started smoking fairly heavily in my college days. I finally managed to quit on my third (or possibly fourth) attempt) in my forties, so I haven't smoked for about 23 years. Unlike many ex-smokers, I haven't become an anti-smoking fanatic, and I don't mind at all if people smoke around me.

I never smoked - I figured it was a waste of my money.

Hubby did suggest once that we take it up. "Why?" I asked, "So we can give it up and have more money" was the reply

I grew up with a smoker (my mother chain-smoked throughout my childhood) and I have always had a visceral reaction of disgust to the sight and smell of cigarettes. My sister has much the same reaction. My theory is that children of smokers either become smokers themselves, or are violently anti-smoking, seldom do they have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. My mother finally quit about 20 years ago, but now suffers from severe COPD. She tries to tell the family that her 40 years if smoking had nothing to do with it, but we all know better.

When I was at college I smoked during the summer only (i.e. outside the rugby-playing season). Then after college I smoked only on Wednesdays (which was a 20-hour final production day for a weekly paper I was deputy editor of). Then when I became a full-time community worker I took up smoking full-time too, and smoked 40-50 a day for fifteen years.

I gave up in 2001, the day after huffing, puffing and chainsmoking my way to the summit (and back down again) of Ireland's holy mountain, Croagh Patrick. Was stopping the result of a miracle? No, probably not(!), but it's a nice thought.

Like TabbyTom I don't mind being around smokers at all, though I've never been tempted to start smoking again.

"Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times"
(Mark Twain)

(sometimes attributed as being "hundreds of times", but same sentiment lol)

I'm with Lones - over 15,800 days smoke free (which means since birth...)

I started smoking when I was 12, now and then with friends. Then I smoked all the time when I graduated from high school. So, after a total of 54 years of smoking and several tries at quitting, I quit on Valentine's Day this year. Today marks six months. It's been difficult but I haven't given in. I think I can make it from here.

And well done for that! Keep it up! Well done to all of us who gave up.
I am not one of those fusspots either, who fan the air and moan when people smoke around them. Many of us have been there and know the joy of smoking. I could easily smoke ten in a row now.

Keep it up, CmdrK!

I'm with Ren, I could still smoke now even though I won't. If I was given just a short time to live the first thing I would do is light one up. :p

Yeah, that's hitting the (coffin) nail on the head, you two. Talk about insidious!

I smoked for about a year when i was 18 or 19.
I was trying alot of things then, just because.
There really was nothing appealing about continuing to smoke or drink,
so it was no great effort to quit.
My liver and my lungs thank me every day.

Never started, and at age 34 now, why bother starting?

Chain smoker from 17 to 19. Got angry at myself for smoking while sick with the flu and smoked 3 at a time. Got so sick, haven't smoked for 40 years.

I am another ex-smoker who isn't bothered if someone smokes near me. If someone came to stay my home I would just ask that they don't smoke upstairs, a rule that my mother had and that I stuck to myself right up to the time that I quit smoking.

I've never smoked, and I do try to avoid it whenever possible. I had severe asthma as a kid and cigarette smoke could easily send me into an attack (sometime just the smell on someone's clothes, it was a big trigger). In remission for nearly 10 yrs now, yay! But I'm still very sensitive to smoke, and my nose can pick up the smell from pretty far away.

I am a considerate ex smoker too Sue. I tell my friends they can smoke in my house as long as they don't exhale. lol. In reality I ask them to smoke outside and go out with them. Most smokers I know don't smoke in their own houses because of the lasting stench.

I smoked for a few years in my teens and twenties. I gave up when a few people said that I would never be able to do it. I always liked a challenge. I went from smoking 40 a day to none at all overnight and it was surprisingly not that difficult to do. The only problem was that I quit at the same time that I had to give up playing rugby due to injury and my weight ballooned. I've never really shifted the weight but I still feel healthier nevertheless.

Like jabb5076, I grew up with a chainsmoker. Long car journeys trapped with him puffing away used to make me violently car sick.
So I don't smoke, neither do my brother and sister, or my husband or my children.
He finally managed to give up after a string of health issues including a quadruple bypass and we were all very proud of him.
Easy to be a non-smoker, so much harder to give up. Unless you are flopsy and Snowman of course, with a will of iron!

I hate the way in class, I can tell which children come from a smoking household. Their hair reeks and their bookbags and contents smell, so that marking homework is a real chore and their reading books need airing.

Er, didn't I say that after smoking for about 33 years I stopped mid-packet over 12 years ago?

As for children smelling of smoke, my son came home one day saying that a teacher had accused him of smoking when it was my smoke the teacher could smell. I didn't smoke in the car ever, just in the house.

I already edited my post to include Snowman, I apologise for missing you out too!
Well done, oh iron-willed one
That said, when we are discussing healthy lifestyles in class, I always get children to put their hands up if they have a relative who has quit. Then say how strong-willed and admirable it is, and how proud they should be of that person because it is so hard.
We also do a long multiplication of how much a pack a day costs over a year, and then let them do a fantasy list of what they could buy with the £2,000 or so instead.

Jabberwok, I'm also a teacher, and I know exactly what you mean about students coming to school absolutely reeking of smoke. Most often it was simply living with a smoker rather than smoking themselves. You could always tell their parents when it was open house---the green fog of smoke smell that enveloped them reminded me of the character Pigpen in the Charlie Brown cartoons. So strong it was almost visible!

That for me is the most embarrassing part of being an ex-smoker, knowing that my clothes smelt rancid and nauseating.

I stopped after well over 30 years. I thought I had flu, but smoking made me sick, and then just the smell of smoke did. Most disconcerting for my smoking husband. It was actually endocarditis, and I was too ill to do anything for a couple of months, certainly to work out what to do with a cigarette.

When I got home, inspiration from the Elvis Presley diet - a peanut butter and banana sandwich at bedtime - helped me keep any cravings away, and I coped with the addiction to ritual one hour at a time. I can make a phone call, I can write a letter, I can drink a cup of coffee, without a cigarette. I too found it very easy to give up smoking every night. If I'd relied on will-power to break the habit, forget iron will, I wouldn't have stopped.

Yes I ballooned. That was 1996, and I still have some of the extra weight even now, and I'm working on that! but I have been lucky in that my lungs work, and I don't miss being a smoker at all.

I know just what you mean by feeling ill if you had endocarditis, that really isn't anywhere that I want to go again.