Monday, January 14, 2013

Day 2

Ugh! Just woke up such weird dreams! So of course I read the label on my patch and gee it warns of vivid dreams and suggests taking the patch off before bed if you encounter that problem.  Duhhh! Actually the makers of so many quit smoking products have obviously never smoked and don't have a clue to real life!  Take my lozenges I bought them for desperate times like right after a meal but after you buy them and read the label it says you have to wait 15 minutes AFTER you eat to use them!  WTF??? Ok my bad I should have carefully looked up all the information on the internet but hey!  it freaked me out just buying the stuff!!!! To me it meant I was going to do this!

Thinking back to age 13 when I first started sneaking an occasional smoke not from my Mom but with other kids my Mother hated smoking.  It didn't make me sick and was much better than sneaking a taste of beer.  But I really got into smoking about the age of 16.  Seemed back then that everyone smoked teachers, doctors darn near everyone.  A kid could easily buy cigarettes at the gas station or even several store by saying their parents sent them.  People even smoked in grocery stores back then! I remember being a kid going to the doctor for an exam and he would light up his pipe while talking to my Mother.I took right away to full time smoking and many of my close friends were also smokers.  We'd sneak into the boy's bathroom at school to light up or go across the street to Kmart cafeteria as long as we bought something and behaved ourselves they didnt care if we were cutting school back then.  We'd go to some fast food places and smoke to.  Elegance for us was going to a coffee shop and having coffee with our smokes we'd stay for hours talking with groups of other kids going in and out.  Hey it was a great way to find out where the best parties where!

Cigarettes cost a quarter or less but at times that was hard to come by so we bought some of the cheaper yuk brands the mini cigars, bummed what we could from strangers and smoking parents. Yes I have been know to do crazy desperate things for my smokes--digging in couch cushions for change,  looking for soda bottles to turn in and even walking 2 miles at 3 am because I was out! They become so much of your life and you also have to make sure you have something to light them with!  Have you ever seen a sadder face than one of a smoker holding a cigarette with no way to light it?

Today smoking almost makes you a target of hate crimes and those commercials on tv sure don't help!  They actually made me so mad I always went right out and lit a smoke when they came on.  It angers me that they go on about cigarette companies lies and propaganda but do even worse in those ads.  Come on a child is going to hack up half a lung and need oxygen because some guy lights a smoke several feet away? A whole apartment building is contaminated because of a smoker? Real factual info ok that makes people think but these are all ridiculous even most non smokers will agree they are stupid. well except for a few that now want to demand smoking be banned in their neighbors backyards!!!!  It is not even the neighbors who smoke it is their guests!  Really stupid!  Even without anyone ever smoking we all know there are loads of pollutants in the air!  I really have had no problem going outside to smoke and during the warm months I actually enjoyed it and would stay out for hours with my books and smokes. I have seen the build up on walls of a house from years of smoking true BUT short term exposure while outside? Come on!! You may hate the smell but there are many things we hate the smell of.  Some colognes choke me make me wheeze cough eyes run etc but I can't ban them.  I simply move away from the offending smell. A few feet makes a world of difference.

And don't get me started on all the extra taxes smokers pay!  For what? Quit smoking products cost as much as smoking does and no there are not as many free as people are led to believe.  I think all the money goe to the states to help with all their problems and left over is for phone in smoking programs that are so understaffed you can't reach anyone or else get disconnected.  Oh and to appease whoever they dole out a small amount for those stupid commercials!  They could do so much better! Even the ones of the old man wailing about his wife aren't good enough why not ones showing such strong vibrant men as my Bob was real people real families who suffer so much by this horrible addiction?  He was only 46.  There are many stories like that.  We all know we will die someday so old people moaning we think well they had 50 years together yes still sad but doesn't all of us have an expiration date? They need to focus more on people we can identify with younger people in their 30's 40's and even some in their 50's all the ages we do not expect them to die yet.  Focus on smokers like my Bob with a wife and 2 teens that desperately needed him.  Life stories are what make people pause and think not lies and propaganda..

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