I made half my best friends over cigs. There's something about the petulance of sitting in the rain for four hours just so you can smoke that brings the silliest people together. None of us still smoke!
Thanks again Robber for your Love/hate affair with smoking. Your posts always hit raw nerves that at buried deep in my psyche. I started smoking at 15, cause that’s all we could do in small sticks in Scottish village. Hang around covered bus stops in the rain: talking and smoking - recalling underage love, parties (empties - house party), and all our wildest dreams of what we wanna do when we got older and have cash. I quit 10yrs later when I moved out of the village and ended up in Cardiff, Wales. I rented a room in a bed sit .. the landlord hated the cigarette smoke ruining his house, so he forced me to smoke outside. I did; in the rain, wind, cold, every element. And it sucker, all alone drawing deep inhales of the damp cigarette… I knew I had to quit. Took me months of withdrawal and weight gain to finally overcome the urge… but it’s still there and I get the contact high of nicotine when I do my early morning runs and I can smell the second hand smoke coming from the early morning commuter driving with their window down as they take their ‘breakfast cigarette’…
I love all of this. Because it intertwined with so many things in life, there's a certain nostalgia that just can't be replaced. It was awesome for a reason, but glad to have moved on.
On the day I quit, I decided I would do every single thing I associated with smoking, one after another. Coffee, working a restaurant lunch shift (smoking throughout), a typical post shift bar food meal, drinks starting at 4 pm continuing through 2-3 am. I figured if I could do that not smoke, I'd be fine. I've never had a drag since that day in 1998 or 99. I can't recall the year.
One of my favorite smoking restaurants was the restaurant I worked in, a brawling behemoth sitting on the North Gates of LSU. As the world began to slowly shame smokers away, this restaurant doubled down and remained 100% smoking, a fuck you to the world we have become. Even after I quit I respected this immensely.
I always respected the ones that hung on, a refuge for the outcasts. Interesting you mention going through all the things associated with it to kick the habit. I found that every time I experienced one of those smoking-associated things for the first time after quitting was the hardest part, every time. So even if I was feeling great for three months, then went camping with friends for the first time after quitting, it was like all the urges and feelings as if I had quit that morning. So hard, but once I got past that "first time," it never bothered me in the same situation afterward.
Growing up as a smoker in Scotland, I felt like I was the majority. You’d smoke in bars, restaurants, cinemas, buses/trains. I even remember folks smoking on our flight to Spain circa 1985 (I was 8). You’d have a meal with friends and they’d wolf their food down just to get to their next cigarette… and they’d light up and puff away while you still ate. Wild to think back. But as you wrote, it was also ‘cool’ to walk up to single girls in clubs and ask for a light, as a way to start conversation, of if girls asked for a free cigarette, another chance of romance. Then there were the concert halls … bands playing into the wee hours of crammed venues (the Glasgow barras, the garage, king tuts) all through a fog of cigarette and reefer smoke… and afterwards walking home in the reek of sweat, beer and smoke hanging off your clothes and skin… to the next all night house party to recall the gif and listen to the bands CD on loop until the sun came up… everyone sitting on the carpet or any surface you can cram into a city bedsit… all sharing, stealing and begging for mate’s cigarettes until they were all gone. Hop on that one of your mates succumbed to sleep first so you could take there cigarettes - and like a modern Robin Hood - pass me out to all your drink mates.
Things I randomly miss about smoking (in no particular order):
- the meditativeness about being able to spend 5 minutes in solitude or in solitude with a friend. Nothing else matters. unfettered conversations where in those 5 minutes, the world stops. side note: i smoked before smart phones and Instagram. I wonder if people doom scroll while smoking (that'd be a drag).
- the smell of cigs/nicotine on your fingers (just me? ok cool). smoking cigs with chopsticks your hands didn't smell so your parents wouldn't detect it lol
- Djarums, 27s, and P-funks (Parliaments). Smoking them in the car while driving.
- the RITUAL. the ritual of packing a new pack to ensure all the tobacco was condensed next to the filter. the lucky cig - the timing of when you take the lucky cig. the ritual of the first morning cig to get your bowels movin. COFFEE and a cig.
- the extra rush of nicotine after you've had a few beers.
- the mutual respect of you asking or someone else asking "can i get a light?"
- smoking in the summer. your body feeling as warm as the summer sun beating down. smoking in the winter. your body warming up with each drag.
- the unmistakable cigarette hole one of my asshole friends left in my ford explorer passenger seat. RIP green beast.
I haven't smoked in a few years and quit in my early 20s. I smoked a cig in a drunken stupor (I think in Vegas) a couple years ago. I think what makes it easy to not go back is that the first cig still feels like a first cig. It takes some callousing of the lungs, body, and addiction to really give off that earth shattering internal sigh of relief when you take your first breakfast drag.
I made half my best friends over cigs. There's something about the petulance of sitting in the rain for four hours just so you can smoke that brings the silliest people together. None of us still smoke!
Yes, willing to withstand the worst weather while trying to keep tobacco wrapped in paper dry is truly something 😂
Thanks again Robber for your Love/hate affair with smoking. Your posts always hit raw nerves that at buried deep in my psyche. I started smoking at 15, cause that’s all we could do in small sticks in Scottish village. Hang around covered bus stops in the rain: talking and smoking - recalling underage love, parties (empties - house party), and all our wildest dreams of what we wanna do when we got older and have cash. I quit 10yrs later when I moved out of the village and ended up in Cardiff, Wales. I rented a room in a bed sit .. the landlord hated the cigarette smoke ruining his house, so he forced me to smoke outside. I did; in the rain, wind, cold, every element. And it sucker, all alone drawing deep inhales of the damp cigarette… I knew I had to quit. Took me months of withdrawal and weight gain to finally overcome the urge… but it’s still there and I get the contact high of nicotine when I do my early morning runs and I can smell the second hand smoke coming from the early morning commuter driving with their window down as they take their ‘breakfast cigarette’…
I love all of this. Because it intertwined with so many things in life, there's a certain nostalgia that just can't be replaced. It was awesome for a reason, but glad to have moved on.
On the day I quit, I decided I would do every single thing I associated with smoking, one after another. Coffee, working a restaurant lunch shift (smoking throughout), a typical post shift bar food meal, drinks starting at 4 pm continuing through 2-3 am. I figured if I could do that not smoke, I'd be fine. I've never had a drag since that day in 1998 or 99. I can't recall the year.
One of my favorite smoking restaurants was the restaurant I worked in, a brawling behemoth sitting on the North Gates of LSU. As the world began to slowly shame smokers away, this restaurant doubled down and remained 100% smoking, a fuck you to the world we have become. Even after I quit I respected this immensely.
I always respected the ones that hung on, a refuge for the outcasts. Interesting you mention going through all the things associated with it to kick the habit. I found that every time I experienced one of those smoking-associated things for the first time after quitting was the hardest part, every time. So even if I was feeling great for three months, then went camping with friends for the first time after quitting, it was like all the urges and feelings as if I had quit that morning. So hard, but once I got past that "first time," it never bothered me in the same situation afterward.
Growing up as a smoker in Scotland, I felt like I was the majority. You’d smoke in bars, restaurants, cinemas, buses/trains. I even remember folks smoking on our flight to Spain circa 1985 (I was 8). You’d have a meal with friends and they’d wolf their food down just to get to their next cigarette… and they’d light up and puff away while you still ate. Wild to think back. But as you wrote, it was also ‘cool’ to walk up to single girls in clubs and ask for a light, as a way to start conversation, of if girls asked for a free cigarette, another chance of romance. Then there were the concert halls … bands playing into the wee hours of crammed venues (the Glasgow barras, the garage, king tuts) all through a fog of cigarette and reefer smoke… and afterwards walking home in the reek of sweat, beer and smoke hanging off your clothes and skin… to the next all night house party to recall the gif and listen to the bands CD on loop until the sun came up… everyone sitting on the carpet or any surface you can cram into a city bedsit… all sharing, stealing and begging for mate’s cigarettes until they were all gone. Hop on that one of your mates succumbed to sleep first so you could take there cigarettes - and like a modern Robin Hood - pass me out to all your drink mates.
Things I randomly miss about smoking (in no particular order):
- the meditativeness about being able to spend 5 minutes in solitude or in solitude with a friend. Nothing else matters. unfettered conversations where in those 5 minutes, the world stops. side note: i smoked before smart phones and Instagram. I wonder if people doom scroll while smoking (that'd be a drag).
- the smell of cigs/nicotine on your fingers (just me? ok cool). smoking cigs with chopsticks your hands didn't smell so your parents wouldn't detect it lol
- Djarums, 27s, and P-funks (Parliaments). Smoking them in the car while driving.
- the RITUAL. the ritual of packing a new pack to ensure all the tobacco was condensed next to the filter. the lucky cig - the timing of when you take the lucky cig. the ritual of the first morning cig to get your bowels movin. COFFEE and a cig.
- the extra rush of nicotine after you've had a few beers.
- the mutual respect of you asking or someone else asking "can i get a light?"
- smoking in the summer. your body feeling as warm as the summer sun beating down. smoking in the winter. your body warming up with each drag.
- the unmistakable cigarette hole one of my asshole friends left in my ford explorer passenger seat. RIP green beast.
I haven't smoked in a few years and quit in my early 20s. I smoked a cig in a drunken stupor (I think in Vegas) a couple years ago. I think what makes it easy to not go back is that the first cig still feels like a first cig. It takes some callousing of the lungs, body, and addiction to really give off that earth shattering internal sigh of relief when you take your first breakfast drag.