December 4 will make one year quit for me, after 10 years of smoking marlboro reds. It actually wasn't that hard.

Benefits:
I can taste my food.
I can smell things again.
I have not been sick even one time, beforehand I got nasty colds every 3 or 4 months.
Mood is generally improved
Need less sleep, and have no trouble getting up in the morning.
Now I take the stairs to the fourth floor, not the elevator, not winded at all.
I play tennis every week for 2-3 hours instead of one hour.
I have an extra ~1100 dollars in the bank.
My clothes and my car are starting to smell a lot better, but I don't think the stench will ever completely go away.

The only real drawback I can think of is that I still have "smoking dreams," where I wake up thinking that I'm back in the habit. It's a nightmarish feeling for about two minutes before I realize that it wasn't real.

If I didn't need any more motivation to keep my quit, now I'm watching a close relative battle lung cancer, and she still won't give them up. Chemo and stogies don't mix, let me tell you.

To address the general theme of the thread, I don't believe that smoking should be banned at all. I think in time it will simply dwindle to insignificance as people realize that they're just being shafted by mega corporations which are exploiting their addiction.

Originally posted by Bulldog 52
Its not proven by the way i live my life , i smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish and I'm healthy , People like me should be dead by your reckonings, I'm not and I'm saying your nanny thinking does not know why. Stop frightening people with this its not true, try thinkinking about the real killers in life . Cars . stress and undisclosed amounts of radioactive waste in the air.

Speaking as a smoker and as a student of Linda Goodman's, she teached that some people "CANNOT" guit smoking, though she recommends it, some of us have body molecules that will turn against the body without smoking, and she calls these people 'sensitive' Read Star Signs.
I quit in 1993 to test her theory and from a doctor's orders?
During the time I had quit, I gained 75 pounds--not more eating-broke out in hives all over my body, and I went to my nieces wedding and my OWN Mother did not recognize the freak I had become.
So, if I cannot quit without all this 'madness' then let me go when my times is up, rather than be broken out with incurable hives..
Anybody ever have hives? it is HELL on earth.
When I started back, my weight fell off and the hives are history..
Formerly a battered woman, from liquor, give me a smoking man, who will NOT have a personality change for booze..
PS--toxic fumes from all the big cars bothers me...
Agree with poster who started this thread..
Judge not lest you be judged...

"In a room of mirrors, you can see for miles
But everythings that's there is in disguise
Every word you've uttered , every thought you've had
It's all in your files, the good and bad"

george harrison on his death album..called rising sun

all of this anti smoking hysteria is really just a smoke screen , something to divert our attention from real problems.natural ,non chemical treated tobacco is relatively harmless ,its the crap they add to it ,those preservatives and pesticides sprayed on the crop thats harmful.

There's a lot of bs about smoking out there. The top one being that smoking with a filter is somehow less carcinogenic. WRONG! The cherry burns hotter when one smokes through a filter unless they don't want actual smoke in their lungs at all. The hotter something is burned the more it is broken down to to simpler more reactive chemicals. More radioactive as well.

The second one I can name off the top of my head is the thinking people have that smoking is worse that overeating wrong again overeating, especially refined sugar consumption is the #1 cause of death.

What's all this **cough ... cough** hoopla about smoking **wheeze** being so bad **hack ... splutter** for you ?
Never felt **cough ... wheeze** better in all my **hack ... hack ... cough ... wheeze** life !

Honey, get me **wheeeeeeeeze** the cig packet will you ? I'm having **hack ... cough** trouble seeing out of my **splutter** left eye !

Originally posted by Astronomer68
. . . .
I don't really think there is much room for argument about the consequences of smoking--eventually, it will kill you one way or the other. . . .

Prove it please, and keep in mind the money trail that was provided earlier in the thread.

I need a second line :S

[edit on 9/2/2009 by Lemon.Fresh]