i didnt get it
despite my previous experience with tobacco's green counterpart i didnt quite grasp the concept of inhaling the drag
it took me about a month and maybe 20 cigarettes before i inhaled for the first time semi by accident
my sudden and violent coughing attack took everyone in the car by suprise, so much so that we almost got in a crash
then cigarettes would REALLY have killed
(Rum Blumpkin, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 22:17, 1 reply)

OCD is kind of crap.
The first time I tried one, I spent half the night panicking that I had permanently harmed myself in some way. Ahhh, memories.

I don't smoke. If you need any motivation to quit, I have one thing to say: Shane MacGowan.

The filth and the fingers.
( KersaI Missive Free Michael Shields! with Monday's Liverpool Echo, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 20:52, 4 replies)

I suppose ...
... the first try of a real cigarette was when I was about 9 or 10, when my uncle - he's only 9 years older than me - was babysitting for us with a couple of his mates. It was one of those brown "More" ones, and - as per usual - much coughing ensued.

That put me off for a bit, but began again at about 15. Didn't take long to get past the retching stage, and was soon on nasty JPS. By Uni, was on 20 or more a day Marlboro Reds, alternated with a Menthol brand, Consulate or St. Moritz or something.

I remember helping get my sister into the habit, and getting through pretty much a whole pack with her one evening while the 'rents were out. So naive as to think "Shake n Vac" really would put the freshness back into the carpets and furniture.

Gave up at about 21, when I met the present Mrs Newell, and although I've had a few lapses over the years, I now - many years later - have nought but the odd cigar.
(ramrod_newell had his hair brushed at, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 17:49, Reply)

I started smoking at the age of 17.
It was New Years Eve, and I figured I'd try it. I now smoke a pack a day.
But that's boring, so I'll tell you another story.

There was one point where only my stepfather (out of the family) knew I smoked. I was on the bus to college one morning, and delved into my bag for something. Lo, there's 10 B&H in there and I knew I hadn't bought them. Jubilantly, I bring them out but there's a message on the packet......

"I would love to kiss you all over your lovely body and I mean ALL over"

It was in my stepfathers very distinct handwriting. Now, he'd been abusing me since I was 13 and that was the final straw.
I got home from college and called the police, I then sat my twin brother down and told him what was going on.
Mum and the dwarf were out for dinner that night, so when mum got home my brother and I called her upstairs and told her.
The hardest thing.........."what do you mean you smoke? You shouldn't smoke!"

After that I left home that weekend. The evil fucker died 3 years ago (yay!!!!!!) of lung cancer.

The sad thing is, most of you know my mum died four weeks ago..........also of lung cancer.......I'm still smoking. Gah!
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 16:11, 4 replies)

Seems quite cool now
I was in Carly Simon's barn with her son Ben, who gave me my first. Tasted like shit.
( huggybear, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 15:36, 1 reply)

The First
I think I'd be a bout 10-11. My mate Stuart "borowed" one of his mum's JPS, and we had a go at smoking. Cant remeber much about it. We also smoked Art Straws once (those long paper straws designed for making things with; dont know if they still exist).

I started smoking peoper at 20 (Late rebel) and gave up after aout 3 years. Then started again after 7 years smoke free, and have since given up for about 7 years now. have no intention of trying another. EVAR.
(kitescreech still here, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 15:29, Reply)

Too too long ago...
Too many years ago to remember my first fag, but once upon a time I hosted a Mongolian professor for the weekend. Spotting I was a smoker and being a generous soul (as Mongolians are usually) he offered me one of his tabs. I accepted this with nary a thought. It was - I think - made of sawdust and chickenshit, and quite the harshest snout I've ever encountered. It amazes me that so many Mongols are smokers since these things were quite lethal.
(Mr Steve is jobless and fancyfree!, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 14:39, 1 reply)

Are we allowed reposts?
It seems a bit cheeky but damn it I like this story (although obviously not at the time) and it feels a bit wasted in 'Fire!' next to all those cool explosions....

www.b3ta.com/questions/fire/post42843
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Sat 22 Mar 2008, 13:04, 2 replies)

In 1979....
I bought my first pack of Number 6 after getting off the bus to attend the next town's Monday night yoof disco. Remember standing outside the hall leaning with my back pressed against the cold brick wall, and one knee bent with my foot on the wall in a very "Quadrophenia" way.

I remember how shit they tasted, but was willing to sacrifice it for how motherfecking cool I was looking.

I swiftly progressed up the chain to my favourite brand of B&H. And smoked lovingly up until 2002.

I don't smoke regularly these days (doesn't agree with my racing!), but I do love it! Smoking is the only thing I am really, really, really good at!
( Piper Alpha is being a grumpy northerm bastard on:, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 11:48, Reply)

If Smoking really stunts your growth..
Its no wonder why the chinese are so small.
(beano, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 9:59, Reply)

Not me...
and probably not the first, but....

One of teh funniest fag related happenings I ever witnessed was a young lady so hammered she was trying to light up the filter end and getting thoroughly frustated that it wouldn't work.

One of her mates was trying to point out the mistake and it all descended into a bit of a "That's the wrong end" "How would you know, you don't smoke" "But..." "You don't smoke, I do, I know what I'm doing!!" type argument for about 20 minutes.

Eventually she happened to accidentally put it in her mouth the right way round and lit up, and gave her friend such a 'Told you so' look.

Obvious candidate for length joke really, but naaah. Can't be arsed.
(tinypod will never learn. Ever., Sat 22 Mar 2008, 7:35, Reply)

Mr Cool

I used to do that trick where you flick a cigarette into the air and catch it in you mouth. Looked cool as fuck.

Then I did it in bar when pissed in attempt to impress the ladies. For added cool, I made it spin a few times.

Catching a lit cigarette, in your lips, by the lit end does not look cool, what with the screaming and everything.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 5:52, Reply)

can't remember exactly when
I was too stoned at the time

but no longer do I toke, panic attacks kinda make you want to quit it fairly quickly
I rarely drink anymore either, it can trigger my tinnitus something rotten
so the only thing I have left is cigarettes, and those are probably gonna kill me

fuck, I hate getting old
( Haku Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips., Sat 22 Mar 2008, 5:17, Reply)

Smoking is rude
In a fallic / Freudian / Oeidopus way.

The very act of taking the tip in one's mouth resembles sucking on a raspberry ripple.
Or a very small willy.

Here follows a very low-budget haiku:

filter tip in mouth
inhaling smoky goodness
diagonal love

/coat & profuse apologies :o/
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 1:43, 1 reply)

Not all that interesting...
Tried my first when I was about ten, and my dad (a chain smoker) made me smoke another right after. Hurled most of my breakfast up, all over the back yard. Never had one since. Never really wanted to after seeing what its done to my dad.

He's 46 but looks 60+ easily, really bad, slightly yellow skin, three brown fingers, can't go an hour without coughing up bits of lung, and gets out of breath going to the bathroom 12ft away, in a flat, only to collapse in his chair sounding like Darth Vader.

The slightly 'greener' cigs however, I've had my fair share of as a teenager, usually at parties, although I'm sure some were just herbs; and not smoked one of those for a good year or three
(Fleximus Rex briefly gave up lurking on, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 1:36, Reply)

evil girls
I have forbidden the boyfriend from smoking in our room because it makes my clothes stink.

However I am currently sitting in said room wearing an army hat and smoking a ciggy whilst he is at work.

HAHAHAHAHA.
(little fawn, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 1:29, Reply)

The best advice from the original Fathers of Medicine
As posted before, I (mis)spent many a year on the island of Kos.
As in Hippocrate's birth place. The plane tree under which he first taught medicine is still there, all supported with scaffolding.

Now, back in '92 when I first moved to Kos, I already smoked a little bit. My memory is hazy, but I think a packet of Marlboro reds cost about £3.92 at the time? Probably way out there.......
Anyhow, twas only 350 drachma per pack = approx 80-90p (as in english pence to the pound).
Weh-hey! I couldn't afford to eat on my meagre wages, but sure as hell could afford to smoke!
And smoking is LOW-FAT ffs - no-brainer!

Actually, I did eat that summer, as I'd landed a job in a greasy-spoon fastish food place.

Also caught the mother of all chest infections that summer.. Could not shake this bastard at fucking all. Barked like a seal for months. Had to sleep upright at t'table with pillow.
Was emitting phlegm matching the exact same colour / consistency of Timotei Conditioner.

Eventually, my good friend / surrogate brother / employer, Yiannis, suggested I pay a visit to the local GP.


*Waiting Room*....

Greek equivalent newspapers resembling The Sun, Tits of the World, Ur Anus etc. are scattered about the coffee table.
As is an overflowing 2-litre ashtray.

Doctor Giorgos called me in for my consultation.
He was reclined on a comfy chair, feet up on his desk (also carrying a heavily laden industrial sized ashtray).

On completion of examination, his advice to me was this:

Instead of 3 packets of Marlboro, I suggest only one pack a day.
Don't drink beer - it's cold. Drink brandy - preferably Metaxa 7*.
Stay out of the sea - no swimming for 3 weeks.

Fuck me diagonally! He was right!
Common sense prevailed - no anti-biotics necessary.


*apologies for distinct lack of smut*
will try HARDER next time.........

FUCKITY-WANK-SPLASH!!!
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 0:55, Reply)

My post to last week's QOTW
My first response to last week's QOTW would have been appropriate here, but anyway, I bring you this...

I'm a non-smoker, never have smoked, and never will smoke, but the last part wasn't always the case... At the tender age of 11, I decided I wanted to try inhaling from teh white cylinders. I knew about some of the dangers and knew they were supposed to be addictive (even though I did not know what they were like). I wasn't even thinking of doing it to show off to my mates - it was more out of curiosity than anything. Perhaps it was more the action of smoking than the smoking itself. But I was dead paranoid my parents would find out. I lived in a non-smoking household (so nothing to nick), buying them in a shop was out of the question, and I was afraid that if I used a cigarette vending-machine, someone would spot me.

Eventually, I somehow managed to get hold of a cigarette and some matches. For some reason, I chose to smoke it in a remote part of my school grounds during the lunch break where I would be totally alone. Because I had hidden it well, it was slightly crumpled. Now I had been anticipating this moment for ages so was beginning to shake. I was nervous and excited at the same time, but my nerves were winning. I got a match out and tried to light it, but I was trembling so much that I was incapable of lighting it. Light you bastard I kept thinking, but to no avail - I just couldn't light it. Ever try lighting a match when you're shaking all over? It's just not possible I tell you! Feeling slightly annoyed but more sheepish, I gave up and continued my lunch break. It was the last time I tried and didn't try again before I once and for all decided that I wanted to be a non-smoker. And that's how I avoided becoming a nicotine addict.

Won't apologise for length, will apologise for the anticlimax.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sat 22 Mar 2008, 0:54, Reply)

Menfol
My first experience was when I was 11. I used to work on my mums riding stables, with all these bigger older kids who scared me, classic back of the fields secret smoking sesh. I remember this girl holding her mouth open, letting the smoke billow out of her mouth, I aim to do this.

Yes I did take it in properly after bumming it, and yes I did cough...violently.

However now I do it rather too regularly than I care to admit and I'm still in secondary school education. My mothers only words of advice to me when she found out was "Don't get addicted."

She's a chronic smoker with a serious case of athsma, she has no right to judge. On another side note, smoking in my family generally brings us all closer together and makes us all very happy, my dad acts like a menopausal woman if he doesn't have a pipe in his mouth.

It's my pikey blood which makes me addicted to menthol, who needs to brush your teeth when you have a pack of twenty? Also makes regular ones taste even meatier.
(Ellytots Last thought of chocolate on, Fri 21 Mar 2008, 23:21, Reply)

I was eleven
stole a malborough red off my dad.

Felt very ill, just went to bed. The room was spinning it was awful. I suppose it was a bit like getting wasted on vodka redbull.

3 years later I had another one and steadily pulled into smoking 5 or 6 a day through sixth form, to the army where it was (at least!) a pack a day. Cut down very strongly this september and have now basically stopped (unless I'm out or really cold) after my dad had a heart op and also really HAD to stop
( morrybyte made a subtle namechange at, Fri 21 Mar 2008, 23:08, Reply)

Losing your smoking virginity
My first time wasn't that remarkable, and it didn't really put me off, as i'm a smoker now, but i have noticed that on most people's first time, they inhale, then breathe it straight back out of their nose. It happened to me, yet i've never been able to do it again, and i know it's happened with loads of other people. Like breaking some sort of smoking hymen.
(serge-fabrizio taught the Talk to Frank robot to call him father, Fri 21 Mar 2008, 22:08, Reply)

This was before I burned out on Pot.
Somebody had given us the answer to our recreational experimentations. Banana skins were not really all that old at the time, but we knew they wouldn't get a cat high. "What you do is take toothpaste and smear it all over the outside of the cigarette." The mustachioed hipster with the feathered hair said. "Then you let it dry out!"

I tell you it works! But then at age 13 so does one without the toothpaste. All I can tell you is I didn't inhale, and coughing I still got a buzz. I took up the pipe, cigars are really stinky.
( CapnChkn I would rather be flying elephants., Fri 21 Mar 2008, 21:36, Reply)

Toilet paper encapsulating bracken...
...Ooh, about 1983, whilst on an ATC "night exercise" at the picturesquely named "Velvet Bottom" in the Mendips. Can't say it did much for me, though I do remember it being tremendously smoky.

...With a real cigarette? Well ,we were at a friend of my parents and the adult types went out into the garden to admire a begonia or something adult. The lady of the house was a smoker, and I took the opportunity to seize a recently extinguished butt from the ash tray.

Absolutely no previous exposure to cigarettes had laid the erroneous idea that the orangy/tan end was the active bit, so I sucked hard on the remaining white bit and got a mouthful of warm ash and raw tobacco for my pains.
(Mousy Tongue ...Generally bemused by life..., Fri 21 Mar 2008, 21:31, Reply)

Like Burton & Taylor or Anthony & Cleopatra
myself and Lady Nicotine have had a turbulent, tempestous on/off relationship over the past 16 years or so.

My first seduction by Lady Nicotine was slow, and sly, I was a mere youth of 14, bright eyed, bushy tailed and heavily into my 60's music (Beatles/Floyd/hendrix etc) and my friends would have parties at a mates house, and these rolled up things that looked like cigarettes but smelt sweeter would be passed round, ah the herb, the sweet sweet herb, with just a smidgen of nicotine hidden in there to lull the unsuspecting cosmic traveller.

So i continues my dual existance paperboy by day, toker by night, sneaking out in the evening on a bike ride to the local picnic area near here(which is probably also used by doggers)and me and my pals would listen to music and smoke away those lazy. hazy summer evenings which never seem to end when your 14 and stoned.

The Lady was teasing me, but she hadn't got my heart not yet. As time when by and days grew shorter, I ended up working in a supermarket where everyone smoked, you opened the door to the canteen and were hit by a wall of smoke, and did I give in? did she have me in her grasp? No.

It wasn't until I was in my second term of my first year at Uni that I became a proper smoker, the first term was lost to me in a haze of dope smoke, alcohol and unsuitable and unmemorable women as one party flowed into another party until they all became just one giant cosmic party that never stopped. We had exams, we needed to pass so we didn't end up back at home reliquinshing the new found freedom we'd fought so hard to aquire, and so as brothers we all swore off the dreaded weed.

And the Lady pounced, she had teased me, seduced me slowly with her presence, and now at the end of the party and in the taxi home her lips and mine entwinned and she gave me her smoky kiss and made me hers.

In the end I left this lair of bacchanalian excess at the end of the first year, no longer a boy, but now a man, a man who needed two marlborough lights and a cup of strong coffee before he could face the day.

And so back home, my excesses curbed due to a combination of lack of income, and parental guidance I hid my cigs and invested in mints, my furtive smokes done on the back of buses between here and Sheffield where I had returned, back when smoking on the back of buses was big and hard and still allowed!

I was also working at a Motorway service station where not only was smoking encouraged, it was compulsory. So I waited, and cleaned and studied and smoked, the lady keeping me company and rewarding my loyalty with her smoky kisses, the yellow of my fingers atestament to her touch, the cough in the morning a sign of our love affair.

Suddenly tho' I got bored with the cigs, they looked so common, so cheap, my beautiful lady had gone from being exotic, mysterious, seductive, to being nothing more than a common whore, with a wiggle, a pout and a cheap come on. So we parted, my tastes seduced by a more exotic cousin.

So instead of cigs it was cigars, the slim little cubans in their metal tin made having a smoke an event, a ritual, not just something to do with the mouth whilst waiting for dinner.

It was like your birthday and christmas rolled into one, you could pause for dramatic effect, take the cigar out of the box, tap it. Smell it, ahhh nothing beats the smell of a good cigar, if you were drinking at the time (Port or Brandy..always port or brandy) you could swill the glass, then light the cigar with your zippo, and relax as you savoured the smoky taste, swilling it round your mouth like the finest of wines, before slowly exhaling.

The difference between the joint, the cigarette and the cigar like those between the street corner crack whores, the escorts in the back of a newspaper, and the finest courtesans.

Once you have tasted champagne would you ever return to meths?

But then C came along, she was real, she was cute, she was sexy, she was mine, and she disliked smoking, so without ceremony, without a decree absolute and without a pause for thought I stopped. I finished, i quit, all for the love of a woman who I ended up treating badly and who I never deserved.

She suspected me of cheating, and yes I was and not just with Lady Nicotine who had returned to my life, or had I returned to her like the moth to the flame?

I stopped, I started, I quit sober, and would wake up after drunken nights with no memory or what happened, occasionally a strange girl in my bed, a pack of cigs on the side.

The days of recovery take longer, the throat hurts more, the smoking ban ironically made me smoke more initially as it was either stay inside on your own whilst people smoked, or join the crowd or cold smokers in the temple of worship to our Lady Nicotine.
Cigarettes cost more, so I buy packs of ten and pretend I don't smoke anymore.

And like the girl in the pub who you won't sleep with when sober, but you take home when its getting past midnight, you're on your own and going back to a cold house fills you full of fear, and the lonliness becomes too much to bear, you know it'll happen again and again.

And now, as I write this I have no cigs in the house, I may open a nice bottle of wine, and know that whilst I say I have finished with Lady Nicotine I am sure that she hasn't finished with me.....
(Lord Monkey of Yorkshire,OBE killed a gipsy on...., Fri 21 Mar 2008, 21:23, Reply)

attempts at making rollies from handy household ingredients , part 2
The only problem with smoking salmon is that it's hard to keep it lit.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 21 Mar 2008, 20:56, 1 reply)

attempts at making rollies from handy household ingredients , part 1
Smoking potpourri does not get you high but it makes your breath smell nice and flowery.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 21 Mar 2008, 20:52, Reply)

Back in the days
when I could still drink any amount of neat vodka, I downed a quarter bottle and a few swigs from other people's, before going into a gig. We'd been the first people there so we lined up nicely along the barrier, and, well-oiled, we were enjoying quite a few cigarettes.
I dropped one of mine over the barrier, barely-smoked. Never mind, sayeth an accomplice, have one of mine. The Lambert and Butler was poor in comparison to the Marlboro Light I had been smoking, but that's not why I dropped that one as well. No bouncer would help, so I was given a leg up, leaned over and grabbed both, the Marlboro only slightly shrunken.
Bingo! I had two to smoke. This was also when I'd only just learnt to smoke (see my previous post), so I still got the headrushes. I'm surprised I didn't throw up like I did the one time I tried chain-smoking two.
Anyway, this adds to the general feeling of very drunk, and thus on a later one, it's a few seconds before I realise I've been holding it against my face and it's quite nastily burnt.
I'm not sure what excuse I made to my parents for that bad scab.
(and now for someone completely different, Fri 21 Mar 2008, 20:06, Reply)

Finishing In Style
Always be careful when disposing of your cigarette ends. I once flicked a still lit cigarette towards a bin I was walking past (naughty I know). As if to teach me a lesson about fire safety it missed the hole, bounced off the side of the bin (back towards me) and, without thinking, I caught it with ninja like reflexes and burnt myself. Unbelievable yet true.

Even more unbelievable and yet still true was the even worse time when I finished smoking while standing around in my back garden, enjoying the summer sun. I flicked my cigarette away and it spanged into a passing bee which I then had to run away from as it became quite angry.

Just out of interest, is anyone else's life so consistently fucking ridiculous?
( Gleeballs is mostly made out of chocolate and hate., Fri 21 Mar 2008, 18:41, 20 replies)

Cigarettes kill
And it seems the US President has had a 60 a day habit.

Or is this wishful thinking?


( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Fri 21 Mar 2008, 18:33, 3 replies)