How many of you smoke?

[ChicagoMermaid]

I've been a smoker for 11 years. I didn't start until I was 19, don't ask me why. I literally just quit a couple days ago... with the patch and Wellbutrin. I quit a bunch of times before for the wrong reasons. Now, I finally want to quit, so I'm confident it will stick this time.

Congratulations to all the other quitters!

 

[sunfish]

I personally have never smoked.

Way to go succesful quitters! Did you guys notice significantly lower air consumption when you stopped? My friend recently quit, and he said that his air consumption has literally plummeted. He said quitting's cheaper than having gills implanted, and works almost as well!

 

[Paul168341]

I just wanted to remind the smokers of the real danger of smoking and diving. Smoking removes the surfectant in the lungs. That's the stuff that coats the aveoli and air passages and keeps them from sticking together (Lung Lube ) Keep in mind that when at depth, your lungs are compressed. If there is a lack of surfectant, it is possible that the walls of the aveoli, or of the bronchial passages can stick together, creating an air space that cannot be equalized inside the lung. We all know what happens upon ascent, the air trapped in that space expands...
Voila, instant Lung Expansion Injury.
Now that's really not a pretty sight.
Think about that the next time you light-up at a dive site.
:box:

 

[chris_b]

Reading replies from all of you ex-smokers and what you had to endure when quitting makes me wonder about the power of nicotine. Is there some way to classify its "addictiveness?"

For example, is it more addicitive than crack, but less than heroin, or something along those lines?

 

[Tavi]

Eric Clapton said that quitting cigarettes was harder than quitting Heroin.

 

[ebbtide]

Originally posted by chris_b
For example, is it more addicitive than crack, but less than heroin, or something along those lines?

dont know dood never done the stuff but i know that smoking wasent doing me any good and yes my air consumpition went way down now i feal (with my hands) but really i feal great !

 

[Welshman]

Still can't resist a hand rolled one with a pint.

 

[jamespitt]

myself and my gf are continually trying to quit. she is a chef so i guess its pretty stressful and not the most ideal environment to stop smoking. the last time we managed to stop for about a month. that all changed after a heavy night out and a cheeky one on the sly.
i did stop when i was diving every day and noticed a remarkable change in my air consumption within a few days. i went from using 150bar for a 50min dive to about 120 - 130 bar for similar profile. so if your air consuption gets better i guess thats a pretty good reason to quit (other than the obvious health reasons). although with the guys i am diving with these days, i am lucky to get a 45min dive anyway...

 

[chiara]

This is amazing: more than 80% of you say they don't smoke, but wherever I go diving the non-smokers are the odd ones out.

It applies to local dives, it applies to exotic locations, and the higher up the ladder they are (Dive Masters and Instructors in particular) the more they smoke.

For me, I can say thanks to my father (who was a smoker at the time), who, on my 18th birthday offered me a cigarette (I had never tried before) and said: "if you want to start, that's up to you, as long as you don't keep it hidden from us".

Guess what?

I did start, but quit a couple of years later, literally overnight, but I had been smoking just a couple, even less, per day.

 

[DameDykker]

I smoked i my youth from 15-20 - on and off. I never had a big problem with quitting.

But you all know that the sum of vices is constant and I discovered boys/men and have to give up something - and it was smoking. Never regretted it.

These days I only have a few family members that smoke, almost all our friends are non-smokers. That also includes the divers.