Ask a smoker

[Pyrrho]

In that case, the worst of it will come much later for you.  But before you have a long, drawn-out death from heart disease or cancer, you can look forward to a greatly increased chance of impotence.  (You can do an online search for "smoking impotence" without the quotation marks and see for yourself.)

Is the taste of cigarettes better than having good sex?

End of sermon.

It's your life, live it how you want.  But make sure it is what you want.

[Jenny A]

I know nothing real about how addictive or pleasurable smoking might be.  I grew up in a smoke free household.  The only relative I had who smoked was my grandfather and he spent more time packing and unpacking his pipe and chewing on the handle than he ever did smoking it.

I hate the smell of tobacco smoke especially stale tobacco smoke. But I love the sweet smell of it before it is smoked.  I have fond memories of Eads Smoke and News a funky little Boulder store devoted to fine tobacco, news and special interest magazines, sci fi, true crime, horror fic, mystery novels, and newspapers world wide.  The smell of good pipe tobacco will take me right there.

Sorry, not a question just a reminiscence.

Do you think tobacco would create the same kind of crime as other illegal drugs if it were either outlawed altogether or taxed to the point that ordinary people couldn't smoke it?

Do you find it odd that we are legalizing marijuana in the U.S. at the same time we are putting ever tighter controls on tobacco?

What do you like best about smoking the taste and experience of smoking or the effects of nicotine?

[Aroura]

I'm 40. My mother and grandmother smoked in the house while I was growing up, and I smoked for 13 years as an adult. I've been tobacco free for almost 9 years now, and I still get more lung infections than my never-smoking peers. I very much fear that lung cancer or COPD will be the death of me even though I quit.

Do you think that being 21 gives you a sense of immortality and therefore carelessness with your future health?

[emjay]

In that case, the worst of it will come much later for you.  But before you have a long, drawn-out death from heart disease or cancer, you can look forward to a greatly increased chance of impotence.  (You can do an online search for "smoking impotence" without the quotation marks and see for yourself.)

Is the taste of cigarettes better than having good sex?

End of sermon.

It's your life, live it how you want.  But make sure it is what you want.

I'm 34 and I've smoked since I was 15. it's really started affecting my health in the last couple of years, including something similar to what you're talking about - not impotence (yet) but something similar and not guaranteed to be caused by the smoking but thought highly probable. Personally I think I'll be lucky to see 40 but I just can't quit 

[Pyrrho]

In that case, the worst of it will come much later for you.  But before you have a long, drawn-out death from heart disease or cancer, you can look forward to a greatly increased chance of impotence.  (You can do an online search for "smoking impotence" without the quotation marks and see for yourself.)

Is the taste of cigarettes better than having good sex?

End of sermon.

It's your life, live it how you want.  But make sure it is what you want.

I'm 34 and I've smoked since I was 15. it's really started affecting my health in the last couple of years, including something similar to what you're talking about - not impotence (yet) but something similar and not guaranteed to be caused by the smoking but thought highly probable. Personally I think I'll be lucky to see 40 but I just can't quit 

Basically, anything that is bad for your cardiovascular system is not good for sex.  A man needs to have good blood flow to the penis to get and maintain an erection.  So anything that interferes with that is mucking up your sex life.

For women, the situation is different.  A woman can still have sex.  But it very likely reduces a woman's ability to experience orgasms.

People very often have a mistaken idea that doing unhealthy things simply lessens the length of one's life.  But it actually affects the quality of one's life before one dies.  It is rather more like aging faster than normal, not eliminating the decline from age.  One declines prematurely with an unhealthy lifestyle.  If what you want is a high quality of life as long as possible, but without the decline of age, you need to live a fairly healthy lifestyle and then commit suicide before you get old.  Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be killed accidentally, like by being run over by a bus.

[vorlon13]

A few anecdotes:

was around a young man the other day who asked for permission to smoke in my presence. We were outdoors. (I found it funny, but damn, do I look that old now to command respect of young whippersnappers ?)

there is a 12 Steppers meeting I very occasionally attend and it is almost required the attendees be smokers. They've even put the non-smoking section immediately in front of the exhaust fan to draw all the smoke to the non-smokers. It's pretty funny. Building is privately owned, AFAIK, it will be smoking required forever.

A woman in the HIV buddy program I helped ran out of money (and therefore cigarettes) and resorted to prostitution to get ciggie money. Wound up in prison for criminal transmission of HIV and no ciggies at all for a very long time.

My aunt had a massive stroke (from smoking) years ago. Upon regaining limited consciousness months later, about the only thing she could communicate was her desire for a smoke. Unfortunately, we are all cruel bastards and she went 8 years in convalescent home without a single cigarette. She was a little mean to me a few times when I was growing up, so I never felt any motivation to get her a nicotine fix.

I bought a priest I didn't like a carton of Marlboro's many years ago, and prayed sincerely the one cigarette that would kill him was in the carton.

Charlie (and old boyfriend I still like) sent me out for Parliaments several times. I still feel a twinge when I see them at WalMart.

I have smoked less than 10 cigarettes in y entire life. 5 in one night, and I became violently ill. I was trying to impress a guy. I don't think my vomiting helped impress him too much, but I still got laid.

One guy in Milwaukee put out a cigarette on my leg. I wasn't too happy about that, and didn't see him anymore.

Even on the SHORTEST errands, even a block or 2, Tracy HAD to light a cigarette in my '84 Mustang.

I talked another BF, John, into quitting smoking. He was still psycho after he quit though, it didn't help at all. His ex-wife was POd he quit for me but not her.

[emjay]

I'm 34 and I've smoked since I was 15. it's really started affecting my health in the last couple of years, including something similar to what you're talking about - not impotence (yet) but something similar and not guaranteed to be caused by the smoking but thought highly probable. Personally I think I'll be lucky to see 40 but I just can't quit 

Basically, anything that is bad for your cardiovascular system is not good for sex.  A man needs to have good blood flow to the penis to get and maintain an erection.  So anything that interferes with that is mucking up your sex life.

For women, the situation is different.  A woman can still have sex.  But it very likely reduces a woman's ability to experience orgasms.

People very often have a mistaken idea that doing unhealthy things simply lessens the length of one's life.  But it actually affects the quality of one's life before one dies.  It is rather more like aging faster than normal, not eliminating the decline from age.  One declines prematurely with an unhealthy lifestyle.  If what you want is a high quality of life as long as possible, but without the decline of age, you need to live a fairly healthy lifestyle and then commit suicide before you get old.  Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be killed accidentally, like by being run over by a bus.

Yeah, my condition is quite probably caused by lack of blood flow. It's still undiagnosed after nearly two years but I do go to the hospital every few months for an ultrasound and thankfully at the moment it seems stable. Let's just say if the trend continues I could die as a woman as my testosterone levels are dropping. Are you a doctor?

As to your other point I fully agree... now 

[Aroura]

Basically, anything that is bad for your cardiovascular system is not good for sex.  A man needs to have good blood flow to the penis to get and maintain an erection.  So anything that interferes with that is mucking up your sex life.

For women, the situation is different.  A woman can still have sex.  But it very likely reduces a woman's ability to experience orgasms.

People very often have a mistaken idea that doing unhealthy things simply lessens the length of one's life.  But it actually affects the quality of one's life before one dies.  It is rather more like aging faster than normal, not eliminating the decline from age.  One declines prematurely with an unhealthy lifestyle.  If what you want is a high quality of life as long as possible, but without the decline of age, you need to live a fairly healthy lifestyle and then commit suicide before you get old.  Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be killed accidentally, like by being run over by a bus.

Yeah, my condition is quite probably caused by lack of blood flow. It's still undiagnosed after nearly two years but I do go to the hospital every few months for an ultrasound and thankfully at the moment it seems stable. Let's just say if the trend continues I could die as a woman as my testosterone levels are dropping. Are you a doctor?

As to your other point I fully agree... now 

You CAN quit!  I know how hard it is, I tried many, many times before doing so successfully. 
Think about the issue you are having now, and how it will only get worse.  Think about how it might ge better if you quit!  There are a lot of smoking cessation programs out there, many of them are free. If you live in the states, I think most states will give you one box of either patches or gum for free.  Counseling can also help.  If you know someone else who smokes, get them to quit with you, so you have a support buddy, or make a friend at the smoking cessation program and lean on each other.  Put $1 a day in a jar every day you don't smoke, save up for something you really want.  Use sunflower seeds when you get a craving (I ate bags of them, they really help).

Sorry, not to be on a high horse or anything,  I just know the pain of wanting to quit and struggling, so just trying to give helpful advice.  Its been almost 9 years for me since my last cigarette, and it is sooooo great not to be a slave to tobacco anymore. I still fear the smoking I did will come back to haunt me someday, so the sooner you quit the better. I hope you get to feel that freedom again someday.

[Pyrrho]

Basically, anything that is bad for your cardiovascular system is not good for sex.  A man needs to have good blood flow to the penis to get and maintain an erection.  So anything that interferes with that is mucking up your sex life.

For women, the situation is different.  A woman can still have sex.  But it very likely reduces a woman's ability to experience orgasms.

People very often have a mistaken idea that doing unhealthy things simply lessens the length of one's life.  But it actually affects the quality of one's life before one dies.  It is rather more like aging faster than normal, not eliminating the decline from age.  One declines prematurely with an unhealthy lifestyle.  If what you want is a high quality of life as long as possible, but without the decline of age, you need to live a fairly healthy lifestyle and then commit suicide before you get old.  Unless, of course, you are lucky enough to be killed accidentally, like by being run over by a bus.

Yeah, my condition is quite probably caused by lack of blood flow. It's still undiagnosed after nearly two years but I do go to the hospital every few months for an ultrasound and thankfully at the moment it seems stable. Let's just say if the trend continues I could die as a woman as my testosterone levels are dropping. Are you a doctor?

As to your other point I fully agree... now 

No, I am not a doctor.  But I am someone who generally looks before he leaps, and so I have avoided quite a few bad things that many people fall into.  (It is better to learn from other people's mistakes, than to make the mistakes for oneself.)  I want to live a good life, and I have done pretty well so far.  Eventually, though, age will catch up with me, if nothing else gets me first.


As I get older, compared with other men my age, I keep looking better and better.  Of course, I am looking worse than when I was younger, but I am deteriorating much slower than most.  I could easily pass for being a decade younger than I am, and most people seem genuinely surprised if I tell them my actual age.  They would find a claim of a decade younger more believable.

I have already had more good years than quite a few people have in their entire lives.  And I expect to have many more good years, though obviously something bad can happen at any moment.  As I age, of course, the chances of something bad happening increases.

Obviously, I cannot take complete credit for my situation.  I have been lucky, too.  But I also have avoided doing too many stupid things that tend to fuck up one's life.  I recommend thinking longterm for one's choices.  I get some exercise, and try to eat reasonably healthy foods.  Fortunately, I enjoy hiking, which helps with the exercise, though I also lift weights for upper body strength, which I do not enjoy.  But it does not take a lot of time lifting weights to make a difference, and I am not trying to become extremely muscular.  I just want to be healthy and capable of doing things that I want to do.  It makes my arms look better, too, but that is just a bonus, not my main motivation.

My wife was so impressed with the results I got from lifting weights for about 15 minutes, three days a week, that she started doing it, too.  Her arms look better, and she is able to do more things than before, without getting sore.  She sometimes has to travel for her job, and she used to sometimes get sore dealing with her luggage for her trips.  She no longer has that problem.  She even carried her own luggage up some flights of stairs at an old hotel that lacks an elevator, and it was no problem for her.

The key is repetition, not trying to lift the most one can.  I have no idea what the maximum weight is that I can lift.  The weights I lift are easy on the first lift, but on the 25th lift, it is no longer easy.  This also means I am less likely to hurt myself with my weights, as I never lift anything that is extremely heavy.

I did not originally intend to go so far with this digression.

Also, Aroura is right, that you can get improvement if you quit smoking.  It is likely that you will recover a bit of what you have lost, and will be able to have better sex in the near future (months, or maybe a year) if you quit smoking.  You can do an online search to verify this, or just ask your doctor.  Which matters more to you, smoking or better sex?  Think about that every time you want a cigarette, and it might help you quit.

[emjay]

Yeah, my condition is quite probably caused by lack of blood flow. It's still undiagnosed after nearly two years but I do go to the hospital every few months for an ultrasound and thankfully at the moment it seems stable. Let's just say if the trend continues I could die as a woman as my testosterone levels are dropping. Are you a doctor?

As to your other point I fully agree... now 

You CAN quit!  I know how hard it is, I tried many, many times before doing so successfully. 
Think about the issue you are having now, and how it will only get worse.  Think about how it might ge better if you quit!  There are a lot of smoking cessation programs out there, many of them are free. If you live in the states, I think most states will give you one box of either patches or gum for free.  Counseling can also help.  If you know someone else who smokes, get them to quit with you, so you have a support buddy, or make a friend at the smoking cessation program and lean on each other.  Put $1 a day in a jar every day you don't smoke, save up for something you really want.  Use sunflower seeds when you get a craving (I ate bags of them, they really help).

Sorry, not to be on a high horse or anything,  I just know the pain of wanting to quit and struggling, so just trying to give helpful advice.  Its been almost 9 years for me since my last cigarette, and it is sooooo great not to be a slave to tobacco anymore. I still fear the smoking I did will come back to haunt me someday, so the sooner you quit the better. I hope you get to feel that freedom again someday.

Thanks Aroura for you concern   I think my biggest problem is not the actual quitting method, but having faith in the idea of what it would be like to be a non-smoker... and perhaps you can help me with that as an ex-smoker. I just can't imagine what it would be like not to be able to have a short mental break (which is ultimately what a fag break is) every time I'm triggered to smoke... say between different activities or when I'm stressed. Do you still have those sorts of breaks in a different form (eg coffee or something) or did the need for them disappear after you'd quit?

---

Yeah, my condition is quite probably caused by lack of blood flow. It's still undiagnosed after nearly two years but I do go to the hospital every few months for an ultrasound and thankfully at the moment it seems stable. Let's just say if the trend continues I could die as a woman as my testosterone levels are dropping. Are you a doctor?

As to your other point I fully agree... now 

No, I am not a doctor.  But I am someone who generally looks before he leaps, and so I have avoided quite a few bad things that many people fall into.  (It is better to learn from other people's mistakes, than to make the mistakes for oneself.)  I want to live a good life, and I have done pretty well so far.  Eventually, though, age will catch up with me, if nothing else gets me first.


As I get older, compared with other men my age, I keep looking better and better.  Of course, I am looking worse than when I was younger, but I am deteriorating much slower than most.  I could easily pass for being a decade younger than I am, and most people seem genuinely surprised if I tell them my actual age.  They would find a claim of a decade younger more believable.

I have already had more good years than quite a few people have in their entire lives.  And I expect to have many more good years, though obviously something bad can happen at any moment.  As I age, of course, the chances of something bad happening increases.

Obviously, I cannot take complete credit for my situation.  I have been lucky, too.  But I also have avoided doing too many stupid things that tend to fuck up one's life.  I recommend thinking longterm for one's choices.  I get some exercise, and try to eat reasonably healthy foods.  Fortunately, I enjoy hiking, which helps with the exercise, though I also lift weights for upper body strength, which I do not enjoy.  But it does not take a lot of time lifting weights to make a difference, and I am not trying to become extremely muscular.  I just want to be healthy and capable of doing things that I want to do.  It makes my arms look better, too, but that is just a bonus, not my main motivation.

My wife was so impressed with the results I got from lifting weights for about 15 minutes, three days a week, that she started doing it, too.  Her arms look better, and she is able to do more things than before, without getting sore.  She sometimes has to travel for her job, and she used to sometimes get sore dealing with her luggage for her trips.  She no longer has that problem.  She even carried her own luggage up some flights of stairs at an old hotel that lacks an elevator, and it was no problem for her.

The key is repetition, not trying to lift the most one can.  I have no idea what the maximum weight is that I can lift.  The weights I lift are easy on the first lift, but on the 25th lift, it is no longer easy.  This also means I am less likely to hurt myself with my weights, as I never lift anything that is extremely heavy.

I did not originally intend to go so far with this digression.

Also, Aroura is right, that you can get improvement if you quit smoking.  It is likely that you will recover a bit of what you have lost, and will be able to have better sex in the near future (months, or maybe a year) if you quit smoking.  You can do an online search to verify this, or just ask your doctor.  Which matters more to you, smoking or better sex?  Think about that every time you want a cigarette, and it might help you quit.

You sound a lot like my dad - he does everything with the long term in mind like that... exercise, eating only natural sugar etc. It comes naturally to him to think that way but it doesn't come naturally to me. Long term goals like that hardly have an affect on me at all really, sadly, because I'm very impulsive.

As for the sex, that doesn't actually bother me that much cos I was never that much into it anyway. But still, yes I would like everything to be working properly again.