Am I the only one...??
BessieBee
smoke offensive. Most of the time it's just a matter of dealing with
the stench until the smoker is out of aroma range.
Recently, however, if the smell is overpowering (clothes that smell
like they haven't been washed in months, someone who just extinguished
a stink stick as they walked into my office, etc.) I experience a
totally negative physical reaction. It's almost as if my airway
decides to close to keep the offending smell out of my lungs. I find
it hard to breathe and most times will start to cough. There's no
relief until the offending smell is gone.
Does anyone else experience this? I was diagnosed awhile back with
COPD, but I think almost all smokers will have the DX sooner or later.
is this in my head?
--
BessieBee
Leslie
OOF :-)
"My face, I don't mind it because I am behind it.
It's the folks out front that get the jolt."
~My Grandma, 1898-1981~
Wayne Baker
news:bpeuf5tl1kipfqlbi...@4ax.com:
While I haven't experienced reactions to the extent you have BB, I do
have a very hard time around smoke if I am not smoking. I've long
thought that it's far more difficult for an ex-smoker to be around the
stuff than for someone who has never smoked. I have nothing to back that
up other than my own personal observations. I actually recall when I was
a kid and not smoking (back in Noah's Ark days) that the smoke didn't
bother me much. At times, in the doctor's office waiting room, the smoke
would be so thick that I'd have a hard time breathing...but as a whole I
didn't find it revolting as I do today. Someone can lite up 500 feet
away and I smell it almost instantly...and want to move 5,000 feet away
quickly. While it may or may not be in your head, I suspect your
revulsion to the stench of smoke may be an indicator of your total
commitment to stay smoke-free.
---
Wayne Baker
Smoke Free: 1m 2w 6d 10:32
Not Smoked: 1,470
$ Better Spent: $338.10
msmomo2u
> BessieBee <Bessie...@fakeaddress.com> wrote innews:bpeuf5tl1kipfqlbi...@4ax.com:
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yes. I can relate Bessie. And as Wayne has stated, it is worse for him
now.
You know how they say reformed smokers are the worst.
I absolutely hate it when a client comes in, sits at my desk and they
are just
stenching of smoke. They absolutely reek of it. It almost makes me
sick.
My mom smokes too and I hate going over to her home and smelling like
smoke when I leave. That part Really sucks because of course, I love
my
mom. But the smoking is so nasty. I went out to dinner with her and a
friend
of hers last night and of course the friend smokes as well.
After dinner we were standing out in the parking lot and they both lit
up.
It was awful.
This seems unbelievable now, but when I worked at the Social Security
Administration
years ago and was a smoker...we smoked at our desks!! Crazy, I know.
If I would
have been a non smoker back in that day I don't know how those non
smokers
could take it!! It just shows how far we have come, doesn't it?
DavidL
Depending on the status of my sinus', it can sometimes really
overwhelm me..
On a related note, the other day I smelled some cigarette smoke that
reminded me of my Mom's smoke when I was a kid.
Lynn
--
:) Lynn OOF+ Leaper
support www.quitbuddies.org
"BessieBee" <Bess...@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:bpeuf5tl1kipfqlbi...@4ax.com...
precious...@gmail.com
Oh, you're not alone, BessieBee! When I encounter the foul odor of
cigarette smoke, I just wrinkle up my nose. Ish! I think the whole
reformed ex-smoker thing might be a part of it, but, I really find the
smell revolting now. So much so, that if I come upon it, I do stupid
little things like try to hold my breath until I get around it, or
past it, or away from it! I just don't want any smoke or smoke odor
around me ever again! EVER!
One thing that I find weird now, but, never thought was weird when I
was a smoker. Now that I'm out and about running almost everyday, I
notice it a lot. People out on these lovely trail walks, getting
their exercise...but smoking the entire time! When I come running up
behind them...l can smell them for a half mile before I ever get to
them. The cigarette fumes just linger and linger...and I'm running
right into it, having to breath those noxious chemicals. AND...I get
really really IRRITATED! LOL. How self-righteous is that?!? hahaha!
I'm sure their cigarette odors aren't causing me any undue harm...and
it's outside in the open air...but, dang...I just can't stand it these
days! Then, I have evil little thoughts...like, "what in the heck good
is walking and exercising if you're smoking like a smokestack"?!?!?
How...unhelpful :(
But...just so I don't become an uppity ex-smoker...I always say to
myself..."that could be me still. they HAVE to smoke. I am free. I
don't have to do that anymore"..."I AM THE LUCKY ONE WHO WAS FREED OF
THE BONDAGE OF CIGARETTES". I won't ever forget that.
Anyway...yep....cigarette smoke is revolting and offensive to me, too!
PKK/Cindy
Two years, three months, five days, 39 minutes and 46 seconds. 16560
cigarettes not smoked, saving $4,140.34. Life saved: 8 weeks, 1 day,
12 hours, 0 minutes.
MsConserv
BB - I don't like it, but I don't really care. I can get away from the
smell, and they have to live with it. I just feel sorry for them
because their lives are controlled by this habit that is so difficult
to break and is costing them lots of bucks.
Hugs,
Pam
Sparky
<Bess...@fakeaddress.com> wrote:
>Like a lot of quitters here (I think) I find the smell of tobacco
>smoke offensive. Most of the time it's just a matter of dealing with
>the stench until the smoker is out of aroma range.
>
>Recently, however, if the smell is overpowering (clothes that smell
>like they haven't been washed in months, someone who just extinguished
>a stink stick as they walked into my office, etc.) I experience a
>totally negative physical reaction. It's almost as if my airway
>decides to close to keep the offending smell out of my lungs. I find
>it hard to breathe and most times will start to cough. There's no
>relief until the offending smell is gone.
>
>Does anyone else experience this? I was diagnosed awhile back with
>COPD, but I think almost all smokers will have the DX sooner or later.
>
>is this in my head?
Leslie, It really bothers me a lot. I have to move away.
Fred
Molly
I am really bothered by the stench of others' cigarettes, on their
clothes, on their bodies, on my space. A lot of inner dialouge goes on
at the time I have to smell this. I have felt like getting up and
moving. And then I feel sorry for this person who is so stuck to this
dirty expensive habit.
Molly
FlatIronMike
days where it does not, but I must admit I find more of the former and
less of the latter the further into my quit I grow. I mostly
encounter smoking/smokers outdoors as that is the only place one can
smoke in NYC except for private residences or cars. Usually the wind
dilutes the smoke enough but once in a while the stench is just
downright NASTY.
I don't think it's in your head, but a reality many of us share!
FlatironMike
Two years, nine months, five days, 17 hours, 20 minutes and 22
seconds. 20194 cigarettes not smoked, saving $6,058.33. Life saved: 10
weeks, 2 hours, 50 minutes.
FlatIronMike
> This seems unbelievable now, but when I worked at the Social Security
> Administration
> years ago and was a smoker...we smoked at our desks!! Crazy, I know.
> If I would
> have been a non smoker back in that day I don't know how those non
> smokers
> could take it!! It just shows how far we have come, doesn't it?
Your story reminds me of when I worked at the Welfare department in
the olde days. We could smoke at our desks as well and I was
certainly a chimney then. Looking back, I really do not fathom how
non-smokers could put up with it!
FlatironMike
Two years, nine months, five days, 17 hours, 22 minutes and 47
seconds. 20194 cigarettes not smoked, saving $6,058.34. Life saved: 10
BessieBee
>is this in my head?
Thanks for all your posts. I've reached the point at work that if
someone's recent stink stick stench makes me gasp (and that happens
more often than not...) I ask them to move back and away from my desk.
The bosses aren't real thrilled, but haven't said a word to me. There
is absolutely nothing about that job that makes suffering through
someone's tobacco stench worth it. I tolerate body odor and those
that have bathed in scent, but will no longer keep my mouth shut when
confronted with overpowering tobacco stench.
Sue
<Bess...@fakeaddress.com> wrote:
>Like a lot of quitters here (I think) I find the smell of tobacco
>smoke offensive. Most of the time it's just a matter of dealing with
>the stench until the smoker is out of aroma range.
>
>Recently, however, if the smell is overpowering (clothes that smell
>like they haven't been washed in months, someone who just extinguished
>a stink stick as they walked into my office, etc.) I experience a
>totally negative physical reaction. It's almost as if my airway
>decides to close to keep the offending smell out of my lungs. I find
>it hard to breathe and most times will start to cough. There's no
>relief until the offending smell is gone.
>
>Does anyone else experience this? I was diagnosed awhile back with
>COPD, but I think almost all smokers will have the DX sooner or later.
>
>is this in my head?
Something that occurred to me today was that many of us probably
smoked somewhere we weren't supposed to and thought we were getting
away with it because we couldn't smell it so assumed that no one else
could either. Ha!
Sue
Jef.
Like a lot of quitters here (I think) I find the smell of tobacco
smoke offensive...
...There's no relief until the offending smell is gone...
...Does anyone else experience this?
Hell, yes!
The sour stench of a smoker's clothes, home, furniture, car, hair and breath
is overpowering and disgusting. Exercises my gag reflex, it does.
There are places I just don't go any more, simply to avoid the smoke.
There are people I refrain from visiting on their own turf because they and
their homes reek, and it's too hard for me to be there for more than a
minute.
If they come here, they have sense enough to smoke outside, but I stay as
far from them as possible when they're inside-- which is hard, because this
is a 2 level townhouse and not a big place.
Daily-- and certainly every time I'm subjected to the rank odor myself-- I
find myself wondering how I was able to be so unaware of myself dragging
that load of stink with me everywhere I went.
It was like setting a bag of fresh catshit on the table in any room you
entered.
God; the appalling lack of insight and the sense-blind denial we all
immersed ourselves in, for all those years.
Why are people still even civil to us...?
Eldon
My sense of smell didn't come back to a level of sensitivity that I'm
bothered unless the smoke is close and dense. I wish it would to the
extent I could get offended, but it hasn't yet.
Karen
This is a bit of an odd one for me as my husband still smokes, and I
love him dearly but there are times when I don't get as close to him
as I would like and that is quite sad I suppose, but at least he has
the grace to not smoke for half an hour before getting into bed.
In the last couple of weeks I've had to start using public transport
to get to work, the first time in a little while I've had to do this
and I am finding it difficult, close to intolerable when folks who
smoke chose to sit next to me on the bus.
So no you're not alone.
Karen
8M+
Bruce Watson
>My sense of smell didn't come back to a level of sensitivity that I'm
>bothered unless the smoke is close and dense. I wish it would to the
>extent I could get offended, but it hasn't yet.
But it DID return, no?
For me that was the most spectacular effect of quitting smoking.
It was enormous. It was if a blindfold had been removed from
my tastebuds and olfactory apparatus.
I had been told it would happen but not the extent to which it did.
My quit happened in a city known for its good food--New Orleans.
And I took full advantage of that.
Wow! I had a hard time believing food could taste so much better.
Smokers claim their senses of taste and smell are not compromised
but when they quit they find out otherwise.
I wonder if it was the smoke or the nicotine which caused
that decrease in sensitivity.
Did anyone here who used NRT notice those senses returning after
the smoke stopped or did it happen after you stopped the NRT?
Bruce Watson
>Like a lot of quitters here (I think) I find the smell of tobacco
>smoke offensive. Most of the time it's just a matter of dealing with
>the stench until the smoker is out of aroma range.
>Recently, however, if the smell is overpowering (clothes that smell
>like they haven't been washed in months, someone who just extinguished
>a stink stick as they walked into my office, etc.) I experience a
>totally negative physical reaction. It's almost as if my airway
>decides to close to keep the offending smell out of my lungs. I find
>it hard to breathe and most times will start to cough. There's no
>relief until the offending smell is gone.
>
>Does anyone else experience this? I was diagnosed awhile back with
>COPD, but I think almost all smokers will have the DX sooner or later.
>is this in my head?
I've noticed that.
When I quit, smokers could stink up the workplace, grocery stores,
airplanes, restaurants, bars, anywhere.
My dad smoked--in the house. Sending someone outside to
smoke was totally unheard of back then.
So I was used to the smell long before I started myself. Before
I was old enough to know what it was. Since infancy.
It had to be true for everyone. Smoking was everywhere.
Of course air pollution, mostly from cars and smokestacks, was
pretty bad and widespread in any city so cigarette smoke didn't stand
out like it does today.
In the years after I quit, the smoke didn't bother me. There
was a chain smoker in the bullpen where my desk was. No one
complained. He was the only smoker in the room and was nearly
never without a burning cigarette filling the area with smoke.
That was decades ago. It now seems totally barbaric. Seems so
unbelievable.
Going to a restaurant or bar didn't bother me at the time
with smokers really going to town with it. There's something
about food and drink that makes smokers need more nicotine
and nonsmokers playing with cigarettes. Plus a smoker needs
more nicotine at night than he did in the morning. Drug tolerance.
Its effect is daily as well as long term.
But as time went by, I slowly lost my "tolerance" to it.
I'm guessing it was because the workplace became smokefree
followed by grocery and retail stores, and gradually, many, many
restaurants until 3 years ago, when all restaurants and bars in
the state went smokefree.
Today I smell it only from those who are standing outside
(15 feet away) from entrances to grocery stores and other places
of public accommodation. And then only briefly.
It catches my throat and gags me in a way it never did in the past.
Is it me just getting older? Age is supposed to dull the senses.
Perhaps the composition of the cigarette has changed over the
years. Cigarette companies faced with the decline of victims
over the decades had to do something to stem the tide of loss
of revenue. So what did they do? Their advertising resources
are limited. So they could do little to entice new victims
to their poison that way.
How do you keep from losing a customer? The tobacco companies use
a powerfully addictive drug. But the drug was always in the product.
Did they engineer the cigarette to make it more addictive?
If so, as a result, is it more difficult to quit today?
And in so doing did it make the smoke more irritating?
To me, today, cigarette smoke no longer smells like a wood
cooking fire or burning autumn leaves. It smells like a burning
toxic waste dump.
It is psychological on my part or did the cigarette change?
Anne D.
news:12590043...@irys.nyx.net...
>
> I wonder if it was the smoke or the nicotine which caused
> that decrease in sensitivity.
>
> Did anyone here who used NRT notice those senses returning after
> the smoke stopped or did it happen after you stopped the NRT?
I used the patch for only about a month and can remember noticing that the
patches themselves smelled awful, like an old ashtray.
Bruce Watson
That makes sense. The nicotine in NRT comes from tobacco.
But it wouldn't have been cured or burned.
Even though I've smoked, I can't really say what nicotine, by itself,
smells or tastes like. It being masked by all the flavorings
in the tobacco.
But did your senses of taste and smell return after the smoke
stopped or after you stopped using the patch?
Eldon
> Eldon <EldonB...@aol.com> wrote:
> >My sense of smell didn't come back to a level of sensitivity that I'm
> >bothered unless the smoke is close and dense. I wish it would to the
> >extent I could get offended, but it hasn't yet.
>
> But it DID return, no?
Not yet. My sense of smell is still sort of inhibited. Food tastes
somewhat better, but when I cook, I still use enough herbs, chiles and
garlic to offend some people. I hope that improves more, but it has
been over two years.
Bruce Watson
Eldon <Eldo...@aol.com> wrote:
>> >My sense of smell didn't come back to a level of sensitivity that I'm
>> >bothered unless the smoke is close and dense. I wish it would to the
>> >extent I could get offended, but it hasn't yet.
>>
>> But it DID return, no?
>
>Not yet. My sense of smell is still sort of inhibited. Food tastes
>somewhat better, but when I cook, I still use enough herbs, chiles and
>garlic to offend some people. I hope that improves more, but it has
>been over two years.
Interesting. For me it was within the first few weeks. Maybe the
first week. It was intense.
I was smoking nearly 3 packs a day. That could have been
the reason. In the early years I didn't notice any difference
when I would quit during the summer. Nor did I notice nicotine
withdrawal.
Anne D.
>>I used the patch for only about a month and can remember noticing that the
>>patches themselves smelled awful, like an old ashtray.
>
> But did your senses of taste and smell return after the smoke
> stopped or after you stopped using the patch?
Oh, it was after the smoke but while I was still using the patch - I meant
to be clearer above. I noticed the stink when I was putting them on, which
is why I started wearing them on my lower body.
Bruce Watson
Anne D. <ann...@gEEmail.com> wrote:
>"Bruce Watson" <anon...@nyx.nyx.net> wrote in message
>news:12590095...@irys.nyx.net...
>> In article <heer51$c1e$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>> Anne D. <ann...@gEEmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>I used the patch for only about a month and can remember noticing that the
>>>patches themselves smelled awful, like an old ashtray.
>>
>> But did your senses of taste and smell return after the smoke
>> stopped or after you stopped using the patch?
>
>Oh, it was after the smoke but while I was still using the patch - I meant
>to be clearer above. I noticed the stink when I was putting them on, which
>is why I started wearing them on my lower body.
Then it's the smoke and not the nicotine that causes the
loss of sensation of taste and smell.
FlatIronMike
> Oh, it was after the smoke but while I was still using the patch - I meant
> to be clearer above. I noticed the stink when I was putting them on, which
> is why I started wearing them on my lower body.
The time I used the Patch I found a similar gaging smell to them as
well, Anne. I think I put them on my Butt as only JackAsses smoke.
FlatironMike
patchwork quit
Two years, nine months, one week, six days, 1 hour, 4 minutes and 6
seconds. 20340 cigarettes not smoked, saving $6,102.27. Life saved: 10
weeks, 15 hours, 0 minutes.