Like a pediatrician rounding on cystic fibrosis children in the hospital and smoking at their bedside. That's what the early 1980s were like.
Until she left home, my wife didn't realise that normal non-smoking households don't have to mop their walls.
Omigod.
We had to do this with our first house. Former tenants were 2 pack a day each with kids in The house. The water cascaded down completely brown.
My wife's parents used to smoke heavily. She tells me how they had to clean the windows monthly just to be able to see out of them
Gross, even in my chain-smoking days I never smoked indoors.
When I was a kid the old people in my family all chain smoked when we went out to eat. I hated eating with them because of that. I seriously thought my aunt was 15 years older than my mom because of her chain smoking and alcoholism aged her. Found out after she died she was only 3 years older.
What I remember most is coming back from concerts reeking of cigarettes and having to immediately throw my clothes in the wash and take a shower. Going to shows got so much more enjoyable after they banned indoor smoking at clubs.
Ashtrays everywhere. Companies marketing for kids who proudly make massive branded ashtrays, like McDonalds.
I got told to turn my Joe Camel shirt inside out in the 8th grade. I didn’t understand. I was so rad and so was he.
Good lord the times have changed thank goodness.
At least the ashtrays can still be used, one of my buddies uses them for coasters and I want to use one for screws when I work on stuff.
Even just going to a restaurant or bar got so much more enjoyable.
When I was maybe 3 (maybe 4 - it’s a little fuzzy), I remember safety pinning a towel around the collar of my shirt so I could be like Superman (we had recently seen it in the theater). The towel also had frayed ends, and ended up in the ashtray along side my mom’s cigarette. I remember my mom panicking trying to get those safety pins off when the towel caught fire. We never were allowed to safety pin towels to our clothes again after that. 😂
Also I love how my kids know the cigarette lighter in the car as a place to plug in a car charger and nothing else.
Cigarette lighter? You mean the finger print eraser and "lesson enforcer"? It was always empty when I grew up, seems like every child needed to learn that it was still hot even after the glow had vanished :)
The bic type lighter where everywhere, including in the coin shelf in cars
I thought the cigarette lighter in the car was a rubber stamp and I'd get the icon marked on my hand.
Yes, I burned myself.
Yep. The 80’s were absolutely horrible if you were bothered by smoke. There’s a reason why a lot of us 80’s kids “had asthma”, which magically disappeared when everything went non-smoking in the 90’s.
Smoking was just so pervasive here in Europe in the 80’s, it’s impossible for people to understand if you didn’t experience it first hand.
Like, even teachers smoked. Not in lessons, but if they were out in the playground supervising, or in the staff room, they'd light up.
My headteacher had a pipe. I think it was about the only thing that kept him going, right up until the cancer got him.
Part of the reason kids have asthma from that era, myself included, is because our mothers smoked while pregnant.
disappeared when everything went non-smoking in the 90’s.
Funny, in Russia that transition happened around late 00s.
A-and in 2014 entrance to my (then) uni territory still looked like one big stinking cloud of smoke and a barely visible group of students smoking just outside, some coming, some leaving.
Fun fact: instead of cupholders, 1970s cars would proudly advertise the number of ashtrays they had equipped the car with, usually 1 within reach of every seat. This number was equally important as horsepower or price on marketing materials.
Someday when beverages are a thing of the past, people will be aghast that cars ever advertised their drink holders.
Yes, someday we will all ingest nothing but crumbly dry blocks of nutrient fuel, and scoff at those who used to slurp up liquids like a meat mosquito.
Someday when beverages are a thing of the past, people will be aghast that cars ever advertised their drink holders.
But then where will I put my water bottle?
The flip side is that now that cars have zero ashtrays, most smokers just throw the butts out the window.
The same people doing that now would have been doing it then also. It's so easy to put an ashtray in your car, or just an old soda can, and people used to care a lot less about "littering".
I remember this!
I have a Trabant, a car from East Germany that was made pretty much as cheap as possible. Still has ash trays front and back.
I have a 2015 car. Imagine my surprise to find that it has front and rear ashtrays. I hadn't seen an ashtray in a car since probably the early nineties. I remember for a while after the ashtrays stopped being standard that you could order a "smoker's package" to get them, but I thought that option had long since gone away.
I remember that in pre-school in around 1990 we made clay ashtrays for father's day. My father did not smoke but they told me to make one anyway...
When I was a kid I used to kick cigarette butts down the aisles at the local grocery store.
I’m a weirdo and I loved the smell, so naturally I became a smoker at the ripe old age of like, 10.
I know how much other people hate the smell so I’m always so paranoid about it.
I’m about to be a stay at home dad for a bit. I’m quitting to kill the expense. Wish me luck!
Good luck! The journey may be tough but I believe you will make it.
Good luck! If it's ok, I can DM you to see how it's going? Quitting smoking/nicotine felt like the hardest thing I ever did, but I'm so glad that I did it. I'm still kind of surprised at myself for having succeeded after so so so many failed attempts.
But if you keep trying, one day it just works.
Good luck to you!
I quit like 20 times, and what finally worked was an ayahuasca ceremony.
Those things had me in their grip hard
I never became a smoker but I too love that smell.
That smell kinda helps me relax too, depending on the type, I guess. I use (vanilla) incense because it has a similar effect for me. Though it doesn't smell quite the same.
Good luck! I quit cold turkey after 20 years of smoking, and I started just like you at around 10 or so. The year after I quit was a bit weird, it was hard the first month or so, and got substantially better every day. What helped me not to start again, is that feeling that it might be weird now, but if I start again, that would mean all those terrible first days were for nothing, and I hate suffering with no purpose.
After a year I randomly realised that not only I don't want to smoke anymore, the thought alone is a bit revolting, and that's when I knew that I'm finally done with the whole shit. Gained a bit of weight though, nicotine is a wonderful appetite suppressor, but never regretted it.
Quit to not harm your child 🤷♂️
...my high school phased out the student smoking area starting my freshman year in 1986: the older classes still had access, but not mine, and by 1990 it was fully decommissioned into a landscaped atrium...
...when i worked as an apartment groundskeeper in the early nineties, my first two hours of every day were spent cleaning cigarette butts throughout the complex...
I also made one. But mainly out of choice. My parents didn't even smoke. I guess I was weird that way.
I still regularly marvel about how great it is not to have to quarantine my clothes and have a shower as soon as I come home from the pub or restaurant, and it has been 20 years since it was banned around here.
I went on a road trip a few years ago and we went to a bar... somewhere along the mid Atlantic. Maybe Virginia or one of the Carolinas, and people are smoking at the bar, and I felt like I had just landed on a different planet. Like... I had almost forgotten people still smoked at all, let alone a dozen people puffing away in a small barroom.
We got pretty drunk and had a good time though. But then when I took a shower in the morning, it was like all that smoke residue was oozing out of my pores and hair. Being hungover and having a steamy, cigarette-smelling shower did not start the day off well.
Same. I'm so sensitive to smoke I will run away from anyone smoking in my vicinity even outdoors.
I'm old enough to remember when smoking was banned in bars/clubs in the UK. It went from a musky smell to body odour, and it took practically all venues by surprise.
Now, I'm so glad that indoors smoking was banned. Looking back, it was fucking gross, and while sadly lots of people now vape indoors it was a huge improvement to basically be able to actually breathe in those places.
I came to Ireland when they just banned smoking and it was still legal in Germany. The first time I walked into a pub and ran against a solid wall of sweat and beer farts I missed smoking.
Seriously this! I grew up poor so going to restaurants was a 2-3 times a year thing. And as a kid, going to one meant non-smoking area, where the nasty ass smoke would still waffle over. And my eyes would get irritated, id get really sick and cough nonstop for days.
It didn't even notice the coincidence until it happened to me at a friend's house in college who was also a heavy smoker.
Fuck smoking.
My pack has no vagine or anoose.
For real though, about to quit. Wish me luck, boys!
Best of luck! It's a hard thing to do.
Having quit this year (after a long time of cutting down/vaping etc) I think my main advice to you will be this:
If you relapse it isn't the end of the world, it's just a bump in the road. Don't be too hard on yourself, it's not easy.
Also, keep a pack of smokes or a vape or snus or whatever you use on you for a week or so after you stop using them, so when you feel your pockets you don't panic when you're missing something, which will set off the response to "I need nicotine"
Good luck!
Good luck!
Fuck luck. Do, or do not.
Aww man you’re gonna make me want to start again.
Drink smoking, fresh air smoking, adderall smoking, coffee smoking, drive smoking, fuck smoking.
Don't tempt me with that evil, Satan!
😂😬
dont forget after a good meal smoking and after sex smoking
I remember bars so blue with smoke you couldn't see across the room.
I know one of those bars. When my city banned indoor smoking back in the mid-aughts, that bar still reeked of cigarettes for years. It was just coming out of the walls
I worked for an Internet startup in the mid '90s that was so desperate for venture capital funding we were sucking up to RJR Nabisco (who were rolling in so much cigarette money that they actually started a venture capital division just to do something with the cash). One day some of their executives showed up and they spent the entire day chain-smoking in our conference room (our building was a non-smoking building). The smoke was so thick everywhere you couldn't even see to the end of the hallway. I made a point of coughing loudly and my bosses sent me home before the end of the day. In the end we got nothing from them.
It's a warm memory because most of those bastards have probably died a miserable death by now.
I wonder how much that affected the life expectancy of those kids
If you want to experience this sensation today, travel to Russia or Japan. Yes, Japan.
Was in Tokyo and Osaka last year.
Tokyo was gorgeous. No smokers in sight at most locations. Some vapers, but whatever.
Osaka was the complete opposite. I had to find outdoor restaurants. The gaming bar I hung out had a smoking corner near the bathroom. Lots of cigarette butts all over the city.
Also:
So I literally just touched down on a flight from Tokyo (haven’t gotten off the plane yet) and actually not really. They’re more like America in the 00s. A ton of smokers and everywhere has to say you can’t smoke there, but you can’t smoke anywhere anymore. It’s definitely weird that they have to say no smoking on the Shinkansen, but it doesn’t smell like smoke
Tokyo is the exception not the rule. Go anywhere else and you'll start seeing a lot more smokers.
Check out my comment! Tokyo is really different. When you visit Shibuya or Shinjuku, you'll start to see more smokers. Kabukichō district is also where you'll find smokers (and other underworld-y stuff)
Probably you didn't get the full picture because you only went to Maid cafes and the Akihabara child porn stores.
I watch Midnight Diner and they all smoke on there.
Taking an international flight where half the plane is smoking. Those were good times, especially in Greece where they loved smoking even more than the Americans.
I read a lot of Southeast Asian countries still smoke everywhere. And I can't imagine being cramped in a small area with a nasty ass smoker without flipping out.
Actually, air was cleaner back when smoking was allowed on flights. They had to completely recycle all the air in the cabin where nowadays it's all a closed system. Every fart and cough, every armpit outgassing and nasty crotch reek is with you from takeoff to touchdown now.
Most of you won't believe me so I suggest you look it up yourself before downvoting (which you won't).
Oh good I'm still youngish I AM old enough that I remember being really excited when the headlines on our newspaper said smoking was banned indoors! Not even a "smoking" section in a restaurant anymore unless it was patio/outdoors maybe
I remember huge arguments about whether or not smoking was allowed during team meetings. Not in your office, that was presumed just fine.
The day they banned smoking in bars/restaurants was glorious. No more trying to decide if it was OK to wear something that required dry cleaning.
I moved to São Paulo recently and discovered that people here still smoke on clubs. Is disgusting coming back from party with the hair and clothes smelling like cigarettes.
My wife is from an Eastern European country, and whenever we visit her folks I have a similar experience. Every single restaurant reeks of smoke, and there is apparently no political appetite to change that.
The funny thing about cigarettes is they kill lots of appetites by providing such ready dopamine release.
Apparently many states in Germany have smoking in pubs too . It's so nasty. Makes me actually ill to be around a smoker.
I remember a beloved fish-and-chips restaurant in the area where I grew up that had, in addition to fun cartoons of a clam introducing various dishes, smoke stains all along the edge of the ceiling. It was that bad... funny to think that it was soon after smoking was banned that the place closed down--maybe it never actually tasted good but nobody could tell??
"Smoking or non?"
So the grocery store in my little town growing up was the last hold out. They had ash trays in their buggies until they legally couldn't, then kept the buggies for years after.
People were smoking in the corner store I used to work in way past the day it became illegal, including the lady that owned it and the employees...
I worked at a place for a little while in a town that had no ordinance. We absolutely smoked behind the counter.
Ashtrays on carts, that's a new one to me who grew up in the very smoky 80s.
I think it was probably very location dependent. I know the Skaggs where my mom worked did, plus the little affiliated grocery store in my town. But I don't remember them at Kroger or Piggly Wiggly (back when that was a thing there).
Just go to Europe to relive that part of the 90s
Smoking indoors is banned basically everywhere thankfully, but yeah, there are still way too many smokers here.
In France it's like a third of people, in Greece it's like every other man smokes.
I went to the UK and France in 2004. Got to go back to France last year; I was going to say it’s like the U.S. in the 1990s but it seems like they’ve banned indoor smoking in most buildings so it is better than that. There are still a lot more people smoking in outdoor sections than I’ve experienced in the U.S. for about 20 years, though. I’ve gotten so used to smoking being rare in the U.S. that it felt weird to see (relatively) so much in France.
The 90s were nothing compared to the 80s for smoking.
A lot of Japan as well, though the laws changed to ban it in some places prior to the olympics so (Tokyo, at least) isn't nearly as smokey as it was before corona and the olypmics.
My parents didn't smoke but that's literally how I knew the babysitter was gone and my parents were home from a night out.
We're talking about the US here, right?
Yeah, Japan still is like a giant ashtray last time I checked.
Tbh my wife and I smelled rotten eggs more often, at least in cities
I think because their busses use biodiesel?
It isn’t anymore. I checked yesterday. They still have cigarette vending machines and smoking floors in hotels, but most floors were nonsmoking, beer vending machines were more plentiful than cigarette ones, and no smoking announcements and signs were everywhere
The laws changed prior to the olympics coming, so it's not like it was pre-corona and pre-olympics. Even some places that didn't legally have to change used corona as an excuse because of the recommendations of the government (not law). Still a lot of places with smoking.
I am talking about where I grew up in Canada.
Im 24 and I got the tail end of this with Gen X smokers, motherfucker I can still smell their shitty marlboros. At least go with scavenged WW2 ration cigarettes like a civilized person.
The 80s was another level of smoking. Smoking on planes, smoking in the nursing station while working, the doctor smoking while he rounded on a patient, smoking in movies, every restaurant, I didn't see anywhere people didn't smoke save for mostly in my school, but the teachers did have a smoking lounge.
Oh ive heard the stories, but well the smell and look of a 99 cents store filled with smokers and every adult at the park smoking a cigarette is burned into my brain. I know what I missed since the old tech I mess with will sometimes have the smell absorbed into it so badly I need to make a vinegar solution and leave it in the sun to ge the smell out. Im just saying that I have an inkling of how bad it was at its peak, and can say im fucken glad kids these days arent exposed to it nearly as much.
You know where you couldn't smoke? The MetroDome (old Twins and Vikings stadium). "No smoking! No smoking in the MetroDome." was announced before every game.
I'm old enough to remember a home visit from my GP for childhood asthma and he was prepping his pipe with tobacco while talking to me
I think you are even older than me!
i remember ashtrays on the arm of every airplane seat!
I was born in the early 90s and remember making fun of the idea that a non-smoking section separated from active smokers in the IHOP by a thin barrier that didn't even reach the ceiling could do anything.
Boy, leaded gasoline really fucked up whole generations, didn't it? Oh... We are still dealing with the fallout from that, aren't we?
Barrier? Most restaurants barely divided the two with an aisle.
A smoking area in a restaurant was about as useful as setting up a pissing area in a pool....
I'm still convinced that lead poisoning was the catalyst for the fall of the Roman empire. And they weren't even breathing tainted air constantly.
We still use lead pipes for water infrastructure in many areas of the country for fucks sake.