why smoke?

Because it feels good. especially when you're working long/stressful hours.

Because they had an easy childhood and when the world actually got hard they couldn't take it.

I think smokers are utterly pathetic. They tend to be quite proud of smoking as if it is cool and seem to think it will make everyone think they've got a hard life so they need it.

But in reality they are thought of as losers who can't really take lifes pressures whilst every non-smoker accepts life for what it is.

snakes

Arghh I hate this question!! I seem to get asked it all the time I started smoking because I was so stressed at sixth form - I didn't give a **** whether I looked 'cool' or not. I smoke now because I'm addicted. I think it's extremely unfair to label someone an idiot for smoking when they know they risks - I'm perfectly aware of what smoking can and does cause, but I don't care. I don't drink a lot, I've never done drugs, I go to the gym, I study, I eat healthily, I don't use sunbeds etc etc so why aren't I allowed smoking as my guilty pleasure?

However for some reason people don't have this attitude to alcohol?! Alcohol brings health risks, maybe even more than smoking. If you've sat down A&E on a friday or saturday night and seen the amount of people who have come in there drunk with some sort of injury or alcohol poisoning then you'll understand what I mean. When I was in A&E there was a woman there who the paramedics had picked up because she was walking down the sliproad to get onto the motorway and they were worried about her getting herself killed. She didn't know where she was, who she was, where she'd been, who she'd been with, where she lived or anything, she was completely clueless and very distressed and it was a definite eye opener for me! Alcohol makes you do stupid things to harm yourself in the short term and also has a long term effect on your organs, but for some reason today's society ignores all this in favour of a good night out. I drink but I don't drink to the levels that I feel that you're expected to as a young person and now it's like the pressure has moved from smoking to getting wasted every night of the week.

My Grandad died aged 69 after a battle with lung cancer, after being a non-smoker. My Mum is the only person who smoked around my Grandad.

My Mum might as well have killed him.

That stopped me smoking. I realy wish my mother wouldn't in front of me.
I avoid being around smoke at all.

I loved it when I did it.

Your Mum did not kill your Grandad, there is every chance he would have got lung cancer anyway.

Because they had an easy childhood and when the world actually got hard they couldn't take it.

I think smokers are utterly pathetic. They tend to be quite proud of smoking as if it is cool and seem to think it will make everyone think they've got a hard life so they need it.

But in reality they are thought of as losers who can't really take lifes pressures whilst every non-smoker accepts life for what it is.

You have no vices then? At all?
You do nothing to dull the edge of life? No promiscuous sex/computer games/booze/any thing else?

If yes, hypocrite. If no, boring.