In college, I roomed with a group including several smokers, and once in a blue moon I would have a cigarette, but I never liked them. While living with the guys who smoked, I had frequent bouts of bronchitis and asthma. I can't blame it all on them as I did some non-tobacco smoking in those days. My first boyfriend smoked, and my lung problems occasionally resurfaced. For the past 16 years I am fortunate to live with a nonsmoking boyfriend and am healthy as an ox (except for tree pollen allergies). Secondhand smoke of any sort totally grosses me out now, and I have to speed past smoking pedestrians to get away from them.
One funny anecdote:
When my brother and I were in kindergarden, we found out that cigarettes were bad for people's health. Our father and mother both smoked a pack a day, so we intervened. Every time one of them put down a cigarette in an ash tray, even if just lit, whoosh we swooped in and stubbed them out (with extreme prejudice). I think I was five years old then. Our campaign was very quickly successful, and our parents both quit within a very short time.
Shortly thereafter, I went to work with mom one day, at the family photo, record and music supply store. There I saw a lady cashier smoking behind the counter, I think her name was Edna. You can probably guess what I did when Edna turned away from the cigarette to help a customer. She was irate at the destruction of her personal property, and I learned that you can't help acquaintances out of their addictions in the same way you manage your parent's health vices. Fortunately, Edna understood that I meant well, after I explained it to her. She died a couple years later, and was replaced with a non-smoking, although dimwitted, cashier named Esta, who pronounced German composer Richard Wagner's name as if Wagner were from midwestern America. Well, nobody's perfect.
