Smokers and Non-Smokers, help a girl out here: (no offense to smokers... I just have some issues here and would like y'alls help)
I have a great friend (who I am also dating, but that's beside the point) who is a smoker. He's smoked for about 10 years. He smokes between one and two packs a day. He's got "the smokers cough", you know, that sickly gunky cough, and he gets Bronchitis "a lot".
Well, it didn't bother me at first, because I didn't really mind being around smokers, as long as there is ventilation or it's outside. We have great fun together!!! .... Til I got Bronchitis, which turned into Pneumonia "overnight", and I wound up in the hospital for a lovely 5 day-/4 night stay.
My pneumonia was so severe it was shocking, because I am an otherwise healthy, strapping young female. My friend is totally convinced I got the bronchitis/lung illness from HIM because, as he put is, "since I'm a smoker I get colds and lung sicknesses alot". He said as he watched me laying in the hospital bed, zapped out from Vicodin and with oxygen strapped to my face, he felt GUILTY as heck.
So now that I'm out of the hospital and feeling way better (thanks to TONS of antibiotics and continual breathing treatments), I asked him to please stop smoking. My daughter, who HATES cig smoke (rightfully so; I don't want her thinking it's an ok thing to do), asked him point-blank last night to please stop smoking "because mommy says it is bad for you and mommy got sick from it".
Well he laughingly said, "I can't stop, it's just who I am, and well I will smoke until I die".
So the cruddy part is, since he's laughed it off (yet felt so horribly guilty while I was in the hospital, or so he says), I fear hanging around him any more. I like the guy a ton, he's fun and sweet and gentlemanly and well we were friends for quite a while before dating.
Would you give an ultimatum to someone? Stop Smoking or Go Away? Whether it's friends, dating, married, etc.?
The example for my daughter is paramount. I don't want to keep making excuses as to why my guy friend smokes. Her daddy suffers from major drug addiction, so I've beat it into her how bad drugs, smoking, drinking, etc. are for people. Her seeing him light up out on my deck makes me feel bad.
The example for myself is also paramount; my doctor says I will be more apt to getting pneumonia now since I had it severe enough to warrant a 5-day stay in the hospital. Scary, because it was darn painful and I missed 2 weeks of work!!! (*whine*)
What would you do? Give the ultimatum, stop hanging around the smoker, or just lay back and deal with it and see if I get pneumonia again???
(I am not the lay-back-and-deal-with-it type. Not any more.)
Sorry so long but this is something I feel strongly about and y'all give great advice. Once again I do NOT want to offend smokers; this is a health issue I'm now faced with and a moral issue for my daughter.
-- Stephanie
I have a great friend (who I am also dating, but that's beside the point) who is a smoker. He's smoked for about 10 years. He smokes between one and two packs a day. He's got "the smokers cough", you know, that sickly gunky cough, and he gets Bronchitis "a lot".
Well, it didn't bother me at first, because I didn't really mind being around smokers, as long as there is ventilation or it's outside. We have great fun together!!! .... Til I got Bronchitis, which turned into Pneumonia "overnight", and I wound up in the hospital for a lovely 5 day-/4 night stay.
My pneumonia was so severe it was shocking, because I am an otherwise healthy, strapping young female. My friend is totally convinced I got the bronchitis/lung illness from HIM because, as he put is, "since I'm a smoker I get colds and lung sicknesses alot". He said as he watched me laying in the hospital bed, zapped out from Vicodin and with oxygen strapped to my face, he felt GUILTY as heck.
So now that I'm out of the hospital and feeling way better (thanks to TONS of antibiotics and continual breathing treatments), I asked him to please stop smoking. My daughter, who HATES cig smoke (rightfully so; I don't want her thinking it's an ok thing to do), asked him point-blank last night to please stop smoking "because mommy says it is bad for you and mommy got sick from it".
Well he laughingly said, "I can't stop, it's just who I am, and well I will smoke until I die".
So the cruddy part is, since he's laughed it off (yet felt so horribly guilty while I was in the hospital, or so he says), I fear hanging around him any more. I like the guy a ton, he's fun and sweet and gentlemanly and well we were friends for quite a while before dating.
Would you give an ultimatum to someone? Stop Smoking or Go Away? Whether it's friends, dating, married, etc.?
The example for my daughter is paramount. I don't want to keep making excuses as to why my guy friend smokes. Her daddy suffers from major drug addiction, so I've beat it into her how bad drugs, smoking, drinking, etc. are for people. Her seeing him light up out on my deck makes me feel bad.
The example for myself is also paramount; my doctor says I will be more apt to getting pneumonia now since I had it severe enough to warrant a 5-day stay in the hospital. Scary, because it was darn painful and I missed 2 weeks of work!!! (*whine*)
What would you do? Give the ultimatum, stop hanging around the smoker, or just lay back and deal with it and see if I get pneumonia again???
(I am not the lay-back-and-deal-with-it type. Not any more.)
Sorry so long but this is something I feel strongly about and y'all give great advice. Once again I do NOT want to offend smokers; this is a health issue I'm now faced with and a moral issue for my daughter.
-- Stephanie