Considering he was honest enough and trusted you enough to approach you and tell you about it, then the best thing is to appreciate his honesty and that you are glad that he opened up. Try to appeal to his 'rational' side and let him know that although you can't and won't stop him from smoking, he should be aware of the health risks. Videos are good too, instead of just talking, which to him will just be mum lecturing again.
I'm assuming he knows you smoke? If he does, then admit that if you knew back then what the health problems were, you might have taken a different route. Also he probably thinks it's easy to quit. Tell him about your first hand experience of how difficult it is.
Lily makes a good point of insisting he not smoke in your house. The health damage is real and you don't want your two younger ones being affected by second hand smoke (apart from the bad influence of watching their brother light up). But make a point about the health risks being very real which is why smoking is actually banned in most places and you want your home to be smoke free.
I said all of that.
I truely do regret this plague. I love and I loathe smoking.
I didn't tell him a part of me still loves it, just how much I hate it, how I have been addicted for years and all the health problems that have come from it.
I suggested we completely quit together but he wasn't too keen on the idea.
All of the above, Berbs, but also:
Do you smoke in front of the kids?
Do you make them share your smoke, so they're addicted already?
Do you smoke out side or inside the house/ anywhere else inside?
There are lots of things you can do personally, like say to them now and again, "Sorry, I can't afford your sweeties this week, I need fag money."
Work out what you spend a week, a month, a year, and share that knowledge with them. It will gradually penetrate their attitudes to smoking.
If you smoke outside, away from them, it will demonstrate that you think smoking is a bad thing and that even though you're an addict yourself, you care enough about them to spare them from the same debilitating condition.
Tell them that you wish you didn't smoke but that smoking is a powerful addiction that holds you prisoner. Put it in such a way as to motivate them to to want to control their own lives, not throw away their independence to a tobacco company.
Above all else, tell them that smoking is not an intelligent thing to do, because you know and I know that it's not.
I've been addicted myself and I know what a life changing wrench it is to give up, but eventually I also saw giving up as a platform for self-improvement. I had to do that 3 times, due to the good old Bi-polarity and the feelings of invincibility a good manico can give you. And then the inevitable slide into depression and the self-loathing that comes of it because you're not in control of your life anymore - your health, your money, your initiative belong to the tobacco company.
Smokers, even more than ever now choose for their friends other smokers; marriage partners even come from the same mentality circle simply because of the addiction camararderie that goes with it - smokers against the rest of the world.
You have to explain to them that nicotine is as bad as any other drug but you have to express your own self disgust to make it count. 'Don't do as I do, do as I say' will not lead to affective learning, but demonstrating through your own actions, the reality of its awfulness may do.
I smoke outside mostly but sometimes when it is super cold I smoke in my room out the window.
Ugh, I know you are right. I need to quit more than stress about the hypocrisy I need to do as I say too. I want to quit so much. I am always meaning to quit.
My issue is not so much the craving for tobacco, I don;t really smoke just tobacco, I have a cannabis addiction. I smoke and smoke and smoke and just get stoned to get myself past all the things I think, so I need to tackle that addiction alongside the nicotine one.
I wish sometimes I could just disappear for a couple of weeks to ride out the storm of quitting. The last few times I have tried I have been an angry insane person who snapped at everyone. I don't want to put my kids through days and days of that whilst I get it out of my system,
But at least if I don't smoke then it proves to him it really is something I regret.
Thanks for the post. I need to quit.
Now to set about doing it.........
Topic: Teens and smoking