The Sotonians Advice Seekers Thread

So, I have just seen pictures on FB of my youngest daughter smoking. She turned 18 last week and I had no idea that she smoked. She may have just started, who knows? I have three daughters and up to now I have been safe in the knowledge that they have not been hooked. This was one of my biggest fears and I am not sure how to handle it. My daughter is a vegetarian and has had an eating disorder in the past. She cares enough about her body not to eat meat but seems happy enough to fill her lungs with toxins? She lives with her mother over 50 miles away so I only get to see her once a month. This is not a conversation I want to have over the phone so have a couple of weeks to think about it before I see her.

Have any of you guys had the same issue and how did you deal with it? I dont want to be too heavy handed and she is old enough now to make her own decisions, but I am very strongly anti cigarettes and I hate to see any of my kids doing something that effects their health.

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If smoking is all she is up to then you are doing alright - its the crack cocaine and mushrooms you need to be worrying about

HTH

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Joking aside, I was on the receiving end of this from my old man - he tried the disappointed route, the guilt route (I would hate to have to bury you blah blah) the economics route

Nothing works - you will have to wait until they realise what a massive dickhead they are being and quit of their own accord. That said, I cant imagine at eighteen she has the cash to smoke too much, given the cost of the things

It surprises and depresses me in equal measure when I see kids smoking.

It’s not as if they aren’t aware of the dangers of smoking going forward. It’s like they think they’re bullet proof.

Sadly the only thing I think you can do is express how disappointed you are and stress that she is not allowed to smoke in your house or garden…

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“I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

Bill Hicks

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I love Bill Hicks, but he’s probably not the best person to seek advice from on this!

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Get her a pipe.

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I’ve not been through this experience, so no idea if good advice or not, but if you saw it on FB I would leave it alone (you massively risk her cutting you out of her online relationships). If you smell it on her in person, then bring it up in a massively casual non confrontational way - i.e. Do you smoke? I didn’t realise that. You know the risks…be careful not to get too addicted, because it’s hard to get off. Etc etc.

She’s 18, she’s a grown up and can make her own choices. And it might just be a cheeky social ciggie rather than anything heavier.

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Why not?

He didn’t die of lung cancer.

They did him with the pancreatic cancer gun in ''94, love :lou_sunglasses:

Because he was a high level risk taking boundary pushing genius. Lived his whole that way. One to be admired, and aspire to on a level. But maybe not the best advice giver for an 18 year old.

I did alright :lou_sunglasses:

I’d just rip the piss out of her and hope she realised what a massive bell-end she’s being. She’s 18 after all, so lectures or concerned parenting are unlikely to have any effect.

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You have a 9-5 job! You don’t qualify!

Nonsense. How would I put in these back-breaking nine hour days? :lou_sunglasses:

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Its a tricky one but I agree that going in all guns blazing isnt the way and accept that she is old enough now to make her own decisions and her own mistakes. Although not a smoker, I remember seeing a programme by Jonathan Miller. It was a series of autopsies on various parts of the body. There was one dedicated to the lungs. He put a pair of healthy lungs (well obvioulsy not that healthy because their previous owner was dead, but you get my drift) on the counter and they were all pink like a nice blancmange. Then he put of pair of lung from someone who had smoked 40 a day next to them. They were black, shrivelled and gross. If I had of been a smoker I would have given up on the spot! I suppose I could go down the route of suggesting that she starts eating meat again as the toxins in the fags will kill her before the burgers do!

Lou has given some very good advice here, I reckon.

I know it’s every parent’s strong instinct to advise their children throughout their lives; but, in my experience, the one overriding time when this advice is most likely to be ignored – and can even prove counter-productive – is the late teenage years, when most young people, turning into adults, are very keen to make their own decisions and not to rely on their parents’ advice anymore.

Of course, it’s not easy to watch your children – of whatever age – doing something that you consider to be harmful to them; but, as Lou says, if you start handing out advice in a heavy-handed fashion then you risk alienating your daughter.

If it’s any consolation, it has been my experience that my own children were happier to listen to me prattling on, once they reached their early to mid-twenties. Sometimes they are even happy to take my advice, nowadays; although, more often than not, it’s me that ends up taking theirs.

Good luck.

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Thanks Halo and Lou.

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Hopefully I’m reading too much into it @sadoldgit but I’m pretty sure smoking acts as an appetite suppressant. Given you mentioned a previous eating disorder it might be worth at least talking to the ex to see if there could be anything in it?

Better to rule it out no matter how difficult it is to discuss?

Sorry if I’m raking up something from the past that’s best forgotten (I don’t mean the her mother :wink:)

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I have NEVER met anyone who gave up smoking because someone told them it was bad for them.

Sorry Soggy but imho anything more than “I’m so disappointed in you” would be met with a fuck off reaction stop telling ME what to do.

By all means ask IF she wants to give up. Then get her to a proper Hypnotherapust or specialist

Tbh my 2 lads don’t smoke. Youngest may have a cigarette twice a year.

His laptop crashed I fixed it and there was a photo of the 2 lads in the Bulldog in Amsterdam.

It was a posed photo they told me about a few years later. But IF I had mentioned it I’d have lost them both for nothing over a lark by invading THEIR privacy & space.

Sorry mate this is a walk away one.

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Wish her a Happy Birthday and send one of these… https://www.ukecigstore.com/e-cigarette-kits.html

If she says it’s not her birthday…just say, “I know”