Friday, April 25, 2008
I enjoy the first 20 minutes or so of The View, the "Hot Topics" segment. Seems like everybody either loves it or hates it. I like it because it always kicks off thoughts.
Back when, I was amused that Jay liked it too. It seems that most of the people who make fun of the show are male, and I suspect it's because they've never watched it. They just think "women talk" and therefore it is to be disparaged. Oh, well. I miss Jay's open mind.
What they got me thinking of today is addictions. Nicotine, food, alcohol, gambling, and so on.
I don't get wrapped up in food, I don't gamble, I almost don't drink*. I smoke. I've tried to quit smoking, and I dislike me when I'm quitting. I get very depressed and very mean, and I'm pretty certain that if I managed to quit smoking, I'd start drinking. Or I'd kill someone.
I get very annoyed at people who smugly say, "Well, that's ok. Smoking will kill you. Drinking won't." Tell me about it. My sweet little sister drank herself to death in her early 40s.
Gambling destroys whole families. Drinking destroys lives, and can kill innocent people who happen to be on the same road. Overeating can kill you as surely as alcohol or cigarettes. Just about anything done to excess is dangerous to self and others, including religious fervor.
It's annoying that in this state I can open a business where people can drink themselves into a stupor day after day, and it's ok. I can open a business where I can serve 2,000 calorie sandwiches to any heart-attack-on-the-hoof who can roll through the door, and it's ok. I can open a business where people can sit at a machine and gamble away their family's life savings, and it's ok. But I can't open a business, not even in my own home, where people can smoke a cigarette.
Don't give me that secondhand smoke argument - not while you are addicted to your car, which is spewing poison into the air. That poison is impossible to avoid. Cigarette smoke is relatively easy to avoid. In fact, if I quit smoking and got into that mean mood, I could be the sniper on the hill, taking out speeding drivers on the Thruway. I'm damn good with a gun, you know.
I wonder - when cigarettes are stamped out, and smokers have become acceptable drunks, what will "they" blame asthma and lung cancer on then? Has no one noticed that even as the rates of smoking have gone down, the cancer and asthma rates have continued to rise? When they've eliminated smoking, will they next take your car away?
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*Story about drinking - those last three years, every time we went to a new doctor, one of the questions the nurse would ask Jay was how much he drank, and he'd always say "Four or five". The nurse would look up and say, "Per week or per day?", and Jay'd answer, "Per year." The look on their faces was priceless.
For me, it used to be less. With The Man, it has jumped to one to three drinks a month.
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Is it obvious I attempted to quit again last weekend, and pissed myself off so badly I bought a pack, just to shut me up? I almost drove The Man away.
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1 comment:
im sorry, but i cant agree with you! i usually try to keep my mouth shut when i disagree with someone, but when it comes to smoking i cant help it. I am a person who has no asthma, but whenever i am within ten feet of a person smoking, i automatically start to wheeze and cough. I'm simply alergic to the smoke. I should be able to go somewhere and eat without the potential for death. As far a smoking sections go in resturants, im all for them, as long as they are in a completely closed off room or a patio outside. Im not a huge drinker- i do drink, but as long as i dont drink and drive i really cant see a way i can hurt someone else. I just think that smoking really does hurt other people. ok, i appologize if that sounded upity or snooty. i just really dont like when people say smoking doesnt hurt other people.
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