[joji]

Hello,

I'd like to know your opinion on this subject: I'm 22 years old and today my parents and me had a discussion (or let's say they "got angry") because they asked me if I smoke and I said yes. I have to say: 1) I started smoking (both tobacco and weed) when I was 20 years old, it was not when I was a kid, it's an age where I'm already mature enough to make my own decisions. 2) Even if I smoke weed I always have passed my exams and recently finishing engineering in the time I was supposed to do it. And also since I started reading TRP world few months ago I got into gym and I'm really glad with results I'm getting atm and looking forward to also doing boxing.

One of the reasons my father told me I must stop it's because at this moment I'm living with them (I never ever smoked with them or they saw me smoking) and since I just finished my degree I'm still looking for a job (been less than a month) so I have no real income so it's their money what is buying me both tobacco + weed.

Since the moment he said this I told him: ok, I stop smoking. I respect them even thought I don't agree on many stuff with them and I also respect the fact that I'm still living with them. I will stop smoking, at least until I have a job and my own apartament and then if I want to continue I will do it.

They started making big scandal out of this and I really disagree in this kind of parenting, I'm already grown man and I also told you I won't smoke, get over it.

They already did a few bad things to me, treated me not fairly, and this is in my opinion yet another disrespect to my person. So I decided to take a break, find a job and dissapear from their life at least some time. I really can't believe some bullshit like smoking when you are 22 years old is that kind of big deal.

Any advices on this matter?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: also, this is my first post on this forum. I've been reading for a long time and it's a great forum, hope to stay active over here and keep learning from you guys.

[H1N1]

They love you; they care about you and your health. They don’t want you to do things that are extremely detrimental to your health. This is exactly how it should be, but all too rarely is. I can’t believe the number of my friends’ parents who don’t care that their children smoke, and most of my friends are turning 30. Your parents really love you, clearly, and they can’t stand by and watch you make poor decisions.

It’s mildly annoying to you to be told what to do, because you’re a ‘grown man’ and you can make your own choices - I get it, I often feel the same. But honestly you don’t know all that much, and parents can be pretty wise, especially if they have kept a family together and raised a bright son to be an engineer. Every time my parents try, very mildly really (just like yours) to influence my behaviour, it annoys me - so I understand the frustration. But you should allow for the possibility that their love is really a very big deal, has implications for your life that you probably can’t even begin to fathom yet, and that you are not as ready as you might think to be entirely autonomous - if such a thing is even really desirable.

I look back on things I have written on here over the years, things I was certain about, or opinions I was confident in, and can’t believe some of the silly things I felt and said - one or two even got lots of likes (and plenty of those guys would probably be embarrassed now to think that they’d liked such posts). It takes a lot longer than you think, if such a day does even come, before it’s desireable to entirely cast off the hold your parents have on you.

I know it’s hard because you are very young to feel any differently, but if you tried to list reasons that you would encourage someone you love and care for to take up smoking (and especially something as negative as weed) it would probably be a very short list. The list of reasons against is obviously fairly long. Equally, I suspect that if either of your parents adopted a habit that was very harmful to them, you would probably try to discourage them too, perhaps even quite strongly and emotionally.

I understand the frustration, and it is perfectly normal and healthy. But it is a very rare gift to have been well brought up by loving and sensible parents, much rarer than people really appreciate. It will probably do more for you in your life than intelligence or any other gift you may have. The frustration you feel now will, I suspect, be very much tempered in 5 or 10 years time when you have made a little progress in the adult world.

[joji]

(10-19-2018 03:22 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

They love you; they care about you and your health. They don’t want you to do things that are extremely detrimental to your health. This is exactly how it should be, but all too rarely is. I can’t believe the number of my friends’ parents who don’t care that their children smoke, and most of my friends are turning 30. Your parents really love you, clearly, and they can’t stand by and watch you make poor decisions.

It’s mildly annoying to you to be told what to do, because you’re a ‘grown man’ and you can make your own choices - I get it, I often feel the same. But honestly you don’t know all that much, and parents can be pretty wise, especially if they have kept a family together and raised a bright son to be an engineer. Every time my parents try, very mildly really (just like yours) to influence my behaviour, it annoys me - so I understand the frustration. But you should allow for the possibility that their love is really a very big deal, has implications for your life that you probably can’t even begin to fathom yet, and that you are not as ready as you might think to be entirely autonomous - if such a thing is even really desirable.

I look back on things I have written on here over the years, things I was certain about, or opinions I was confident in, and can’t believe some of the silly things I felt and said - one or two even got lots of likes (and plenty of those guys would probably be embarrassed now to think that they’d liked such posts). It takes a lot longer than you think, if such a day does even come, before it’s desireable to entirely cast off the hold your parents have on you.

I know it’s hard because you are very young to feel any differently, but if you tried to list reasons that you would encourage someone you love and care for to take up smoking (and especially something as negative as weed) it would probably be a very short list. The list of reasons against is obviously fairly long. Equally, I suspect that if either of your parents adopted a habit that was very harmful to them, you would probably try to discourage them too, perhaps even quite strongly and emotionally.

I understand the frustration, and it is perfectly normal and healthy. But it is a very rare gift to have been well brought up by loving and sensible parents, much rarer than people really appreciate. It will probably do more for you in your life than intelligence or any other gift you may have. The frustration you feel now will, I suspect, be very much tempered in 5 or 10 years time when you have made a little progress in the adult world.

Thanks for this post, this made me view the whole point from different perspective. Yes I agree, for sure they love me, same as I love them.

I also agree tobacco is bad, and after this I think I will end it.

But also, the way my mother discovered that I smoke is that she found out an empty cigarettes box inside my gym bag when I was out of home. She always have this bad habit of looking my stuff at an age she shouldn't be doing this. As same as it is wrong for me to smoke it's wrong for her to do what she did. I did not mention this when I discussed with them but I consider this lack of basic privacy and respect inside a family. I never touched any of their stuff and didn't expect them to look at mine.

[H1N1]

I’d be guessing, but I suspect she still does your laundry and was looking for dirty stuff in the bag (I bet she found some too, my mum would if she looked).

I see from your profile you’re from Ukraine. The blessing of a family like yours is even greater than I had appreciated. I know almost nothing about you, but being an engineer here, whose parents haven’t fucked him up or held him back by their own terrible habits, when most of the male population is a complete disaster, is really an extraordinary position to be in. I will confidently predict that 20 years from now you will be enjoying the life of the top 1%, assuming you don’t go down the path of smoking weed and the concomitant loserdom that invariably attaches to it, or the heavy drinking that grips so many men here. Most of your male countrymen really are consigned to lives of quiet desperation from the moment they are born. You have won your country’s lottery. I say this as someone who lives in Ukraine and loves the country. Your mother’s intrusion is really very minor and understandable, as frustrating as I know it can be. In a country like this, with a start like yours, someone has given you the ball with a clear run on goal and an empty net. There are so few people here who can compete with what you’ve been given, it would be a particular tragedy to screw it up.

[NoMoreTO]

To me its outside of their rights at this point. You're an adult, if you want to make dumb decisions with your health that's your call. Granted they do have the right to kick you out.

If you want to smoke, just smoke, if they catch you say you're addicted and trying to quit.

With respect to smoking weed, I can get if they don't want a high son in their house - this is a form of intoxication so I get their point values wise.

[porscheguy]

You live in their house, you live by their rules. Especially when you’re spending their money.

Smoking cigarettes is not good for your health. You may not feel the negative affects of it because you’re a young man. Trust me when I say that shit will catch up with you.

Smoking weed is also not good for you. It promotes a lifestyle of sloth and gluttony. And weed smokers can be really fucking annoying with their incessant pleas of “it’s my right.” They almost remind me of vegans.

Give this shit up. In the long run, you’ll be happy you did.

[BBinger]

(10-21-2018 11:32 AM)porscheguy Wrote:  

You live in their house, you live by their rules. Especially when you’re spending their money.

Smoking cigarettes is not good for your health. You may not feel the negative affects of it because you’re a young man. Trust me when I say that shit will catch up with you.

Smoking weed is also not good for you. It promotes a lifestyle of sloth and gluttony. And weed smokers can be really fucking annoying with their incessant pleas of “it’s my right.” They almost remind me of vegans.

Give this shit up. In the long run, you’ll be happy you did.

The health drag from smoking tobacco is also such a slow thing that its hard to notice the effect of any one cigarette or any single pack, but it ads up. It shits up your body gradually. Thankfully there's a number of ways to go about putting yourself into a mindset to do the cold turkey thing on nicotine (because vapes are indeed pussy sticks). The effect of the nicotine on your circulatory system is the really nasty health effect. Everybody makes a big deal out of the lung stuff, but nicotine is a powerful vascular constrictor. Over time it makes it harder for enough oxygenated blood to get to all the places that need it.

The weed is something where if you do it infrequently during social gatherings it might not be problematic. It really messes up your abilities during acute intoxication, and it can keep the brain a bit slowed for the next day or two. Those D.A.R.E. classes were wrong about smoking weed once fucking up you life, it usually just fucks up one day. But if you smoke weed every day, that adds up to fucking up your life. That and with it going legal everywhere it just isn't cool anymore. It's a sorta alt-beer without the digestive effects that tend to cap individual drinking sessions. The outlaw cool appeal is completely gone.

Not to mention chronic cannabis intoxication is linked to all sorts of gender weird. In short if you smoke consistent, mellow and mild cartel brick weed once or twice a month, that's probably not a problem. If you smoke Bubba Kush three hits followed by a six hour coma shit even weekly, that's a problem. And if you are smoking weed it had better be in joints you roll yourself that show some pride and craftsmanship. Anyone can load up a water dildo, but if you can consistently turn a rock of Paraguay brick weed and a thin rice paper into an artful single time intoxication device... that's the only cool left with legal-moving weed.

If you do have to pick one smoking to keep, infrequent marijuana use is probably the better route. Also unlike tobacco, you can smoke a joint, put the habit down for a while and then smoke another joint years later without relapsing into an active addiction. Nicotine isn't that kind. The withdrawal is mild enough to sleep through 8 hours a day, but the craving get interpreted with the same priority as hunger so mindset is key to staying off tobacco. The Allen Carr "Easyway" book is good for building the right mindset, even if you've ridden through withdrawal.