I am the nicotine prophet!

As an ex-smoker, I'm not judgmental, but I've become really intolerant. For whatever reason after quitting, smoke really bothers me a lot now. I think I have an allergic reaction or something. Other ex-smokers experience the same thing?

There is nothing more virtuous than a reformed whore.

I started smoking in high school, before the first Surgeon General's report on it (by the way, that Surgeon General, Luther Terry, was one of my neighbors--nice man). In those days, everyone smoked in gay bars, which was where I did most of my cruising, so the volume of second-hand smoke was almost as dangerous as active smoking. I finally stopped because I got sick of the smell and ash sticking to everything in my home. Years after I stopped, I spent a New Year's Eve in a packed cellar bar in Glasgow, and when I got back to the flat and pulled my sweater up over my head, I almost passed out from the tobacco smell it created. Now I try to avoid venues where smoking is allowed, which I'm happy to say are pretty minimal here in California.

As an ex-smoker, I'm not judgmental, but I've become really intolerant. For whatever reason after quitting, smoke really bothers me a lot now. I think I have an allergic reaction or something. Other ex-smokers experience the same thing?

You are correct that exsmokers find second hand smoke very irritating in both a physical and psychological bent.

I started smoking the same week of the original Surgeon General's warning. Yeah, I know not my smartest moment but I was a high school kid surrounded with smoking parents and brother, not mention peers -- probably the most important influence.

I smoked off and on in fits and starts for seven or eight years, quitting each time the cigarette tax went up. I quit for good when I got married at age 25 -- good being almost 30 years.

I stupidly started again in my 50s when I started spending time in MTL strip clubs, spending quality time with smoking escorts and having a boyfriend half my age who smoked. Just sort of slipped into it. Eventually, not too long, a year or so, I shed myself of boyfriend, cut back on hiring and strip clubs and quit smoking again. Of all my times quitting it was the hardest but not monumentally difficult (Luckily, I have always been able to quit without tremendous difficulty.)

I'm finally done with it. Neither love nor money nor cute bouncing asses and flopping dicks on stage will rekindle my desire for cigarettes -- although I might still entertain a good Cuban cigar and snifter of Cognac with the right guy should the opportunity arise.

I can't go more than a half our without putting something in my mouth and sucking on it. So I either need a male harem or a pack of cigs.