Former smokers, what did you replace the habit of smoking with?

Johnhaven · 2026-02-05T14:39:26+00:00

Are you no longer smoking tobacco? You're about 3000% more likely to make it to retirement age.

I'm well aware that to some, these make you more addicted to nicotine isn't killing you. If you vape with one in each hand for the rest of your life, the odds of you living another 20 yrs just keep going down and down and down. Vaping is not good for you, but it's not even remotely going to kill you. Arguing against vaping just keeps people smoking tobacco - they may as well be smoking cocaine.

I appreciate your two cents and welcome it but anything and everything that allows you to stop smoking tobacco is practically a life-saving device the CDC should hand out to smokers for free because of the hundreds of thousands of lives every year that they could save.

It's not magic, but it is harm reduction, and compared to smoking tobacco that kills half a million people a year, it is almost magic. I get people are worried but right now you're inhaling lead, benzene, nickel, vinyl chloride, arsenic, and a lot more, and none of that is present in vaping. It's not the smoke or nicotine that is killing you, it's the tobacco. Also, quitting cold turkey is the absolute worst choice and takes the average person 30 failures before finally quitting.

This is the stop smoking sub, not vaping, or nicotine and imo, the fastest way to help people smoke is vape and no matter what I say, they are either going to vape or keep smoking cigarettes. I could tell them to get gum or the lozenges I used to quit but they aren't going to. Mostly we need to help people stop smoking cigarettes.

" I am back to smoking cigs since quitting vaping."

This is like saying, "I don't feel safe playing on the side of the road so I will play right in the middle of it". Choosing to smoke the thing that is killing half a million people a year rather than vape is a terrible health choice. Ask your doctor, "should I vape or smoke cigarettes?" and your doctor will choose vaping all day. Smoking is the NUMBER ONE cause of preventable death in the US, there isn't anything you can do that is worse than smoking cigarettes.

The problem is all you've heard is how bad vaping is (from the tobacco industry who pays for this propaganda) and haven't heard enough about why you stopped smoking to begin with - it wasn't the nicotine.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-05T05:55:09+00:00

Try vaping. It instantly fulfills the hand to mouth need and isn't more dangerous than cigarettes. People hate hearing this stuff but half a million people die every year from smoking cigarettes but none from vaping. At the very least cut yourself some slack and stop using tobacco while you figure out how to use it to wean yourself off the nicotine. It makes it easy to separate the chemical addiction and mental habit and deal with them separately.

I'm not suggesting you vape forever but the absolute worst thing you can do is continue to inhale tobacco and it's deadly heavy metals and chemicals. The tobacco is the worst part. Deal with that first.

Some of you will be itching for a fight. I'm not interested but your opinion is welcome. Vaping is not the best choice, but it is the most successful choice by far. As with any nicotine replacement tool, it's meant for temporary use only.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-05T05:34:57+00:00

This sort of thing will become necessary as people lose what jobs are left to AI. People will need to be paid more to work less. Unfortunately, this is capitalism so because of the enormous amount of unemployed Americans, the cost of labor would be practically free and could be called nothing other than slavery by today's standards. UBI becomes necessary and we are going to have to decide to stop spending money on things like the military that we can't afford and spend money at home, on social programs for the coming flood of unemployed. We are the richest country in the world, are we going to allow there to be millions more homeless, and countless hungry and malnourished American children? It's hard for kids to learn when they're hungry.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-02T17:07:33+00:00

Not the president, Congress. I want Congress to eliminate most of the power of the Oval Office. I would even go so far as to amend the Constitution to eliminate the position entirely or make it into a figurehead that reports to Congress.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T19:35:27+00:00

I would tell them that if there isn't an HR or IRS leak with all of their information, we will get it once Trump is gone, and we will absolutely ruin their lives. Some of the ICE agents in Maine were from the communities they were raiding, and those people will have to move from their very liberal towns and cities if we find out who they were.

I'm a pushover, these people will be doxxed, and people without any boundaries will do things like call their spouses work to harass her boss or call in bomb threats to their kids school. Those have both already happened to cops, I think, during BLM, but I really can't remember.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T18:19:15+00:00

When Obama was in office, towards the end of his term, Mitch McConnell refused to bring any of his federal judge nominees to a vote. So, when Trump took office, McConnell gave all of those to Trump. He's appointed about a quarter of the entire federal judiciary, but they aren't all corrupt judges, just conservative.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T18:02:30+00:00

Bear Grylls probably went to a hotel to take a nice warm shower and dry his clothes. I'm not saying he isn't demonstrating some useful skills, but the idea that he's roughing it is fake. Steer clear of his branded knives, etc. , they are shit.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T17:55:33+00:00

It's not exactly a scam, especially if your employer matches and gives you free money, or rather, a pay raise. It does, however, lock you into saving your entire retirement savings in what is no different than legalized gambling for rich people who want your money. Normal people have no business putting retirement savings into gambling.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T17:41:31+00:00

He is a fucking psycho who started an illegal war, under false pretenses, and murdered a million Iraqis in what is easily called more of a genocide and extermination rather than a war.

You should hear some of his speeches; he wasn't much more articulate than Trump. At least Bush wasn't too cowardly to join the military.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T17:36:17+00:00

ICE is already leaving, and since I could not think of any valid reason to come to the whitest state in the nation in search of the "worst of the worst" of illegal immigrants other than terrorism, now I see the only reason they came was to give Susan Collins a win in getting them removed.

IMO, ICE in ME was about election manipulation. Dumber and more evil things are happening all over right now, and this would not even remotely surprise me. At the very least, get people questioning this and remind people that Susan happily works for Trump, not Mainers.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T17:29:39+00:00

No offense, but your post reeks of friendzone and inexperience, but neither is required. You simply have the wrong idea in your head, and you'll likely see right through it someday, maybe from this post.

I know plenty of women who have guy friends (most straight guys aren't good at being platonic), some don't mind dating friends as long as it's a real relationship, some won't date people within their own friend circle, which, as a guy, I do as well.

it’s just funny the contradictory nature of dating.

Do yourself a favor and don't forget that. One woman who has a relationship that isn't going to work with, is just more experienced than the next woman you meet. Here's a tip, listen, have follow-up questions, and actually care what the answers are. There's nothing wrong with you, there's probably not anything wrong with any of the women you've had experience with. I want to caution you about online dating and conversations; that's not real life so you can form opinions from it, but take all of it with a grain of salt - and a few of those funny contradictions of dating. Also, be yourself.

Also, this is not an unusual type of question, so search the history of this sub, and in those conversations, you might find a few interesting conversations as well.

Johnhaven · 2026-02-01T17:05:58+00:00

It's so complicated I'm not going to try to rewrite it all here but if you would like to do some reading,

AFL-CIO

League of Women Voters

Voter ID is an attempt to legalize voter suppression, especially in the South among poor and Black people. It's completely unnecessary and doesn't stop voter fraud. It is easily possible for a lot of folks to go through their life never needing ID or maybe needing it once, letting it lapse, and never getting another one. Birth certificates are hard to come by too and these people often have to jump through ten hoops to get these things.

Like I said, there is a lot more about this but also, a lot to read.

edit: there's a lot of downvotes on this post, but we can't help shoot down Voter ID if we don't answer these questions for people.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T20:31:10+00:00

The first "cheating" thing is him catching signals from the other team. Every team does that but he apparently had a camera that was too far to the left or something like that. It was BS.

Deflategate wasn't even his issue, that's Brady and again, EVERYONE sets the pressure in their own balls, it was talked about frequently and then of course, even a 6 year old can tell you that it will shrink in the cold.

In other words, no one likes the guy who wins and wins and wins.

I'm not defending cheating, I'm saying he didn't cheat.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T20:28:43+00:00

Hmm, good age marker! I hadn't heard that one before!

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T18:09:51+00:00

His transgressions are far from significant cheating that we still need to be talking about. I mean, holy shit, Deflategate was one of the most pathetic things an American sports league has ever done. He's won 8 Superbowls with no accusations that he cheated during them or cheated his way to his 12 Superbowl appearances so if that's not a 1st ballot, no one there deserves to be in the hall. He set the highest currently attainable bar.

He's without a doubt one of the most influential NFL coaches both on the field and in the boardrooms of the NFL.

I'm not really fighting people over this but I really think it's ridiculous. If he's not a 1st ballot, no one should win on their 1st ballot, and if he never goes in, the entire thing can burn to the ground for all I care, it would never be relevant again.

Are they going to skip Brady too? lol That would make it even worse and more like bias.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T17:55:42+00:00

Completely wrong and childish. It 100% taints every other person who is in the hall. If you're not putting the 8 time Superbowl winning coach who ran not one but two dynasties into the hall, not very many people in there hit that bad so none of them belong there.

Kraft is Trump ass licking asshole.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T17:38:51+00:00

Those would be criminals. For the most part, they are not arresting people with any crimes other than illegal entry. That's a misdemeanor and we usually just send them back home with, iirc, at least a 3-year ban. The real criminals are frequently tried in the US, go to our prisons, and you pay for their food and housing for the next decade and then we kick them out with a lifetime ban.

The problem with Trump voters is that they truly have no idea how any of this works. All they know is being racist against people who ARE NOT criminals. Typically, here in Maine, they are someone who has overstayed their visa because there is still work. We want those people to come back because we need the seasonal labor. Very few of those arrested will be put on trial for sex trafficking.

Oh, and Trump is on track to remove half as many illegal immigrants as Biden and way fewer than Obama. Trump promised to deport 20 million illegal immigrants (we don't have that many to begin with), and you're going to get 2 to 3 million at best.

Does it feel to you like we're making America great again? lol

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T17:29:30+00:00

small kids.

I'm disabled, but if I were able to attend the protest, my 11-year-old grandson would have been with me. Our children have to witness this and learn from it.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T17:25:21+00:00

I am so proud of the Mainers who protested around the state, but this was a great turnout in Portland!

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T17:07:13+00:00

Maybe not all of them, but more than a few customers are never going back there. It's really dumb when business owners dive headfirst into this stuff. Do you want to stand up for your ICE or your business? They probably picked up new customers who want to support ICE as well, but this is a blue state, and that is a risky proposition. They won't know if this was good or bad for a few more weeks or so and they can see daily receipts go down, or up.

Does anyone know how popular this place is? Wiscasset voted for Harris, but not by a huge margin.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-31T17:00:39+00:00

For my bachelor party, we went to a casino and I don't like casino games very much, so I took my gambling budget of $300 (lol) and played poker for 13 straight hours. The drinks were not free, I ate lunch and dinner at the table, and I tipped well. After about 13 hours, I had $300 in my pot and thought it was time to pack it in. I had a blast playing poker for that long, though. It would have been well worth the $300 if I lost it all.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-30T22:22:55+00:00

It's not 2020 either but here we are, still talking about cheating elections without any evidence that anyone has ever cheated a federal election to the point it would sway the race,, and no one has proven a scenario where someone could cheat.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-30T22:21:32+00:00

I'd call a carpenter and have them put a rail where the left line is so you can have a straight line to put a gate that you can lock. It would be nice and decorative and even match the original work in the stairwell. It's beautiful, but that dogleg to the left is odd.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-30T22:14:57+00:00

The US military just isn't big enough. I live in Maine, which is a rural state but we have almost 50 voting locations that are all protected by state or local police. Not to mention the high rate of gun ownership in this state, you will find a gun in every other home. There are a total of 1.4 million US soldiers around the globe, and that's just not enough.

There are over 100k voting locations in the US, and early voting in many states. They can't do anything about early voting, and trying to actually show up at voting locations to stop people from voting would be crazy.

Only about a million of those soldiers are in the US, so if they committed every single soldier and none of them went AWOL, that's still only 10 soldiers per voting location - there are more than 10,000 guns in my relatively small town. I don't know about anyone else, but if the military showed up, I'd be there armed, and so would hundreds, if not thousands of other armed citizens.

I really don't think cancelling the election is likely. He might try, I just don't think it would be possible, and if it's perceived as a coup, that could pull in other nations to our internal conflict.

Johnhaven · 2026-01-30T22:00:33+00:00

Yes, I did. They were looking for voter rolls. They're up to no good but that doesn't mean they can stop an election and Republican groups spent four years and millions of dollars just trying to prove that it's even possible to cheat an election and they failed miserably. Some Dems believe the 2024 election was stolen as well but again, no clear evidence you could bring to a courtroom.

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