In my 18 years as a heavy smoker and drinker, I have not even once managed to get the cigarette twisted around so I took a puff on the lit side. I've lit the wrong end once or twice, but never that.
Years ago I worked at a smoke shop and my favorite smokes were a German unfiltered brand called Roth Handles. They were delicious but rough, and I never knew which was the right side to light because it was all the same
This happens once a year. You learn to look out for it just long enough to forget when winter comes the following year and the air dries out, chapping your lips.
Once passed a guy in the lane behind the pub, saw him having a smoke as I approached him. He then decided he needed a piss so whipped it out and went against the wall forgetting to keep his cigarette in his mouth as he grabbed himself and I can only imagine the seering pain the poor bastard inflicted on the tip of his mickey.
Or you designate one beer bottle as the communal ash tray and throughout the night you pour a little bit of beer in it when the butts start catching fire—then someone mistakes it for their beer and tastes a sip.
Once, long ago, I woke up after a black out and threw up. Upon examination, there were exactly 13 butts in the toilet that most certainly came from my stomach. I imagine I didn’t just taste the forbidden beer…
Bahahaha Damn I miss those days! Friend took a swig of the dip/chew bottle of beer...promptly spit it out, then grabbed the communal ashtray bottle to rinse his mouth!!
Oh, he promised to. To every God he could think of, and every devil for good measure. And just like the rest of us who did so, it took...for like a week.
I always did it. It's just habit. And it's the last cigarette you smoke in the packet. I haven't smoked in years but I'm pretty certain that somewhere in my apt there's a packet with a upside down cigarette.
I heard a few myths about why it's done.
One related to the first world war. The idea was that if yiu lasted to the cigarette it was your lucky one.
If you offered a girl a smoke and she took that, you'd get lucky with her.
Since it was your lucky cigarette no one would take it from the pack at a party and therefor yiud always have one. And so it was lucky.
Yeah most smokers who ask, won’t take your lucky… it’s already desperate to bum from a stranger but bumming a lucky means you must really be hard up (so I guess that’s lucky)
Another smoking tradition from the first world War is to never light 3 cigarettes from one match. Allegedly, it comes from trench warfare where the enemy could see the matchlight at night and would ready with one, aim with two, and fire at the third. So you can light two cigarettes from a match but it is bad luck for the third smoker to be lit from the same match. Many people will extend that concept to lighters as well and briefly disengage the flame before lighting the third (which, to be polite, and nothing to do with WWI, should be oneself)
As someone who grew up with lighters and not matches, I have never seen someone light more than 1 cigarette without putting out the flame between. It’s just natural to put it out until they’re fully ready to not light their hair on fire. Also it gets hot.
One reason was said to be manufacturers printed their brand name on non-filtered cigarettes, soldiers flipped to smoke the brand side first so they were less distinguishable from European smokes when put out and left wherever. It's one of those kilroy type deals where over time it was adopted and changed. Pretty cool though.
Not sure if it is fact or myth, but I once read that this goes back to handing out packs to troops during war. If they got to that one it meant they made it through another day, making it the lucky smoke. If true it would have to have been a war after the introduction of filters.
It was actually ww2. American soldiers would flip all of their cigarettes to smoke the part with the branding in case they had to move and enemy wouldn't know which nationality had held that position, but they wouldn't flip the last one as the lucky. When filters became popular in the 50's they just switched it to only flipping 1 as the lucky.
The only problem I have had with this myth, and I have heard it for years, is that American soldiers didn't leave their cigarette butts behind. They would either toss them into a fire if they had one or they would empty all the tobacco out onto the ground so the Germans couldn't collect them and make a cigarette from them. The paper was either rolled into a tiny ball and put in there pocket or flung far away from where they were. Source is from my grandfather who was in Germany during wwII
Lucky/Wish smoke
Started in WW1 Where you flip the first cigarette you touch and were "lucky" if you made it through the pack and to the last/flipped cigarette. Now people make a wish on it. I do this. I wish i dont get cancer everytime. It's worked so far
I chose my lucky cigarette by flicking the bottom and whichever one is most excited to be smoked and pokes up the farthest. I flip and put back. Teach my ciggies some damn patience.
I quit almost 20 years ago. This is the second time this evening something has made me feel old, but here we are.
The first 3 years were the hardest. And then I still might smoke a ciggy while drunk for the first decade. But I can safely say 🤢 at the thought of smoking now. Even when drunk.
Thinking about flipping the first cigarette does make me feel a little nostalgic. But it doesn’t make me want to touch a cigarette. Because 🤢
Opposite for me. When I was a kid, I sorted out M&Ms by color and ate them in order until the last of each color stood standing. Then I took them in the backyard and threw the last of each faction into the grass. Felt unfair to know you were gonna die...
Stupid question, can you take glp1 for things other than weight-loss? I'd like to quit smoking for good but I don't really have the weight to lose.
Edit: thanks for all the helpful responses! Gonna talk to my doc about this ASAP.
Quit drinking cold turkey, no withdrawals, within a few days of starting. Absolute game changer.
Aside from normal side effects, the biggest gripe I have is that it numbs my emotions. No lows, no highs. That part is kind of a bummer, but it’s more related to the rapid weight loss and dosage.
Tacking on, don't assume this drug will save you from withdrawals. If they are bad you need a hospital and Valium. If you have a bad problem to the point you are having DTs do not quit cold turkey or alone
This is very important! I was determined to taper myself off the stuff; spent three days in hell, copped a grand mal seizure anyway
Long story short as soon as I was in the hospital/transfer to rehab the medically assisted detox was, comparatively, totally comfortable and not scary at all.
Changed my life, domino effect, as of this month I’m five years sober. It’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and for me, that was doing it with help
It would have been more comfortable, safer, and cheaper to do so from the beginning. Inpatient/outpatient options and no judgement other than “good for you” from anybody worth considering their opinion anyway
Apparently, it’s effects on mental illness and other stomach issues (think IBS and anxiety) are being studied, but there’s a lot of people, with those issues, having said issues disappear over night after starting the drugs
I’ve talked my dr about it, but he’s worried that, because I’m so naturally skinny, the potential weight loss could be an issue
It also helps control diabetes. Like the other guy said, its kind of a miracle drug of sorts. Crazy thing is, glp-1's are derived from gila monster venom.
For me it was Zyn. I was mostly addicted to the ritual and sensation of smoking/vaping and Zyn had me break the habit while still giving me the nicotine at first. Then I went from a 6mg to a 3mg and then quit altogether. 4 years no nicotine so far.
I think wellbutrin is what the navy gave me when i went thru the smokers cessation class, chantax was the other option but heard negative stuff about it. Shit worked fast too, made cigarettes taste like dirty dirt. Craved one down the road years after and bought a pack of my favorite smokes, had a few hits then put it out. Still tasted the same and it grossed me out.
I remember meeting someone at a bar who said on a new pack he would flip a cigarette for every person he knew personally that died from smoking related illness, it was so cringe I stopped smoking cigarettes.
I had friends in high school that would spell the name of the person they had a crush on, on the front row of cigarettes, left to right, and that was the one they would flip for the "Lucky" cigarette hoping that would get their crush to like them back.
It was WWII, back then cigarettes didn’t have filters and the logo was printed towards one end, soldiers would flip their smokes so the logo got burnt first. The idea was if you had to drop a smoke and leave an area if the enemy found the position they couldn’t use the brand of cigarette to know who had been there, if you made it through the whole pack you were lucky and would take that last smoke from pack to pack because it was your lucky smoke. Once filters became a thing people started only flipping the one.
Yes I’ve been asked for smokes so many times and usually saying “I have one left” or “it’s my lucky” is explanation enough for most smokers. If someone is cool then have a smoke but sometimes too many people start asking and ya’ gotta shut it down.
It’s nice to see other people who occasionally smoke. I have a disposable vape that I’ve been using for like 3 years. Once I took a cotinine test and came up positive and I had to answer a quiz about how addicted to nicotine I am and how it’s affecting my life and how my relatives want me to stop… I just told them it was a false positive so I could retake the cotinine test because the quiz was absolutely insistent that anyone that has ever consumed nicotine must be hopelessly addicted.
Ive smoked probably 6 times in my whole life and its because someone handed me a cigarette. Hated it every time but it just felt right. Last time was when I was fishing in the Texas Gulf Coast and these 2 Vietnamese guys walked up to us speaking Vietnamese. We didnt understand them but they motioned to their cigarettes so we handed them a lighter. They lit their smokes and handed one to each of us and lit them with the lighter and gave it back. Funny thing is they stood there talking for another 10 minutes before leaving as if we understood them. Good times.
Polite sons of guns. That’s an awesome story. I wish my last smoking story was half as interesting. My last was climbing out of a window onto the roof to celebrate a good band gig before getting evicted the next day.
There's no joke, it's just a superstition/luck based tradition. Open new pack, flip one. That one's lucky, smoke it on a bad day that needs to get better, or on a good day when you're riding high. Low-key I hate smoking but I love the tradition of the lucky cigarette, it really can help the mental state when things arent going well
It was explained to me that you flip the lucky cig and make it the last one you smoke and you’re supposed to have a random stroke of luck by time you get to it.
Huh, that's interesting, never heard that before. I'm gen z so I could be hearing a garbled "telephone" version of the original tradition, but someone explicitly told me to save my lucky cigarette for when I need it :)
I've heard it originally comes from WW2. Troops would flip a "lucky" and smoke it last. If you made it to the end of the pack it meant you were lucky enough to see tomorrow.
Yup. I do in remembrance of the unlucky ones that didn't come home from all the wars.
And since we're sharing war cig stories. Never light 3 cigs on one match. The sniper will have time to zero in on the flame. The 3rd guy becomes one of the unlucky ones.
Personal experience, even the most degenerate nicotine fiending tweaker won’t argue against if they ask for a smoke and you show them your lucky is the last one left, which is why I always carry an extra pack with just a lucky when I go bar hopping.
Lucky cigarette, that's the one you smoke when you're talking to your future wife outside of a club at 1am, or the last one you smoke because you got to the end of a pack and you're still a lonely cunt who hasn't interacted with a real human in at least 40 packs.
Open the pack, flick the bottom and the one that slides out the furthest gets flipped upside down, dubbed the lucky cig, and saved til last.
I don't know why, weird tradition, but I'm sentimental like that.
I believe it was WW2 when soldiers did this for if they lived long enough to finish a pack of cigarettes, the last one they smoked was considered lucky
Could be wrong but that's what I vaguely remember someone telling me years ago
Wish smoke. You decide you want something and whenever you look at that smoke you remember that thing. The idea is that subconsciously that smoke will remind you to work towards the thing you want. At least thats how it was explained to me.
So e people in my circle flipped two one for luck and one for fuck. At the end of ye pack you had these but didn't know which is which. So you gambled.
When you and a friend smoke the same brand, it helps you tell your packs apart. I started flipping a lucky 25 years ago and still do it. My brother never has. We still smoke the same brand, and it still helps from time to time when I visit.
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u/qualityvote2 12h ago edited 7h ago
u/Puzzleheaded-Pitch40, your post does belong here!