Started out at 13 smoking whatever I could shoplift from the counter at the convenience store. I was something of a delinquint.
At some point I started smoking Winston Lights because I had a friend I really respected and that's what he smoked. This was back when they still sold cigarettes to minors, no questions asked.
Over the course of the years, I remember smoking Winston Regulars, Marlboro Reds, and finally, Marlboro Lights. I believed (like every smoker wants to) that the "Light" designator somehow made them less harmful. But, like Joel points out, the lower nicotine levels delivered only served to make me smoke more to get up to the level of serum nicotine that made me feel "normal."
Of course, there were times when I couldn't get my favorite flavor, so I would smoke whatever was available for sale or whatever I could bum off the other smokers around me. Except for menthol. I could never bring myself to smoke a menthol cigarette even if I was in serious withdrawl. Kools, Salem, Marlboro Menthols, etc made me puke whenever I tried to smoke them.
I smoked Marlboro Reds for the longest time, but switched to Lights at the urging of my wife who didn't like how much I had started coughing. Smoked Lights up to the day I quit.
Thanks for everything Joel and all my Freedom brothers and sisters.
NTAP!!
Beavis
quit three years and six months ago.