Hey Big Jim,
I am glad your wife is not "ratting you out". Too many times, they do, thinking it is for the best.
As for the smoking thing, I have been on both sides of the fence. For 36 years, I abhorred the smell of smoke, and could not imagine why people would do that to themselves. Gee, now that I think about it, I was self righteous and smug about it, just like a JW is about other peoples beliefs!
I think for many of us who leave the borg, there is so much that we
have always been told is bad, and we (most of us) are not about to run out into the world taking drugs and sleeping around, risking death and injury from many things. So smoking, for a short while (which is what we all tell ourselves when we start) seems like a relatively harmless way to "rebel" against our restrictive upbringing. I mean, when you find out that you aren't going to live forever in a paradise earth, and you are actually going to grow old in this "system of things", cutting a few years off the end of your life doesn't seem like the unforgivable sin, know what I mean? Hell, we're ALL gonna die if we live long enough.
So basically, I am saying that smoking is not the worst thing you could be doing. We also only smoke outside because we would never want our kids to breathe it in. I have been smoking for a little over a year, and I plan to quit soon. So you people take it easy on us smokers...it is a personal choice, you know.
And Bugeye, for your "oh so sarcastic" response, I only have one thing to say:
BITE ME [8>] It is "good living" people like you who get hit by a bus standing on the street corner.
Tracy