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JohnnyBeach

Might Stick Around
May 21, 2024
97
53
Bangor, Maine
I smoke a pipe once or twice a week in nice weather (I only smoke outside) to monthly or not at all during winter in Alaska.

I would cautiously say that genetics probably has more to do with your body’s tolerance to tobacco and long life than the anti-smoking crowd would readily admit. My dad smoked a pipe a lot from his teens to his 50s and lived to 89. His dad smoked a pipe for over 80 years and died at 94.
I smoked cigars once or twice a week from the 1970s to the 1990s and then started smoking a pipe as well. Sometime around 2010 I quit cigars and only smoked pipes. I smoke mild aromatics for the most part and find the pipes leave little to no “morning tobacco breath;” the cigars always did. But it’s possible that if I’d never smoked a cigar, and started smoking a pipe, I would be more conscious of the taste in my mouth after the smoke.

Anyway, I find smoking a pipe while I’m walking the dog, or fishing, doing yard work, bird-watching or hiking enhances my enjoyment of those events. I’m pretty confident that with moderate use, pipe smoking will not be a major factor in your longevity, though you may find your life more enjoyable for it.
I have finally got my favorite bent stem briar fairly well caked and no longer experience tongue bite from it. I smoke usually 2 regular bowls and one small bowl in a virgin briar from Peretti, each day. My wife forbids smoking in her presence so it's an outdoor or In-the-car activity for me.
I once smoked 3 packs a day for about 30 years. Lucky to be alive today. I quit smoking altogether in 1990 but have recently begun the pipe again. It is not as addictive as cigarettes so I am happy.
 

WirelessSmoke

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jul 14, 2024
152
2,311
New England
I probably average 3-4 bowls a week, 10 months into my pipe smoking journey. On the days I smoke it's usually one a day. Rarely have I had a chance to smoke two in one day, but it has happened. Some weeks I didn't have a bowl at all. Lately the weather has been great here, so I'm on my longest roll of 11 days in a row. It'll be twelve in a row if I have one later today. I do enjoy cooler weather so with fall around the corner I may be enjoying a pipe more often. I'm not concerned about what everyone else is doing, I just enjoy a pipe as I see fit for my way of life.
 
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AreBee

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 12, 2024
701
3,880
Farmington, Connecticut USA
Long time cigar smoker, and I've been smoking a pipe for about six months now. I like to get in a smoke in the morning and/or at lunchtime on my work from home days. When I have more time at night, that's usually when I plop down by the fire pit with a cigar. If the fire pit is still burning and I have a few minutes left, I'll throw in a bowl then. I'm probably smoking 5-10 bowls a week to go along with 1-3 cigars per week. As an outdoor smoker only, I'm sure I will be smoking much less as the New England weather turns colder.
 
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Hutch Piper

(Hutch1904)
Mar 12, 2022
298
2,543
Charlotte, NC
1-2 bowls per day for me.

I highly recommend Hobbiton Piper’s most recent video on YouTube titled “Smoke With Me Pipe Smoking Health Risks?”
It’s very informative and touches on all the nuances to this question.
 

Roach1

Lifer
Nov 25, 2023
1,237
17,086
Germany
I usally smoke 3 to 4 bowls a day but is down to 1 or 2 lately. I also vape and am trying to get away from that and smoke more pipes. Probably smoking less because of the hot weather. My pipe smoking is limitiert to the kitchen in the house.
 
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Dec 11, 2021
1,635
8,378
Fort Collins, CO
I have a smoke every evening after dinner is cleaned up and kids are ready for bed. On my three work days per week, that’s usually it. On my days off, I’ll usually have two, SOMETIMES three bowls. Any more than three and my palate gets pooped out. I don’t actually enjoy the extra bowls, I’m more just smoking out of boredom at that point.
 

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
16,662
31,237
46
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
I'm curious about the general pipe smoking habits of others.

I have friends who smoke a handful of times a week. Others only occasionally, and others daily or multiple times a day.

If I could post a voting question: how often do you smoke a pipe?

Since I've been entertaining the smoking hobby, I've gone very slowly from a rare smoker to a weekly smoker. I smoke once or twice a week at most. I figure any more than that and I will have regrets as an older gentleman...


Yet there are those in my family who smoked unfiltered cigarettes starting at age six and lived into their upper 80s. So idk... maybe they were lucky?
How cancer has been explained to me by an oncologist. Every time a cell reproduces it's got a better chance of going cancerous. A person has a genetic disposition which says how many times that refresh can happen before the coding in the cell goes bad. If you smoke cigarettes for example you make that process happen more often then if you didn't. So if your personal limit is really high smoking isn't going to give you cancer but if it's in the middle you will have a good chance of getting cancer that either you'd never have gotten (because the cells wouldn't have been damaged and had to be replaced as often) without a carcinogenic whatnot. It's not that something causes cancer as much as it dramatically speeds up it's arrival, sometimes timing makes a huge difference. In fact some people will never get cancer in certain organs no matter how many times they replace it.
So yes lucky indeed.
I wouldn't mind smoking more if it weren't for the unappealing smoker's breath I have to endure for the better part of the following day.
So to the original question. I smoke about two to three pipe loads a day during the working week. With an occasional one or two on the weekend (not per day). That said if I am home and not using my hands actively I sniff nasal snuff and if I am using my hands (working, painting, playing video games) I dip or snus. Pretty much constantly I am doing one or the other. Nicotine is a god send for me helps keep me even.
 

Skippy B. Coyote

Can't Leave
Jun 19, 2023
451
5,619
St. Paul, MN
I smoke 2 or 3 bowls a day usually. If your blend of choice is leaving an aftertaste or smell on your breath for the next day and a half then you're smoking too hot and need to slow down and sip the pipe more gently so you don't scald the flavor of the tobacco into your tongue. If you can slow down and get the tobacco burning cooler you'll have no lingering breath effects at all after smoking.
 

WerewolfOfLondon

Part of the Furniture Now
Jun 8, 2023
522
1,727
London
Two bowls a day. In these summer months I'll start with a bright virginia, such as McB Full, Peterson Flake, and Germain Medium. Second bowl will be a red, stone fruit, perhaps Solani Silver, or F&T Special Brown Flake.

In the colder months I tend to drop the bright virginias out, and instead start with the reds, before a second bowl of something with burley, such as Dockworker, or McB Navy. This can also be swapped out for a Ken forward blend such as Night Slices, or a perenial fave, St Bruno.

If I'm having a drink, I like something with a good nic wallop, Irish flake, Jamaican Flake,or if I can scoff it down, some 1792. If I'm in the pub having drink, I just smoke fags for convenience, which I can say I fully hate.

Smoke perhaps two or three cigars a year, which I have to say, I just don't get the appeal (just like I don't get the appeal of latakia, or increasingly, lakelands).
 

Grimlineman

Might Stick Around
Nov 14, 2023
59
112
Georgia
I been smoking less than a year so still finding my groove and what I like. On average probably 3-5 bowls a week. Sometimes I’ll smoke 4 bowls in one day other times will go a week or so without any. Just depends on my mood and what else I got going on that week.
 
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OzPiper

Lifer
Nov 30, 2020
6,751
36,401
72
Sydney, Australia
I wouldn't mind smoking more if it weren't for the unappealing smoker's breath I have to endure for the better part of the following day.
Unfortunately very real. Much worse with cigarettes, in my opinion.

Many years ago (when I had stopped smoking altogether for a number of years) I met up with a friend.
She leant forward to give me a peck on the cheek, only for me to recoil involuntarily because of the strong stench of stale cigarette smoke on her breath and clothes.

Obviously a pipe smoker now, and a cigar smoker for years.
But I am still very intolerant of stale cigarette smells cray
 
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