Quit Smoking Youtube Channel

Welp, I've created a Youtube channel (Marlboro Country is no place to settle in)  loaded with  video playlists--all topics are relevant to the  tobacco industry and quitting smoking cigarettes. See link below. 

 Especially for new quitters there are two extra important playlists; success stories and encouragement.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA1gA4GwZ-ZD84pwMC8MJeQ

Have a lookey. Quitting is doable. Recovery is doable one day at a time.

With this sign, I couldn't see the truth with binoculars so I added some myself

"Stealing the Cigarette Scene"

I've added a bit of truth to this scene (shot in my locale just the other day) and also added a bit of truthiness,  as the scene was lacking something... 

It's my first stab at an art project which I will call for now "Stealing the Cigarette Scene."  So many creative possibilities.

Marlboro Country is no place to settle in

After watching Robert Proctor's lecture on youtube (see below), I stumbled upon a clear example of a point he made about today's tobacco advertising. He talked about how cigarette cubicles are bright, -- purposefully designed that way and that even the placement of the advertising and location of the surgeon generals' warning is placed carefully...

Indeed. Not long after the lecture, I was at the grocery store and noticed the surgeon general's warning was located at the top of the curve of Marlboro Country. Not surprising, but by gawd, he was right.

This important lecture has little over 2200 views--published in 2013. 

As I've blogged before, quitting smoking (never mind abolition of tobacco-though not private use) is a very unpopular. 

Huh, I wonder why? Could it be that in Marlboro Country there is no equal time for the truth?

Please watch this hour long lecture. You'll be saying, "Gawd, I didn't know that."

Robert Proctor: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition (lecture)

Published on May 22, 2013

On Friday, March 29, 2013, Dr. Robert Proctor spoke to the Johns Hopkins community about cigarettes or "the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization," and the cause for their abolition. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olnd4axewqc&index=87&list=WL

Dear Me; The letter I hated to write

As a way to shore up one's smoking cessation...

many quit smoking programs suggest writing a letter to oneself before quitting. So did NH Quits state site, my alma mater. I followed the suggestion reluctantly but I felt so stupid writing a letter to myself. Maybe the contents of the letter did not make a difference to my quitting cigarettes, but perhaps the willingness did. 

Below is a copy of that letter written almost three years ago...

No holy grail here, eh? But all the same, I quit and I got better. 
The adventure is still on.

Quitting cigarettes: not the most popular of topics

Smoking is an addiction, 

not a bad habit

I've watched and am posting yet another great Youtube video covering the true nature of cigarette addiction; this one covers how very important it is to the tobacco kings to catch the young. 

It was posted about four years ago, and  as of Sept. 7 2016  it has a meager total of 11,737 views. 

Suffice it to say, quitting cigarettes is not a highly 

popular topic. But, of course it should be.

Get 'em Young and Train 'em Right", Lecture by Dr. Robert Jackler

Quit Smoking Movie Night

Movie night at the Quit Smoking Lodge

This three part documentary on smoking and the tobacco industry  (moderated by Walter Cronkite) is an eye opener.

I'm  posting both episodes here as a movie night suggestion. I've watched the first, and will watch the second tonight.

Tobacco Wars - Episode One - Lighting Up

Tobacco Wars - Episode Two - Smokescreen

         

Tobacco wars - Episode Three - Smoked Out

Once upon a journey

The road to quitting cigarettes (a vlog about a special place and a few thoughts about addiction and quitting)

Portrait of Smoking

I Remember

This montage includes notes and records of my smoking history for over 10 years. I started counting my daily smokes when I ended up in an emergency room coughing up a lot of stuff from my lungs in Jan 2003. The doctor listened to my lungs, asked the inevitable question; Do you smoke? I said yes. He said,"You will have emphysema if you do not quit." I said nothing. But I remembered.

I quit October 2 2013...so it took about ten years from that moment in front of the doc in the emergency room to the moment that I, as it turned out, would say goodbye to the cigarettes.

I tried once in 2009 on the spur of the moment. Even bought nicorette gum. I lasted 12 hours.

I keep these quit records as reminders of my smoking life.

Moments to quit cigarettes for





























I took this pic in 2013 of a field of flowers near my house. It was along a busy route I often traveled and still do today. This particular day I was in a dense mental fog-- nearing my quit date, feeling the squeeze and feeling beyond uptight. Still, I was caught by surprise to see a crowd of thriving sunflowers by the side of the road as I drove along the highway. I had to stop. They called. (Others stopped too). After gazing and taking a few pics, I then went on my way back into the fog of quitting. 


Every now and then, I reflect on the sunflowers that charmed me into stopping.  My rear view mirror tells me  I was lucky to quit, lucky to catch the sunflowers singing when I could not.

Smoking is an addiction, becoming a nonsmoker is a journey

Smoke Break

I often go downtown, sit in my car and gesture draw referencing those I see out and about town. One day I saw this woman on smoke break at a door stoop. This (the drawing) is all I saw of her at first. She was about 20-25 years old. Puffing, looking down the street and up the street. After her smoke was finished, she stepped out onto the walk, revealing that she was pregnant. 

Note to self: smoking is an addiction, 'nuff said.

Note to self; don't forget to quit smoking

Mission Impossible

  
 I made this note as a strategy list for my tapering/quitting the cigarettes in Sept 2013. At that point, I was on my last carton, and my quit date was to arrive when the last smoke was smoked. The note is now a mile marker-- written about two years and eleven months ago.
  When I scribbled this,  I had no idea if I could/would quit--no doubt I was mentally wringing my hands, and deeply worried that would turn tail as soon as quitting got difficult. 

Yet, in spite of the stress of quitting, these days, I feel so relieved to see that I made it past my desire to quit smoking and deeper into not smoking as a way of life. Fussing and lost at times.
  There are lots of quitters just like me who felt crazy for a while. Cigarette smoking is not a simple habituation that one can so blithely walk away from; many struggle to quit and stay quit. So to those hoping they can, those new to quitting, those like me wanting to stay quit another day, "Fight for it, we can do it yes we can, if we can't do it, nobody can...hey, hey, ho, ho...fight for it, we can do it, yes...etc."

     Breath deep, onward.

  

Quitting, what's it all about, anyway?

It takes time to figure out

how to live cigarette free.

Confusion and wigginess

can run rampant. Even a 

sense of "this is not me"

or "this is not what I was

expecting" can lurk nearby,

ready to coax each one of

us back to the old and the

familiar. So easy not to try

a little longer, to get to the

store and end the discomfort.

Quite alright to be confused,

quite alright to wait til another

time to go get the cigarettes.

Just not today.

Give it time, and dig

a little deeper.

'Put the last thing first,

and the first thing last...'

How to quit smoking ... or how to get rich selling real estate ... or

Drives me bananas when I read headlines like this: "The easy way to quit smoking"...

There is no easy way to quit smoking, unless you are one of those who sees the light, are completely ready to let go, and will not look back once you quit. 

How many smokers are at this stage? Not many, maybe close to zero. 

Quitting was not the easiest thing I've ever done, but I've plodded along and gotten through the worst of it. Often I felt hopelessly addicted even though I was not smoking. There was no easy way to quit, not for me... a lobotomy might have worked...

Today I am glad I stuck with it. I still have mental pangs as if something is not quite right. The addiction lingers, and yet, I never reminisce about waking up to smoke or hacking during the night. I never think fondly about how much fun it was to plop 44 bucks down for a carton of cigarettes every ten days at the local gas station, nor do I get a warm fuzzy feeling as I recall emptying the ashtray. 

I just remember that one golden moment of having my smoke. Such is the power of smoking addiction. 

Quitting is a deeply personal journey for almost everyone. 
While it did help to watch quitters on youtube talk about there quitting,  much of the time I had to be resourceful--I felt so not up to the task! Yet, I kept not smoking. 

The willingness to quit is one thing, the sticktoitiveness is another. Honestly, I think I fell into quitting. Although, the one thing that did happen before I quit was a trigger moment.

The catalyst for this moment came about while I was figuring out if I had enough money to buy some piano supplies. It was morning and I was huddled over the kitchen table smoking, drinking coffee and adding up the cost of the supplies. By my figuring, it was not worth it to buy the parts (that was in Sept 2013). All settled. Budget wise, smart, eh?

That's when, for a split second, I understood my insanity.  $148 a month to smoke, but the piano had to wait a year for $135 worth of parts.

That split second was my wing and prayer. After that I planned my quitting which was a process of tapering off over a period of two and a half weeks. During those weeks I practiced not picking up a smoke at times when I felt upset. I specifically made this effort because it seemed my weakest point...a place where my resolve might melt without an approach in place.

The quit date (when the last butt in the last pack of the carton on hand was smoked)drew near, I was smoking about 5 butts a day at that point...I could smell the environment around me better already...

But I was on high alert, and though I stuck to my quit date, I soon felt completely out of sorts, uncertain...dangling in mid air, no safety net...

I stuck with it not out of heroic can-do will power, but with an ever so tentative will to stick it out just a little more. Words that came from my mother so long ago came back to me; give it time. Mothers know best, eh? So I gave it time. That's what I do today, if I need to.

I have great empathy for those who smoke, still smoking. And for those just taking the first step. It's a tough one, but by no means impossible.

Nothing wrong with the blues when it comes to quitting cigarettes

If I could turn back the clock and never have smoked at all, I would. 

Because sometimes I get the blues about quitting. I feel like some part of me is missing. But that is the thing about having been a smoker for so long, I've lost a bit of myself, gained something new for sure, --still, sometimes I get the blues. Nothing wrong with that, so long as I allow them to fade away.

Comedy has been my ultimate tonic for curing the blues. I've watched Harvey Korman  on youtube time and again...he so often played characters that get trapped in a crazy situation...
When I watch this stuff, I just can't stop laughing. At other times I listen to music to sooth my soul.

                            Harvey Korman and Tim Conway skit from Youtube

The long road to really quitting cigarettes; in the mean time I'll forego the smokes til I get there

I thought I'd get over the pull of my cigarette smoking within a half year...

As Ralph Cramden would say; "Hardee Har, har, har."

I have been off the cigarettes for two years and ten months, and at the age of fifty seven, I am in no rush to collect lots of years of non-smoking.

The road is sometimes still very tough (not nearly as often) --it's an inside thing...it's about feelings sometimes, state of mind at other times.

But bit by bit, my mind is being reformed into a non-smoking (I don't like to say that too loudly, after all, it has been a slow and painstaking letting go--in which clarity and heroic gumption were absolutely missing!)

I didn't believe I could quit smoking, too old, too tired, a habit too long, it's a part of me forever, I thought...til the day I die, I thought.

Somehow I made it through, and of course just for today, I'm off the butts.

To all in the process of quitting, thinking of quitting, or maintaining the quit, safe journey to you.

Quitting smoking: sometimes laughter is the best medicine

Bebe of Fraiser explains what's so great about smoking (while she is trying to quit)... This clip is good for laughs, great for seeing why it is hard to quit.

Quitting tobacco: A bag of tricks is not such a bad thing

   This jar of cigarette butts is now two years and seven (almost eight) months old. It contains my three week goodbye to my treasured old habit. Treasured then, and sometimes even today.

   I cut back day by day for two and a half to three weeks ( now I can't remember how long it was) toward the end of September 2013 before I had my last cigarette on October 2 of that year. In this cut back phase, as I was testing the waters (did I want to quit or was I kidding myself) I'd dump my butts in this olive jar. Seeing this bank of butts grow day by day, helped me stay focused on the reality of my smoking--lots of butts a day and their ashes added up quickly--nothing pretty to look at at all.

   I also kept another bank: in that one I kept adding money for all the butts I was not smoking as I was cutting back. That added up to about 25 cents for each butt...so the money quickly grew. Quarters turned to green backs, one dollar turned to five and so on.

   Neither of these tactics convinced me to stop smoking, --yet having substitute "to dos' "  went a long way in distracting my mind from cherished habit... 

  As I look back to that pre-quitting time, I see now that I was even less confident about quitting, than I thought at the time. I was fearful that I would get too wiggy and so give up trying--who likes feeling nuts?

   But it was tools like the olive jar butt stack that gave me a fighting chance.

  This jar will go back up onto the top shelf of  my laundry cupboard, where, as before,  I will not see it very often. I want to remember the struggle from time to time, but I do not want to stare too hard at the butts in the jar. I'm still an addict--if I stare too long at the butts I might get hungry for one.

Holy smokes, Batman, Are you telling me I gotta quit the smokes and learn to cope at the same time?

Long ago and far away in my magical little smoking world, which I no longer inhabit, but sometimes wish I did, I always had my smokes to rely upon whenever I got upset. I'd puff and huff, and huff and puff...somehow smoking made anger easier to feel.

 Now, as a slowly reforming smoker, I am learning to live with negative feelings, even find positive solutions, rather than huff and puff.

It sure is difficult work, in my case. But it is not all cheerless effort--from time to time, I get a glimpse into the fact that I really do cope a great deal better more and more often. That gives me hope that I am not incorrigible.

More cigarette addiction film recommendations, shorties for mental health

I found the two short films posted below on Youtube. Watching these makes me feel angry that I ever think of smoking --even now--2.5 years later. Alas, addiction is a tricky, tricky, tricky thing.

How Teenagers Get Hooked On Cigarette Smoking

by David Hoffman

Uploaded on Jun 30, 2009

To stop smoking visit https://www.createspace.com/204462 . This helps teenage girls and others quit smoking. You can see my documentaries at www.theHoffmancollection.com. This film was made to get smokers to quit. Sponsored by the American Cancer Society. The girl speaks frankly and reveals about her feelings in part because she is my daughter, videotaped quite a while ago. She doesn't smoke any more and is now a well-respected emergency-room nurse practitioner
David Hoffman -- filmmaker

Another short film by David Hoffman

Published on Dec 10, 2014

To get this entire program - https://www.createspace.com/204460 . I made this film for teenage smokers and those considering smoking. It doesn't look at the health issues. It looks at the industry that makes billions from getting kids to smoke cigarettes. Thousands of schools use this program today.

Once upon a time quitting the smokes was suppose to be fun and exciting said absolutely no-one ever!

The link below will bring you to day #7 of iscahstar's  Youtube Vlog which bravely logs the first difficult days of her quit smoking journey.
I found it very reassuring to listen to iscahstar's story, because she talks in detail about her desire to quit and about the hard side of quitting --in real time. Somehow this makes me feel a little braver about continuing on with my own quitting journey.

Check it out, if your new to quitting or want to freshen your resolve!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VXqBJ4BiwM&list=WL&index=46

I so love the internet highway, I see more good in the world then bad.

How much is that dream in the window

Welp, it's been 2.5 years since I ditched the smokies-- those dear old friends.

These are certainly not the words spawned from an inspiring heroic journey--that of quitting. I really do miss the smokes, and I am not a hero. Yet, I'm also a quitter for 2.5. My dependency on the butts was deeper than I could imagine back in the fall of 2013 when I fell into quitting. Thereafter I got lost. I thought it would take a month or two to come to my senses, then I'd be liberated from my addiction.

I did not smoke, but I was not liberated from my addiction. It turns out that during all of this time, the most important change that occurred is that I've been learning to live without the smokes everyday, right up to today.

I've got my own running joke every time I calculate how long I've been smoke free; basically I say (how ever long it happens to be) the years/months in a growling, grudging monster like way. Then I give a cackle. Because I know it is for the best.

At times, I've felt like a complete nut job. And wondered what in hell is wrong with my mind. I think support would have helped-- maybe. I guess I am in the process of learning coping skills that I had previously assigned to my smokes. They did all the coping, all I had to do was light up. And I road that trick solidly from age 17 or so until I quit 2.5 years ago at the age of almost 55.

Everybody finds their own way in coping, both with the stress of quitting and then the daily stresses that naturally come and go.

I've changed from raging  (for example, such as the time when a printer failed me in 2014) to learning to figure out solutions to problems in a calm manner. The change is real and deep, but, like the quitting, it has taken, and is taking time and repetition to learn this new trick.

I've also coped by walking a lot, and sometimes, I've coped by avoiding problems altogether (especially first 1.5 years) when I did not feel fit enough.

My coping mantra is:
If you can't get through it, go around it. There is a follow up joke to this--Don't worry about what you won't deal with today, because it will come around again and you will have another chance to deal with it.

I'm still dreaming of a full liberation from the addiction, but for now I trust that I stumbled upon a good decision 2.5 years ago.