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.

Quitting has felt like madness sometimes...

15 months and counting--no smokes. It hasn't been easy to quit, but I guess I am in a sizable minority regarding this. When I first quit, I thought I'd spend five weeks or a few months kicking the habit then I'd get back to my comfortable old routine just with out the smokes. Didn't work out like that. I discovered that I have a seemingly bottomless well of resistance to change!

And just when I think I've got a foothold on what it means to get on with life without the smokes, I find myself anxious and unfocused--not really wanting to smoke anymore, but "life" just doesn't seem quite right either.

The degree to which I sometimes miss my old life is somewhat discouraging. But I was a smoker since the age of 17, and I quit at the age of 54. I take solace in the fact that perhaps it is best to follow my dear mother's wisdom, 'Give it time." She always was right.

I imagine myself hoisting my spiritual sails...hoping for a good wind.

A Reminder That TOBACCO is an Industry: Caring about the outcome of smoking is not a part of the industries business model

I stumbled upon an hour long documentary on YouTube that reveals why an increasing number of folks in India are taking up smoking--turns out regulation is low, activism is in its infancy, and the tobacco industry is "enjoying" great freedom in advertising tobacco through all forms of media.

I liked my smokes,and I miss em' BUT watching this documentary reminds me that the tobacco industry is only concerned with earning a buck from my smoking. No more than that. 

Given this truth, I really do have to be my own activist...

And I owe a debt of gratitude to those activists who have lead the charge to change all the laws that have lessened the impact of tobacco industries ability to sell itself in the USA--