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...'