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Is there any real point in even trying to stop smoking ?

  
  

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Jack The Bodiless
12:00 / 17.02.04
I agree with Gypsy. Sympathy for a quitting smoker isn't the best way to help them cope. Simply put - if you're trying to quit and you go soft, chances are you'll have a fag. You have a fag, you've got to start all over again.

Any addiction is both the effect and the cause of so many horrendous psychological tangles, minor neuroses, paranoias, little dreads, etc, that trying to deal with them, to make sense of why you're an addict, what's stopping you from quitting, etc, is practically impossible. It also gives the addiction too much power - like the man said, everyone says giving up smoking is the hardest thing they've ever done, it's an ongoing battle, yadda yadda yadda... Stop mythologising the process. Stop demonising the addiction. Just stop. Don't buy any more cigarettes. Don't cadge any off anyone. After only a short while the physical addiction leaves you anyway - the rest is all in your head. Get out of the habit by stopping it being a habit - stop associating meals, tea breaks, getting off a plane/train, bedtime, WHATEVER, with having a fag. Best way to successfully stop smoking is to STOP FUCKING SMOKING.

Me, I don't want to quit. I enjoy it, and I don't give a shit about anyone who disagrees with me. But then I only smoke about three or four a day, most days, and can go without for weeks if I'm skint without any ill effects whatsoever, so I'm probably one of those people who just never properly got hooked. Regardless, I'm gonna quit at thirty-five. That's the point at which I've decided I'll need to start getting fit and healthy again or start having problems.
 
 
Cat Chant
12:10 / 17.02.04
mourning process

One of my friends who's currently quitting says this is absolutely standard: you're mourning yourself as a smoker (this is linked in to the self-image/identity stuff Alex talks about). And hey, congratulations, BiP! Knitting is cool, too (I did embroidery - and actually, thinking about it, my recent desire to relapse is synchronous with not having a tapestry on the go. Hmm.)

The Gypsy Lantern/Jack the Bodiless method - telling yourself that all you need to do in order not to smoke is, um, not smoke - is pretty similar to the Alan Carr method, no? Which worked for me, and is apparently fairly effective in general, too.
 
 
Cherry Bomb
12:26 / 17.02.04
I have to say that I love not smoking! I was strangely jsut thinking about this this morning, how much I enjoy being free from ciggies. I've been quit about 4 months. It was really hard at first, but now it's pretty easy. I read the Allen Carr book, which was hugely helpful, and I also listened to a stop-smoking hypnosis cd (which the first week I quit I listened to almost every night!) Also I went to every place you're not supposed to go when you stop smoking (bars, out with smoking friends etc.) and I got as drunk as I could. Trying to change "triggers," you know.

Occasionally I want a ciggie, but I don't want to be a smoker again. I did go through a weird mourning process, which in a way I think I'm still going through, but the happiness I feel about being smoke-free is stronger than any sadness I feel about no longer "Being naughty with ciggies."

That said, I did smoke, I think three 30p cigars around Christmas. But none since then and no cigarettes at all!
 
 
Smoothly
12:59 / 17.02.04
It's very easy to quantify the downsides of smoking, but much harder to measure what's good about it. I think the idea that all its qualities are fictions or myths created by the addiction is a dubious one. Who's to say if it's not the non-smokers who are kidding themselves? I mean, some of them got hypnotised into not wanting to do it. And the suggestion that the only reason you smoke is because you're addicted to nicotine is demonstrably false. It's clear that lots of people smoke without being addicted - Jack The Bodiless here being one of them. In fact, at one stage all smokers smoked without being addicted to it.
And dare i say, it's also worth remembering that smoking really isn't that bad for you. Lung cancer will affect fewer than one in ten smokers. Whether you smoke or not, chances are that something else will kill you. It's perhaps not an entirely unreasonable risk to take.
 
 
deja_vroom
13:21 / 17.02.04
There is no "risk" of stinking like a motherfucker and getting increasingly unwelcome to uo close conversations. Your mouth *will* stink like a motherfucker - I know long time smokers and I hold my breath whenever they try to talk closer to me. It's just a black stink cloud, black of the blackest blackness available. It's like a skunk died inside your mouth and someone made a half-assed effort to cremate the carcass. It's like you're talking to someone who happens to have, inside his mouth, burned coal stones which were previously dipped in smoked shit. You maybe don't notice it now - but keep smoking and soon you will...
 
 
Smoothly
13:39 / 17.02.04
Yeah, I know. We smell even worse than fat people. And who'd have thought that was possible! Motherfuckers.
 
 
deja_vroom
13:44 / 17.02.04
Boo-hoo, and now you went and made me cry.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:11 / 17.02.04
I have to say, I think Jade's analysis of the effects of smoking on your breath only holds true for people who smoke 30-40 a day and clean their teeth about once a week. I'm not a full time smoker these days (similar to Jack, but even less - I often don't smoke for several days without even thinking about it), but I spend a lot of time with people who are and who don't have bad breath at all.

Anyway, I'm fascinated by the way this specific issue has thrown up two very strong oppositional approaches to the issue of changing one's behaviour / dealing with addiction...
 
 
Smoothly
14:38 / 17.02.04
That's just because you're a smoker, Flyboy, whose sense of smell has been deadened to the true horror.

Yeah, it is interesting. There seem to be a lot of different things going on which could perhaps be separated out. The obvious one being the difference between addiction and habit. It's quite clear that conquering the physiological dependence and reforming one's habitual behaviour are quite distinct challenges - and I suspect some of the conflicts here have come about as a result of conflating the two. For some people, I gather, their smoking is just about a craving for the drug and the fear of withdrawal, but for others - particularly the 'chippers' - there are other issues about identity, displacement, association etc. So although the 'Stop buying the things and putting them in your mouth' position is sound and an accurate account of how quitting manifests itself, the reasons that a smoker might find it difficult to follow that approach (or, in fact, not want to do it at all) are varied.
 
 
aus
15:01 / 17.02.04
the potential negatives ( irritability,
Have a piece of nicotine gum. It makes you feel goooooood.

weight gain,
Gum and coffee for lunch. Aside from finding you prefer gum to food, the extra activity due to the stimulating effect of a nicotine/caffeine cocktail should help keep your weight down.

no more cig breaks at work,
Have a gum break.

fidgeting nervously in public places,
Stop fidgeting nervously - overdose on gum and fidget restlessly instead.

not really too sure what to do with your hands,
Stick a piece of gum in your mouth... take it out again, it's surprisingly unsticky, put it behind your ear, put it back in your mouth, artfully stick it on your coffee cup, go see a client, come back and peal it back off the coffee cup and chew it some more.

plus the creeping feeling of having GIVEN IN to the increasingly shrill anti-cigarette lobby, to that clown Tony Blair, etc, etc. )
Don't give up, transfer your addiction to the gum.

i'm not terriblely convinced appeasing cravings with cigarette substitutes is an effective, practical way to go about giving up.
It's a very effective, practical way of transferring your nicotine habit from cigarettes to nicotine gum.

not knowing what to do with your hands. (again)
Get another piece of gum.

GO THE GUM!
 
 
the garden gnome
17:07 / 17.02.04
the gum tastes more like shit than a smoke does.

9 years at a pack a day...the last 3 years at half that...I am now on wellbutrin, started two days ago.

the past few days I haven't been as anxious, but I am still smoking 3-5 cigs a day. doc says it'll take a week or more until it really kicks in. we'll see.

what the hell else do I have to do in this fucking garden all day long?!
 
 
Alex's Grandma
18:29 / 17.02.04
I just wonder about this business of smoking being an addiction. It's a habit of course, like biting your nails or heading down to the races, or phoning up x when you know you just shouldn't - None of these things are a brilliant idea, but it's not like you're going to end up trying to rip off your neighbours TV, or sell your poor white bones down the local meat rack, just for the sake of your twenty Silk Cut. Addiction, I'd guess, is a horrible thing, but it's used way too lightly as a medical term. If you're addicted to something, ( heroin, crack, really hard grain alcohol, and that's just about it ) you'd do almost anything to get what you need. And then you'd go past all that and you'd keep on going... Some perspective, I think, is pretty relevant here.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
18:39 / 17.02.04
Yeah, but de jade, smokers are just so much innaresting, aren't they
 
 
deja_vroom
18:58 / 17.02.04
Back off, fumigating scum!
 
 
sleazenation
19:10 / 17.02.04
Alex - the funny thing about addiction is that is just about being habitually or compulsively occupied with or involved in something. Doesn't need to be a drug. It can be from

Often this habit or compulsion gets in the way of doing other stuff. This works just as well for cocaine as it does for tobacco or even comics.

Now some of these might not be too much to worry about. A cocaine habit is eminently managable if you have the money. Tobacco and comics habits too.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
19:16 / 17.02.04
Well I do sometimes wonder about this model of smoking as an addictive drug. It's not really is it ? An addicitive drug ( heroin, crack, I guess grain booze possibly, something that's going to make you act out of character, start attacking the OAP's in yer local post office, although they do quite deserve it, the f-ing lorra zem, etc. ) would be vaguely... a bit lame.
 
 
Seth
20:28 / 17.02.04
Find the right tools for the job and the *psychological tangle* becomes much more straightforward than a lot of people realise. And it's worth reiterating that the approach of just quitting is great if it works for you. But I'm interested that there are a great number of people who try stopping outright several times before that approach works (almost as if there's an element of psychological rehearsal, to see what the effects might be, and that the change happens naturally when the time is right. What causes the time to be right may well be to do with the internal processing that has gone before). And for some people it may never work. There are also the people on this thread who know people who have suffered from lung cancer (or have had other experiences: dreams of black horses?) that effectively shorten the feedback loop between cause (lighting up) and effect (painful death). The point is that everyone is different, what works for one may not work for another.
 
 
Seth
20:38 / 17.02.04
BTW, I quit for nearly five years becuase quitting coincided with being a youth worker (not wanting to set a bad example) and a major life change (during which I attributed any bad feelings to homesickness and hating the organisation I was working for). Which is yet another way of doing it.
 
 
sleazenation
22:00 / 17.02.04
Seth - psychological rehersal - hmmm not sure I agree with the terminology but as many people have commented to quit successfully more than anything I think that you need a genuine desire/the will to stop. Psychological techniques can help you identify and tackle underlying situations and patterns that have lead an individual to smoke, but the only thing that is going to stop a person smoking is that is the smoker themselves making the decision to stop.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
23:29 / 17.02.04
Yeah, but de jade, I live the life at the moment of an international playboy - If I gave up thmoking... well frankly, my dear, that would be slightly gauche.
 
 
Doctor Singapore
00:33 / 18.02.04
Has anybody noted this piece of news? Angry people prone to be smokers This actually makes a lot of sense, I think...

I recently quit smoking...again. It's my 3rd attempt in 3 years but I feel strongly that I can make it this time.

In order to quit, I used the nicotine patch, available over the counter here in the U.S. I like it because it breaks the "habit" down into 2 components: a) your body's CHEMICAL ADDICTION to nicotine (see link above) and b) your actual "habit" of smoking (as the word "habit" is commonly understood).

You see, I basically went straight from biting my nails to smoking tobacco...so the Patch helps by keeping the head and back aches and feelings of stress at bay, while I work on the underlying oral fixation. Chewing gum is good for that. I recommend original flavor Trident because it's sugar-free and the flavor doesn't get in the way of drinking beer. That's another tip: If you're serious about quitting smoking, ease off on the booze for a while. It just makes you want to smoke more. Ditto with weed.

In addition to dealing with those two big issues, you also have to WANT to quit. The reason I doubt I'm going to relapse this time is because I no longer believe smoking is cool.

How did I overcome that "smoking=cool" brainwashing, you ask? Simple. I started hanging out with rednecks. (Not in order to quit, it was sort of forced onto me due to a new job.) Go find yourself the rest of the world's smokers -- men in dirty T-shirts and ratty mullets with nicotine-yellow teeth. Old women with necks like plucked turkeys, who smoke generic coffin nails because they can't afford name-brands on their 3 pack a day habit.
None of these people are going to be impressed by your habit. They are not going to find you badass, sexy, glamorously self-destructive, or whatever else, just because you like to smoke. They will not be given an insight into your personality by the unusual and expensive brand you smoke, or by your unique souvenier lighter. And once you grasp the fact that smoking doesn't make these people any cooler, you will realize that it's not doing anything for you either.

You don't need a prop to show people how cool you are. Instead of going so far as to hang out with stupid, ugly smokers, you can just repeat that phrase to yourself when you look in the mirror each morning. Seriously.

And don't discount the actual addiction. I'm still puffing on one from time to time. I heard someplace it's a harder habit to kick than heroin -- not harder to detox, that is, but harder to avoid a relapse. Probably because you can find cigs for sale on every corner...but there it is. Good luck.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
06:30 / 18.02.04
De jade, anything's better than being a prude, man, honestly
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
08:04 / 18.02.04
Well I do sometimes wonder about this model of smoking as an addictive drug. It's not really is it ? An addicitive drug... would be vaguely... a bit lame.

Alex, you know the bit where you said you'd thought about this quite a lot? Did you? I mean, really?

I think Doctor Singapore may be onto something, actually. I had no idea poor people smoked too. I'd never want to be mistaken for someone who wasn't a member of the (sub)urban middle class, so I'd better quit.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:24 / 18.02.04
Zyban, people.

In the words of the immortal Danny, "Why trust one drug and not the other?"
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:27 / 18.02.04
Drugs, you can trust.

My links, of course, are another matter entirely.

Try again
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
10:15 / 18.02.04
"men in dirty T-shirts and ratty mullets with nicotine-yellow teeth. "

B-but-but, I went to my local trend-whore drinkerie and everyone looked like that... Now I'm back on twenty a day, but they still won't let me come to their after-parties...

Actually, Fly, there is a sensible point there, and, a moronic solution/explanation, but that's my opinion. In the quitting game, what works for you, within limits...

The point being, as you well know, that if on some level at any point you've bought into the 'smoking looks cool' thing (and don't tell me you haven't. It's not that surprising with the amoutn of money and brain that goes into suggesting that) then recognising that is probably useful, rather than fulminating at anyone who suggests it.

Mistylaine's also suggested it, and I *know* there's a dumb bit of me that subscribes to it too. So as I'm serious about stopping, would be better if I admit to it, really?

And that has nothing to do with Singapore's rubbish about rednecks, really.

I'm now off for a walk in the sun and to buy some more wool. Need more wool, dammit, I'm on three balls a day now...
 
 
deja_vroom
10:51 / 18.02.04
Alex, my man, you were not being totally honest here. Had you said earlier you led the life of an international playboy, I'd have said nuthin'. Cigarettes act not only as coolness enhancers*, but it is well known that they are great gyroscopic devices. Ever seen a man walking slightly tilted to one side or the other? That man is in withdrawal. Just hand him a fag, you'll be able to *hear* the sound of a man getting aligned in his hinges and achieving distributed balance instantly.

----------------------
* - Although preferrably unlit, or seen through a glass window, so it's grandmother's-pubic-hairs-dipped-in-shit-then-lit- stench cannot reach to you.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:27 / 18.02.04
b.i.p. - wasn't disputing the value of realising that smoking isn't just for lovely people - just getting in my near-weekly expression of despair at Barbelith's fondness for class-based slurs.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
12:19 / 18.02.04
fair enough, but is there any point in pointing that *I'm* not actually saying 'hey wow, Singapore's pointed out that smoking's not just for nice people, feel the cracks in my worldview...'

cranky ex-smoker? moi?

I dunno, maybe I think the idiocy of the rednecks thing speaks for itself and doesn't need commentary, whereas the useful point is worth elucidating on...

but that would be cause I don't smoke and am therefore better than yew
 
 
deja_vroom
12:25 / 18.02.04
Mitch Hedeberg: "People say 'you have no idea of how hard it is to quit smoking'. Yeah I do! It's as hard as to start flossing! 'You seem jittery'. 'Yeah, i'm about to floss'".
 
 
Pants Payroll
13:21 / 18.02.04
... it seems so tied up with this persona I've ( inadvertenty ? ) constructed over the years, that it seems in a way I'd be a bit lost without it. You know, who would I be? That seems like a pretty good reason to quit right there...
 
 
Seth
08:13 / 19.02.04
the only thing that is going to stop a person smoking is that is the smoker themselves making the decision to stop.

That was a strange post, Sleaze. Aren't we all taking that as our basis, and then talking about ways you can achieve it?

Considering this from another angle, is it surprising that if you understand your psyche's relationship to smoking as a choronzonic mass of internal psychological responses or horrendous psychological tangles, minor neuroses, paranoias, little dreads, then you're less likely to want to go there in order to find a means of quitting? If that were the case, willpower directed to stopping the action of buying or blagging cigarettes strikes me as an excellent solution, taking control of the element of the system that is the most tangible and easy to approach. It's the case of finding the right lever for you.
 
 
rakehell
22:16 / 22.02.04
I smoked heavily for 12 years and haven't touched it for the last 4. Quit completely cold turkey, no patches, no reduction: one day I smoked and the next I didn't.

I found a couple of things helpful. One is that while I loved - and still do - smoking, I hated the addiction. In the same way that I've given up caffeine and refined sugar on and off, I decided to not let this drug control my moods.

The second thing was the realisation that no moment is unbearable in and of itself. I just thought to myself that I'm was not going to have a cigarette right now. Didn't matter what happened tomorrow or in an hour, right now I wasn't smoking. That helped a lot.

I don't know if it's advice anyone can follow, but if you just decide you're not a smoker, you won't be ever again.
 
  

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