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- Archive-name: support/stop-smoking/faq/part2
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-
- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
-
- FOR
-
- ALT.SUPPORT.STOP-SMOKING (AS3)
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Part 2: Techniques, Troubleshooting, and Tips
-
- The urge will pass whether you smoke or not.
- - unknown
-
- The urge will pass whether you kill or not.
- - Graham King
-
-
- 23. Why is quitting smoking so difficult?
-
- You have probably quit smoking (or using tobacco in another form) before,
- and you have probably gone back to the habit. Whether your "smobriety" (to
- use a term from the addiction recovery program Nicotine Anonymous) lasted
- an hour or a year, you no doubt learned a basic truth: breaking away from
- tobacco products can be, at best, unpleasant, and at worst, a living hell.
- And the memory of that unpleasant experience may have left you with a fear
- of trying again.
-
- Understanding the source of your physical and emotion reactions can help
- get you through those difficult early days. Quitting smoking will be one of
- the hardest things that you will ever do. This is because smoking is
- actually a three-fold problem: you have developed psychological, social,
- and physical needs for the drug nicotine.
-
- As a smoker, all your emotions were medicated with a nicotine packed
- cigarette: you relaxed with nicotine; you laughed with nicotine, wept with
- nicotine, digested with nicotine. You used smoking to pass the time, ready
- yourself for a crisis, calm yourself after one, even (ironically) to catch
- your breath during a difficult task. You began your day by dosing with
- nicotine, your drug of choice (perhaps one among others), and ended it the
- same way. No wonder that, suddenly deprived of all that, your mind and body
- go wonky for a little while.
-
- Nicotine attaches itself to you physically. From the American Heart
- Association:
-
- Nicotine Addiction
-
- When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the
- chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in
- blood pressure, heart rate, and the flow of blood from the heart. It also
- causes the arteries to narrow. Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen
- the blood can carry. This, combined with the effects produced by nicotine,
- creates an imbalance in the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount
- of oxygen the blood is able to supply. Smoking further increases the amount
- of fatty acids, glucose, and various hormones in the blood. There are
- several ways that cigarette smoking may increase the risk of developing
- hardening of the arteries and heart attacks. First, carbon monoxide may
- damage the inner walls of the arteries that encourages the buildup of fat
- on these walls. Over time, this causes the vessels to narrow and harden.
- Nicotine may also contribute to this process. Smoking also causes several
- changes in the blood. They include increased adhesiveness and clustering of
- platelets in the blood, shortened platelet survival, decreased clotting
- time, and increased thickness of the blood. These effects can lead to a
- heart attack.
-
- The 1988 Surgeon General's Report, 'Nicotine Addiction,' concluded that:
-
- * Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting.
- * Nicotine is the drug that causes addiction.
- * Pharmacologic and behavioral characteristics that determine
- tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs
- such as heroin and cocaine.
-
- =46or additional information on this subject, contact your local American
- Heart Association office or call 1-800-242-8721.
-
- The social attraction of smoking is perhaps the most insidious prong of the
- nicotine addiction. Until recently, even after the dangers of smoking were
- well known, smoking was widely seen as essentially harmless; though this
- opinion is now held by fewer people (and I'll wager that most of them are
- still smoking), it has not disappeared. We still often hear smoking
- defended with the argument that the sale, purchase, promotion and use of
- tobacco products are legal activities nearly everywhere in the world. While
- true, this statement obscures the question of the safety of smoking and
- fails to raise other explanations for its legitimate status, such as the
- financial contribution which the tobacco industry makes to the world
- economy.
-
- And, greater public awareness of the harm that smoking does has not greatly
- altered its image as sexy, cool, adult, fashionable. Books such as
- Christopher Buckley's Thank You For Smoking and movies like Reality Bites
- (where the sole non-smoker is Ben Stiller's dorky outsider character)
- override those public service announcements and notices on the sides of
- cigarette packages in the minds of the tobacco industry's most important
- consumers: adolescents and teens. (Incidentally, we have it from a very
- reliable source that the people who make a certain brand of popular
- cigarettes featuring a certain dromedary on the package paid for the actors
- in Reality Bites to smoke their cigarettes. And for more proof of this
- common industry practice, here's an interesting letter
- http://galen.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/2404.02/2404.02.1.html from
- one of America's top action stars.) Give it a minute's thought: do you
- really like smoking, or do you just like your smoker image and the props
- associated with it (the cigarette, the nifty smoke rings, the ash; the
- holes in your clothing, yellow stains on your teeth, nasty taste on your
- breath)?
-
- The minute you quit smoking your life changes drastically. Your identity as
- a smoker is gone; the crutch which helped you handle situations is kicked
- out from under you; your body and mind begin to play quite clever tricks on
- you to get their drug. All these changes can be nearly overwhelming, but
- the important thing to remember is that things will get better as you learn
- new and better ways to live your life. And everyone can learn; a few
- hundred of us at AS3 alone will testify to that!
-
- 24. I smoke lights. Aren't they safer?
-
- (Excerpted from New York Times News Service, May 2, 1994)
-
- Quote:
- WASHINGTON--Smokers of cigarettes low in tar and nicotine may be getting
- more of those substances than they think, Federal Trade Commission
- officials and experts on smoking say. ...
-
- National polls conducted by the Gallup organization have found that
- smokers believe that cigarettes labelled "light" are less hazardous and
- will deliver less tar and nicotine. But evidence has accumulated that the
- measurements, which are carried out by tobacco company laboratories under
- the supervision of the FTC, bear little or no relation to how much nicotine
- and tar smokers actually get from smoking.
-
- "The commission has been aware for a while that the test has problems
- regarding the actual intake that consumers will get," Judith D. Wilkenfeld,
- assistant director in the FTC's Division of Advertising Practices, said in
- a telephone interview.
-
- The FTC cigarette tests are carried out by machines that hold the
- cigarette and draw air through them in 2-second puffs once every minute
- until the cigarette is burned down to the filter.
-
- But cigarettes now include several features that make the machine
- tests meaningless, according to Dr. Jack Henningfield, chief of clinical
- pharmacology research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
-
- For example, a majority of cigarettes now have tiny, nearly invisible
- hole in their filter paper or in the cigarette paper near the filter. When
- the smoking machine draws on a cigarette, a large amount of air is drawn
- in, and this dilutes the smoke getting to the measuring device, making
- today's cigarettes appear to contain less tar and nicotine.
-
- But smokers do not handle the cigarettes the same way machines do.
- They find the diluted smoke milder, and to make up for the "lighter" taste,
- or less satisfying amount of nicotine, they puff more or draw deeper,
- pulling in more total smoke, so that the result is the same amount, or
- more, of nicotine and tar.
-
- In addition, the tiny filtration holes are often blocked by smokers
- with their lips or hands, thus cutting off the air that would have diluted
- the smoke.
-
- ...
-
- Scientific studies over recent years have shown that smokers get about
- the same amount of nicotine and tar no matter what kind of cigarette they
- use.
- Endquote
-
- 25. Are cigars any better?
-
- [From the on-line page "Ask Dr. Weil," Copyright =A9 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997
- HotWired, Inc. All rights reserved. Used without permission]
-
- Quote:
- Cigar consumption is climbing rapidly in the United States, where people
- smoked 3 billion cigars last year, compared to 2.1 billion in 1993. Around
- the world, cigar makers are especially trying to target women by promoting
- their wares as a sign of affluence and sophistication. There are cigar
- magazines, cigar bars, and even instructional cigar dinners.
-
- Donald Shopland, coordinator of the smoking and tobacco control program at
- the National Cancer Institute, calls the increase in cigar consumption
- "astounding" - particularly since it has been in decline for many decades.
- Alarmed, the institute plans to issue a report on safety, chemical
- composition, advertising, health policies, and other cigar issues in the
- fall.
-
- I'm not impressed by the sophistication of rolled brown tobacco leaves lit
- up in anybody's mouth. If you smoke cigars, you're tripling your risk of
- lung cancer compared to not smoking at all. True, cigarette smokers have
- nine times the risk of developing lung cancer, so I suppose that's one good
- point. Cigar smoke is harsher than cigarette smoke, so most people can't
- inhale it deeply enough or often enough to establish the pattern of
- chemical dependence on nicotine that makes cigarette smoking so risky. But
- if you inhale regularly, the risk is the same as with cigarettes. You are
- also increasing the possibility of head and neck cancers, cancer of the
- esophagus, and cancer in the oral cavity. If you compare cigars and
- cigarettes smoked in equal amounts, the risk of mouth and throat cancer are
- the same.
-
- Cancer of the oral cavity is one of the nastiest cancers that can occur, in
- many cases causing disfigurement and death. Sigmund Freud smoked 20 cigars
- a day and died of tobacco-related oral cancer. Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th
- US president, also smoked about that much and died of throat cancer. He
- dropped 70 pounds and became addicted to cocaine in his efforts to escape
- the pain.
-
- Also, cigar smoke is at least as hazardous to the people around you as
- cigarette smoke. In a recent study published in the New England Journal of
- Medicine, tobacco use - including cigar smoking - by spouses increased the
- risk of lung cancer by 30 percent in people who didn't smoke at all
- themselves. Exposure in the workplace and social settings bumped up the
- risk even more. Eating fruits and vegetables, or taking supplemental
- vitamins, didn't improve matters for the spouses.
-
- A new California Environmental Protection Agency report released after
- years of peer review and government scrutiny (and some would say
- suppression), blames secondhand tobacco smoke for the deaths of at least
- 4,700 nonsmoking Californians a year. The report says California smokers
- cause between 4,200 and 7,440 deaths from heart attacks and stroke each
- year among the people around them, and 360 deaths from lung cancer. Their
- secondhand smoke is responsible for up to 3,000 new cases of childhood
- asthma annually. Cigar smoke billows out in greater volume and contains
- high quantities of unhealthy substances, so it's not an improvement.
-
- There are plenty of healthier ways to satisfy an oral fixation. Try carrots.
-
- Disclaimer: All material provided in the Ask Dr.Weil program is provided
- for educational purposes only. Consult your own physician regarding the
- applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your
- symptoms or medical condition.
-
-
- 26. Should I switch from smoking to smokeless (chewing) tobacco?
-
- It would be a very poor trade-off to use smokeless tobacco as a replacement
- for smoking. For one thing, it's pretty disgusting to watch someone chewing
- - and spitting out the tobacco juice. And though the risk of developing
- lung cancer and emphysema may be lowered, chewing has its own set of
- horrors.
-
- David Drupp (ddrupp@nbn.net) writes:
-
- "I have been asked to explain why smokeless tobacco is not a safe
- substitute for smokers who want to quit.
-
- "First of all my wife works for an oral surgeon, and she is my main drive,
- along with my 2 young sons, to quit this nasty habit.
-
- "She has told me of this one guy who had to have his entire jawbone removed
- and had hip bone taken to replace it. This was a direct result of smokeless
- tobacco wreaking havoc and causing cancer that had gotten to the bone. This
- guy, early 30s (who I would love to meet myself) has to wear a face shield
- with pins in his neck area to hold the hip bone replacement in place until
- it bonds and starts to grow. If that isn't bad enough to not start this
- habit then what is. This is not the only case they had on smokeless tobacco
- users -I can only imagine how many people have it and don't know. I am one
- of the lucky ones who had access to the warning signs but most don't. I
- started when I was 15 years old playing baseball and am now 29 years old
- married almost 10 years with 2 kids. I am damn lucky I didn't have anything
- happen to me. The absolute clincher was when a 24 year old came in to have
- a biopsy on his lip and found out he had cancer. 24 years old - think about
- it!!!
-
- "For those who must chew - please do not put the chew in the same place
- every time you chew. This is what causes the breakdown of the lip. It first
- turn white - leukoplakia is the term - which is a pre-cancerous sign. Then
- is may get hardened and change color - IF you have any of these signs - GO
- GET CHECKED!!
-
- "I never put it in the same spot twice and had as many as 6 areas I used so
- I wouldn't get the bad spots on my lips. I am not condoning chewing but IF
- you must and are reading this - move it around until you have the courage
- to quit."
-
- 27. How can I prepare to quit smoking or chewing tobacco?
-
- It is generally agreed around here that preparation is the single most
- important factor in successfully overcoming nicotine addiction. Getting
- yourself to a state of psychological readiness starts with the thought that
- you may be about ready to stop smoking, and when that thought occurs, IMHO
- you've begun the process of becoming a non-/ex-smoker. Then, if you read
- the posts in alt.support.stop-smoking, soon you may find, as many have,
- that you've begun to think that you are ready to stop. Before you know it,
- you'll be setting a quit date! Once you've reached that stage, here are
- some suggestions to aid in your preparation:
-
- a. Set a quit date, preferably around a relatively stress-free time,
- although you shouldn't wait until the perfect time, because it doesn't
- exist! If you like, announce your intended quit date to the group and ask
- for quit buddies, or join in a group which has already formed. Belonging to
- a club usually gives you extra support, and makes you extra accountable!
-
- b. Until your quit day, smoke without guilt, but do keep planning. Think
- about what provisions you will have on hand to comfort you, what
- (brainless) projects to keep you busy, what comfy quiet spaces if you find
- you just want to sleep, and whether you'll have access to AS3 and to
- e-mail. If the people you spend time with have not had the pleasure of
- seeing you go insane before, consider apologizing in advance for any bad
- behaviour you may exhibit. :) (After you quit, the statement, "I just quit
- smoking" will excuse much. Milk it for all it's worth!) As you read other
- people's posts and the info available on the web, you'll get some ideas
- that will help you.
-
- c. Make any appointments, join any classes, lay in any provisions (herbal
- teas, cinnamon sticks, licorice root, comfort foods, Valium, etc.), and buy
- your patches, spray or Nicorette, if you decide to use nicotine replacement
- therapy.
-
- d. Start emptying your ashtrays into one or more clear glass jars which
- you'll save as long as needed - I kept one for a few months after I quit.
- (ed.) This 'revulsion therapy' will be of help after the initial motivation
- begins to leave you and you start thinking that smoking wasn't so bad after
- all. And each time you open the jar to add more butts and ashes, you'll get
- a whiff of negative reinforcement. Some people add a bit of water to their
- 'butt jars' to make them that much more nauseating - not recommended for
- those with sensitive stomachs!
-
- e. Keep a running list of reasons you want to quit. Especially as your
- date gets closer, really study the list; pick one of the most compelling
- reasons and repeat it to yourself over the course of the day. It's best to
- keep the reasons positive, upbeat; e.g., instead of saying "I want to quit
- so that I don't die a horrible ravaging death by lung cancer" you might say
- "I want to take a proactive role in my good health."
-
- f. [Hot off the cyberpress! From Ask Dr. Weil, downloaded 21 Nov. 96]:
-
- Quote:
- If you smoke, do breathing exercises. They will help motivate you to quit
- and help you with your cravings for cigarettes. Here's how to start. Sit
- with your back straight. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of
- tissue behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there throughout the
- exercise.
-
- o First, exhale completely though your mouth, making a
- whoosh sound.
- o Next, close your mouth and inhale quietly through your
- nose to a mental count of four.
- o Next, hold your breath for a count of seven.
- o Then exhale completely through your mouth, again making
- a whoosh sound, to a count of eight.
-
- This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle
- three more times.
- Endquote.
-
- g. [From the same Ask Dr. Weil column; see above.]
-
- "If you smoke, you should take antioxidant vitamins and minerals, which to
- some extent can reverse the changes in respiratory tissue caused by
- smoking, and so help protect against lung cancer. Also, increase your
- intake of dietary sources of carotene (carrots, sweet potatoes, yellow
- squash, and leafy green vegetables)."
-
- h. Visualize: Start looking at people functioning normally without
- smoking. People who don't smoke are capable of having an argument, talking
- on the phone, waiting for a bus, playing pool, and basking in the afterglow
- just as well as people who smoke. Picture yourself getting through moments
- you normally associate with smoking, without doing so. Don't overwhelm
- yourself, i.e., you don't need to picture yourself getting through life or
- even the day without smoking; just one activity at a time. Watch someone
- enjoying a cafe latte without smoking. You can be in that picture!
-
- i. Keep reading alt.support.stop-smoking daily (hourly, if necessary!),
- so that you'll start to get a sense of what to expect (good and bad), and
- post whenever you like, as often as you like, and as nonsensically as you
- like! Try not to loosen your withdrawal temper on another AS3 poster,
- though.
-
- Most important, keep in mind that quitting smoking is a journey, not an
- event. You will run into many obstacles on that journey, and meet many
- false friends. The more you can feel good about the place you're heading
- (the smober life) and unsentimental about the place you're leaving (life
- chained to nicotine), the more strength you will have to complete that
- journey.
-
- 28. How long will the physical withdrawal last?
-
- Physical withdrawal symptoms last anywhere from between 48 hours to two
- weeks. This can vary from person to person depending on the amount that you
- smoked and your physical and psychological make up. Many in the group have
- found the physical effects typically last between 3 to 7 days.
- Unfortunately, you will probably not arise on the 15th day after stubbing
- out your last fag to find yourself completely disinterested in nicotine.
- Even once the drug is out of your system, you will have desires to smoke
- which will feel very much like withdrawal symptoms. They are not. Know that
- your mind is playing tricks, and fight the urge!
-
- 29. Can't I have just one last one?
-
- And then what? You don't want just one more, you want every one. The
- nicotine addiction is a very clever animal which is capable of putting
- strange thoughts into your head, such as: It's been three months since I
- quit; let me smoke one just to make certain I'm not addicted anymore. Or: I
- haven't smoked in six months; let me remind myself how much I hate it. Or:
- Now that I have a decade of smobriety behind me, I can be a social smoker.
-
- There is simply no reason to smoke 'just one more' cigarette. You prove
- that you're not addicted by not taking the drug. And you know you'll never
- be a social smoker. And if you really listen to yourself, you also know
- that 9.99 times out of 10, a social smoker is an addict in the making.
-
- It is not safe to smoke even a single cigarette as this could send you
- right back to smoking as much or even more than you did prior to quitting.
- =46urthermore, it's not sensible. There is no reason to consume tobacco, and
- every reason not to. Remember: You're only a puff away from a pack a day.
- And if you don't believe this FAQ, read AS3; you'll see stories of people
- who found that just one cigarette was enough to send them back into smoking
- even after years of not smoking. Here's Mona's experience:
-
- "My experience during the nine years I was smober was that I almost never
- thought about cigs in any way remotely like I wanted one. In fact, that
- quit, after even the first couple months, I was so damned proud of myself
- that even if the junkie old part of myself momentarily thought it wanted a
- cig, I was clear that I was very happy to be a non-smoker, and that 'urge'
- just went away, nearly instantly.
-
- "Of course, the fact I'm here, quitting again, the 13th time in my life, is
- proof that, on some days nearly anyone can be unconscious or stupid or
- downhearted enough that the cig devil sees his opportunity -- the old
- junkie (me) who used the cig as emotional comfort encourages one to have
- one, don't worry, you've quit all these years, you don't have to smoke
- tomorrow, just let yourself have one now, when you 'need it'. HAH!
-
- "I hope I'll never be that unsuspecting again! I hate quitting, and love
- being smober, after I get through =00=00=00=00=00=00=01prient my mind part, =
- again."
-
- Thoughts to close the Alt.Support.Stop-Smoking FAQ, Part 2:
-
- One cigarette is too many, and a thousand are not enough.
-
- - unknown
-
- What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to
- what lies within us
-
- - Ralph W. Emerson
-
- Hang tough, don't puff!
- - Barry Pekilis
-
-
- Please go on to Part 3.
-
-
-
-
-
-