Hi there Daredevils and Friends,
   I would suggest that it is our emotions that trip us and start us smoking again. The voices, the dialogues that we "hear" are not between ourselves and some evil little troll. The dialogue is rather within ourselves, between our emotions and our intellect. The old head and heart duet. The point I'm trying to make is that weaning ourselves from nicotine isn't even half the battle. Granted, it's a hellish 3-5 days. But it passes and once gone, has never provided a strong reason not to start smoking again. We have to discover what it is that we are not addressing, on an emotional level, that can trip us up so long after we've stopped. I think this concerns the quality of the quit. Constant vigilance against "the butt" involves an unacceptable degree of risk. Hanging tough and hanging on are not viable long term options. Lets put our heads together and see if we can't find a more "secure" perspective. I would like to see a discussion along these lines. I believe that we have the answers. We just have to find them.
    DD Steve(5+d)
      "Don't count the days. Make the days count."

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   For 35 years, 20-25 times a day, I put a cigarette between my lips, lit it, and sucked the smoke into my lungs. I believe that my body demanded most of those cigarettes to maintain a comfortable level of nicotine.
    In the beginning, as soon as the level dropped, a tiny little voice would say, "Excuse me, but the nicotine level has dropped and your beginning to feel uncomfortable so please light a cigarette, now!", and as soon as I lit it the little voice would say, "Ahh, that feels better." And in a while the nicotine level would start to go back down and I would have to decide; to smoke or not to smoke. We've all been smokers and know what it "feels" like to want a cigarette and not smoke it, an uncomfortable feeling to say the least. I don't think it was too long before the tiny little voice wasn't so polite and was saying, "Hey, YOU!! You know what to do, DO IT!", and I did it, and the tiny little voice said, "Ahh, that feels better."
    Somewhere between 225,500 - 319,375 times in 35 years my body felt uncomfortable and I gave it a cigarette. Repeat an action a quarter of a million times and even I can learn it. So I learned, uncomfortable = smoke a cigarette. And not just uncomfortable from a low nicotine level. Any kind of uncomfortable = smoke a cigarette.
   Today, 2 weeks and 4 days after I stopped putting a cigarette in my mouth every time I felt uncomfortable, I no longer have a nicotine level that goes up and down like a yoyo. The little voice can say whatever it wants and as loudly as it can. I know that at this stage my body does not "need" nicotine. And unless I plan to spend the rest of my days on a heavy diet of tranquilizers, "feeling" will be a part of life. Comfort and discomfort, pleasure and pain, joy and sadness all combine to make up my life. All of this I can experience without poisoning myself 20-25 times a day.

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Jacque wrote:
   I wanted to post this little exchange to the newsgroup and ask for input...."Why are some days *easy* and others seem impossible? Opinions?? Please???"
 Daredevil Jacque
  3W3d14h

Hi Jacque,
    I'm not sure if this comes under the heading of opinion or just wild guess, but here goes:
.... Some days are easy and some days really suck just because. Because it's the end of the month and I've got bills due. Because I overslept and my day has been a losing game of catch up. Because the dog puked in the night and I stepped in it this morning. Because it's that time of the month, whatever time that happens to be. Because I just realized that when I go on vacation I won't be able to sit in a beach chair with a beer in one hand and a cig in the other(ever again) and I'll be lopsided and fall over(every time). Because today I'm feeling just a bit wound up and just ever so slightly PISSED OFF and poor me and I deserve a....something. Because everybody has good days and not-so-good days and when I'm having a not-so-good day I want a...something(Gee, why does a cigarette come to mind?) Because today I just don't feel like taking responsibility and if I could only have a cigarette I'd feel much better but then I wouldn't really and oh shit I just can't win.
   Like I said , I think this is mostly guess and probably mostly wrong since I'm very good at being wrong and I think I just talked myself into one of "those" days/moods? Wow, I really could use.....something. Maybe tomorrow will be one of the good days.
    Daredevil Steve
        3w4d

"I'm on day 6. It's been really ruff. I love coffee and have been drinking a lot of it all through quitting. Someone told me that I shouldn't drink coffee. What do any of you know about this?" - an unknown quitter

Hi,
   It's not that you "shouldn't" drink coffee so much as maybe you shouldn't drink too much. Caffeine is a stimulant. Assuming that the coffee you're drinking is regular and not decaf., every time you have a coffee your body gets a caffeine "kick". Then as the caffeine wears off you come down. The terminology here is probably incorrect but you get the point. It's a bit like driving down the road at 50 mph and then kicking down on the accelerator until you hit 80 and then taking your foot off the gas and coasting down to 30 and you keep doing this, up and down. Instead of running smooth and steady, your engine/body is racing and coasting. This is a stressful situation and as smokers our reaction to stress was always to relieve that stress with a cigarette.
   When I quit on Mar 15, I cut WAY back on caffeine in all forms; coffee, tea, caffeinated colas, chocolate. (Sugar, BTW, is another major stimulant and when I crash from 2 or 3 sugar coated donuts, I hit the floor with a loud thud.)
   My quit was definitely easier because I tried to avoid, at least in the beginning, anything that would "rock the boat". I felt shaky enough without introducing chemicals whose effects had always been associated with smoking.    My .10 cents worth,
       DD Steve 3w3d

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 " I REALLY want to quit - but, vain that I am, am scared of gaining weight, and that if I do, I'll start smoking again! I know that this is not a valid excuse, but I think it would help me (motivate me) to know that this doesn't necessarily happen to everyone - that there are ways around it. Any suggestions?" - an unknown quitter

   NO, it doesn't HAVE to happen. If you quit smoking and make absolutely no changes to your eating habits, you can expect to gain 5 - 10 pound. While that 'constant' may be connected to changes in metabolism, the MAJOR cause of weight gain when we quit is simply - overeating.
   There are a number of reasons why some of us become blimpish. First of all, smoking is nothing if not oral. When we quit, one of our first impulses is to stuff something into our mouths. If you read the posts in any quit smoking Usenet news group or Web based board, you'll see a menu of 'cigarette substitutes' that includes everything from cut up straws and cinnamon sticks to carrots and celery to twizzlers (licorice) and HoHo's (I believe these are some sort of chemical concoction resembling a Hostess cupcake). If you're cramming your mouth full of some sugar byproduct with a half life of several years, well.... you figure out the excess poundage.
   Personally, I'm not an advocate of replacing smoking with eating. I know there are those that say a few pounds can be dealt with later. While I agree with that to a point, I think the danger of replacing smoking with eating is that it perpetuates the habit. You aren't losing the smoking habit. You're simply "rolling" it over into an eating habit. The behavior remains the same and can swing back to smoking with frightening speed and ease.
   But I digress. If you want to keep the weight gain in check, eat three light, balanced meals a day. Do not skip meals. In between meal snacks should be fresh veggies or fresh fruit. The idea here is to feed yourself in such a way that you "know" when you're stomach hungry and when you're mouth hungry. And, as important if not the most important, EXERCISE!!! There are many advantages to exercise. First it will help burn off pounds and second it will provide a crucial outlet for the excess energy (nervous energy) that most quitters experience.
    So remember, if you don't stuff it in your mouth, you probably won't find it on your hips.

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" One reason I wanted to go cold turkey was I thought that the nicotine would be out of my system quicker and therefore the cravings would be less." - an unknown quitter

   I'm always curious why people think that once nicotine is out of your system that the cravings will stop. I often hear cold turkey quitters say this. I can think of several reasons for this misconception. However, I suspect that they come down to our reluctance to want to, or be willing to, confront the enormity of this thing called smoking. When you consider that your average smoker is entangled in a habit that touches every emotion, every event, every aspect of their life, you're faced with a habit of gargantuan proportions and complexity. Rather than consider having to confront my being on such an intimate and minute level, I think I'd rather just continue smoking. In fact I did for almost 35 years. At the very least, I wanted to believe that "all" I had to do was get the nicotine out of my body. This is the same thing as slapping on a patch and thinking that "all I have to do is go through the step down program". This is the same thing as popping a piece of gum in my mouth and thinking that I'll just "chew my way to freedom". Don't get me wrong, the patch and gum and hypnosis and acupuncture and your local witch doctor can all be effective quitting methods IF we also start to think a bit and begin to disconnect those smoking tendrils that have reached into every nook and cranny of our beings. This sounds like an almost impossible task. For me it seemed that way for almost 35 years. And then I realized that quitting is only about taking one thought at a time. One step after the other. Don't think about the "big picture". The only way to effect the "big picture" is by dealing with one thought at a time.

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   "Is it only a quick fix for emotional pain that I run to??" - Bobbie

    My guess is yes, that "it's" a quick something for emotional everything. I'm not sure that sentence makes any sense at all. Let me start again. I certainly used the quick fix like a "nicotine aspirin" for emotional pain. For me, "emotional pain" is emotional and physical discomfort of any and every kind. Meeting strangers, dealing with the phone company, worrying about finances, the ache in my shoulder telling me I'm getting older, ......and the list goes on forever. Whatever the discomfort and where ever it came from, without ever stopping to ask "what's the best "aspirin" to take for this particular discomfort", I would reach for a cig. I remember having a headache, taking two Tylenol, and reaching for a cig. It's occurred to me that my arm was spring loaded. I would "feel" a discomfort and !boing! out goes the arm, reaching for a cig. And what about the "reach for a cig" behavior that goes with things that I never thought of as discomforts? the cup of coffee, the great meal, great sex! Think about it. My taste buds were completely useless from years and years of smoking. I couldn't tell the difference, blindfolded, between hamburger and dog food. So how could a cig possibly make anything taste better? Could it be simply a reflex action? Could it have been just a taste combination or oral sensation(hot coffee and smoke)? If the cig wasn't there, I'd "reach" for one because it seemed that 'something' was missing. !Boing!
    Most, if not all, of my attempted past quits have been efforts to control my spring-loaded arm. I tried to tie it down, to discipline it, to coax and cajole it, and all of these efforts met with varying degrees of failure. It was like telling the dog to sit and stay and at the same time opening a box of dog treats. The dog might sit and stay, but you know he wants one of those treats. And he's probably going to whimper and whine until I get tired and give him one. At least that has always been the routine. This quit, somehow, I've shifted my focus from just trying to KEEP my arm from moving to WHAT is trying to move my arm.

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   I've been running this eating business through my head a lot lately. What if my smoking habit, and my eating, aren't about cigarettes? What if they are about life? Whenever something/anything happened in my 'this moment' life, I'd want to reach for a cigarette. Don't a lot of us agree that that was pretty much the bulk of our habit, lots of 'this moment' in the form of hunger, anger, lonely, bored, tired? Whatever it was that had popped up in my moment, for 35 yrs, I'd want to smoke. Let me rephrase that.... I'd want to do 'something'. That 'something' was almost always something other than address the real issue or the actual whatever. That was my habit. It was a 'momentary avoidance of this moment of life' habit. It was a chronic 'turning of my attention' away from the issue at hand. It was a time after time 'first action' that wasn't accurate. In all those years of smoking, I wonder how much of my life was avoided one moment at a time?
   One day I/we decided to quit smoking. I put down my cigarettes and took up the 'cloak' of quitting with it's aids and it's tricks and it's phases and phrases and it's entire experience. I felt a tremendous range of sensations. Many weren't terribly comfortable feelings. I'd respond to what I was feeling by feeding me something. I responded by putting things in my mouth. How is that any different than putting a cigarette in my mouth? And the chorus replies, "At least we're not smoking" and "You can deal with the weight later" and "One problem at a time". Those are all perfectly good answers. It's just that they aren't answers to the question of "How is eating as a response to a 'moment' any different than lighting up a cigarette? "
   Whatever my initial reasons for starting to smoke might have been, after 35 yrs, was I avoiding life and stuffing emotions because I was smoking, or was I smoking because I was avoiding life and stuffing emotions. Forgetting for a moment the nicotine chemical addiction, if I was smoking because I was avoiding life's moments, then explain to me how eating, an activity almost identical to smoking in both mechanics and reward, isn't an excellent method to continue to 'momentarily avoid life'. Actually it's a worse method because it doesn't provide the 'satisfaction' or the 'reward' that cigarettes did. So we eat nonstop to try to fill an unfillable void?    Hmmm... eat more, avoid as many or more moments then I did when I smoked, and wonder why I'm having a real uncomfortable time ............. I'm sorry folks. I get into these places occasionally where I wonder what we're really doing. I know that eating as a 'replacement' can't be good.... that it's got to make it actually harder to disconnect the smoking habits... and my mind runs along some line of 'reason' and I eventually get to some place where I either go "AHA!" or I hear a Roseanne Roseannadana sort of "Nevermind". Not sure yet which this will be but I thank you all for allowing me to ramble.
        Steve

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Copyright © 2001 Steve Polansky (ddsteve) All rights reserved.