I've heard that quitting smoking is akin to getting off cocaine. Not sure if that's true or not. I haven't smoked in the house for over 30 years and always go outside if I "need" one when we're visiting others so that has slowed me down some. I've noticed lately that I don't get as anxious as I use to if I'm down to just a few in a pack and don't have another unopened pack. I can go a whole day without but always find a reason to go to the store and since I'm there buy another carton? I've tried "cutting down", counting out the days allotment, keeping a check list "by time" of each smoke, whatever but like they've said on here, You can only quit when YOU Want To Quit" ! Believe me, I've been hearing that for years. I tried 'chew' years ago (Copenhagen) and would add a touch of Brandy to smooth it out some. It was okay until you're laying on your back changing out a transmission in a lift-truck and swallow the vile stuff. That put me off snuff forever. I heard another way to help stop smoking is to carry a small bottle of 'cigarette butts' and when you get the urge sniff the bottle of gunk! Excuse me but I have to step outside for a few minutes.
And it is true. Like I said in my note above, it was like an epiphany for me, like when you are trying to figure out how to do a hard math problem and all the sudden everything makes sense and I knew beyond a shadow of doubt that I was done with it. My grandfather had a similar experience with chewing tobacco. One night before going to bed, he spit a wad out in the toilet and as he looked at it floating around in the bowl, he thought "Why am I doing this?" He quit and never chewed again. You can do anything and everything, but until your make up your mind and make the decision, you will find it hard to quit. I took care of a patient one time who had Buerger's Disease. All he had to do to pretty much arrest the symptoms was to quit smoking...but he could not. As a result of the disease, he had had all of fingers and all of his toes amputated. He continued to smoke, holding the cig between the stumps of thumbs, at the first joint (this was when smoking was still allowed in hospitals). Others had to light it for him. The disease had progressed such that it was affecting his hands and feet adversely, to point they were getting close to being candidates for amputation. As I said, all he had to do to stop the disease progression was to quit...
It isn't death itself that is the "denominator", hell's bells I've been in three day comas from motorcycle wrecks, that didn't stop me from riding again. I've had ribs broken and lungs punctured from horses, didn't stop me from riding horses. When "things" started growing inside of me like parasite, and knowing I might have helped fire the "starting gun" for it to start growing is what stopped me. It isn't pleasant to fight the cancers, by any stretch and sometimes during the chemo and radiation I almost thought "I'd rather die than do this tomorrow". When I lost that third of my tongue, I couldn't eat anything but soup and protein shakes, and when the stitches came loose and I started bleeding so bad I was choking on my own blood before I could get back up to the "hospital" for a re-stitching, I really considered "death is better than this". If you have any "weirdness" growing in your oral cavity, or sore gums or crap like that, get that stuff OUT OF YOUR LIFE as fast as you can.
It's not death, it's the dying. It's slow, ugly and very, very nasty. And the best part is your family and friends get to watch. So you're not doing this to yourself, you're doing it to everybody that cares about you. Have you ever been willing to go prison because you took a tire iron to your best friend's head so he wouldn't suffer any more?
I use to take a small pinch of a friends copenhagen when I wanted to go home frome school, I'd turn green walk into the office, or puke in front of a teachers desk and they were convinced I was sick. An hour or so later and I was good to go for the surfing at the beach or whatever.
I started smoking when I was about 10, and got my parents' permission to smoke openly when I was 13 or so. I smoked regularly (a pack or so a day) up until I was 23. I got a nasty cold and didn't smoke for a few days. About that time, my wife went into labor with our first child, and as I left to take her to the hospital, I grabbed a pack of cigarettes, figuring I wold need them. (In those days, fathers waited outside). After a few hours of waiting, I lit a cigarette and immediately got light headed. I put it out, left the pack in the waiting room, and haven't had one since (40 years). Now, I can't even stand the smell of someone who smokes.
If you put a wet patch of tobacco in your arm pit you'll develop a high fever. Courtesy of The Gulag Archipelago.
Kids don't get any ideas here. This is just a discussion about the Evils of tobacco not ways to skip school! Hey, just realized I've spent more time on the forum (and related links),today than I have running outside for a smoke. Thanks!
Not Too Bad? ! The few times it happened I had the hiccups for an hour, my chest hurt, it felt like heartburn down to my toes and my stomach churned for the rest of the day! No amount of Brandy or Schnapps mixed in eased the burn of that vile stuff.
That is true that it can be a nasty slow delibilating disease. But a few years ago i got very very sick over the course of a week (not tobacco related), which turned into two, then three. I took over 15 blood tests and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. The night i finally checked myself into the hospital i was scheduled to go to the cleveland clinic for cancer tests, (luekemia, non hodgkins lymphoma.. the whole gamet). My tonsils swelled so much that they were touching and closing off my windpipe, i couldnt talk, couldnt say a word, couldnt eat or drink (even water) they said if i hadnt gone to the emergency room that night i would have died in my sleep. I considered this a major turning point in my life because i realized that regardless of what you do something can always happen. Hell i didn't think i'd face a life threatening illness after i graduated from high school, i didn't think that was possible. But it happened. The hardest part for me about quitting is knowing that really.. I know that it can be bad, but i also know that i could walk outside and get hit by a truck an die on the spot. Life is a fickle thing, i put my faith in God and allow him to determine when its my time. And i could never do that, i think God is the only one who can decide when its time for a soul to move on, not humans.. were incapable of that knowledge and power.
I had to wrap Redman in Bubble gum when i was in high school lol the only way to have it was to gut it.. you get used to it! Hell makes rippin shots easier
I had a trach in '07. No fun. I didn't have to do the deed, as it turned out. When I went back to hospital that night his bed was empty.
Here's a funny smoking story. I was making rounds one day with doc in the hospital. He was seeing a woman who was a 4 pack a day smoker and who had problems directly related to her habit. The surgeon told her that if she would quit smoking, she could 10 years longer. Her reply was, "Hell, Dr._____, who wants to live 10 years without cigarettes?' He couldn't argue with her logic, if it was that important to her.
My mom is a smoker...has been for over 40 years. My dad quit years back...I'll never forget it because he came home from work, threw an empty pack in the garbage and said, "Cigarettes went up to $3.00 a pack...I'm all done." And he was....he'd smoked for 20 years and quite because of a price hike. That is one of the funny stories we like to tell around the family dinner table when the subject of how hard it is to quit comes up. I've never been a regular smoker, but I like to keep a pack on hand for nights when I'm having a few beers. I have 11 left out of the pack I bought in Feb. so I guess I'm not doing too bad.
A Bullseye or a fine Cuban from time to time, never anything more then that. That is how it will stay.
Use tobacco to kill the bugs on my lawn, never smoked, unfortunately been in far too many smoke filled bars and clubs.
I've been suffering from second hand smoke ever since I was a kid and relived when smoking was finally banned in public places. Private meeting are still a problem, especially when I see smokers smoke next to babies or pregnant women smoke.
I'm rather big and pretty damn ugly, so I have fun getting in smoker's faces when they sit fire to that dried weed when it's verboten. I always get a round of applause after.
