Question:
Posted originally by Padders, these really have helped many people…. With hope and heart, Kathleen DAY 1 Welcome to the majority. Only 26 percent of adult Americans smoke, and they nearly all wish they didn’t. Public opinion holds smokers in low esteem. When a person lights up a cigarette, others see a poor soul lacking in self-control, a victim. To put it unkindly, a drug addict. After all, precious few people smoke because they want to. They smoke because they can’t stop. Yet they are surrounded by people who could stop and did. How does that make them feel? Bad. As you did until today. No you have crossed to the other side. You can hold up your head. You can sit in the non-smoking section. You don’t have to subject yourself to other people’s whims by asking the sniveling questions "Mind if I smoke?" Now you’re as good as they are. Twenty minutes after your last cigarette, nicotine ceased to affect your blood pressure, pulse, and body temperature. Within 8 hours, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drastically fell, and increased oxygen is now reaching all the tissues of your body. By: Meditations for surviving without cigarettes DAY 2 Don’t feel sorry for yourself. People moan about the pain of quitting, but what about the pleasure? Things are looking up already. You’ve cleared out those vile ashtrays. You smell better. You don’t have to look for your cigarettes. You probably don’t feel your best today. You crave a cigarette, naturally. You expected that. But you may also be bowed down by headaches, nausea, sweatiness, aches, and digestive upsets. Not to mention irritability, restlessness, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating. These are normal nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and they pass quickly. You can ignore them, or if you prefer, declare yourself sick and go to bed. It’s best to stay away from smokers; this is a perfect time to haunt museums, movie theatres, parks, and mountain trails. one woman spent the first two no-smoking days on her bicycle miserable and depressed. On the third day she felt wonderful. Withdrawal is a nasty business. Wouldn’t care to repeat it, would you? Even if you’re on a nicotine patch, you’re unlikely to be feeling wholly yourself. Observe your feelings, as if they were a passing parade. They will retreat, and so will the urge for a cigarette, unless you smoke. Tomorrow will be different. DAY 3 You have conferred tremendous benefits on yourself by quitting smoking. You’ve added not just eight years (on average age) to your expected life span, but eight much healthier years than you could look forward to as a smoker. Put to good use, they will be happier years, too. You are now in a position to get more out of life than you ever could as a smoker. That cloud of smoke stood between you and life’s full experience. At the moment you may be coughing or clearing your throat more than ever before–so much that your chest may hurt. Be glad! You’ve recovered the ability to clear out blocked airways, which were stuck full of mucus. The clearing-out process lasts only a few days, and your old smoker’s cough (the body’s attempt to protect itself from the irritants in cigarette smoke) will be history in a few weeks. Fatigue during the day and wakefulness at night are normal withdrawal symptoms, not likely to last more than a few weeks. Intestinal upsets can also last weeks, but most of your other symptoms will pass in a day or two. The worst cigarette cravings should now be behind you. DAY 4 Your worst physical withdrawal symptoms should have passed by now. if the only reason you smoked was that you’d once had the bad luck of becoming addicted to nicotine, you’d be home free. But people are not such fools that they smoke out of addiction alone. They smoke because smoking is rewarding. Chances are, you have a number of hurdles still to cross in your metamorphosis into a non-smoker. In the past, smoking has helped you to regulate your moods, ignore pain, control excitement, ward off anxiety, and medicate depression. But as smoking provides only a distraction, not a cure, smokers tend to have a lot of unfinished business in their psyches. When someone stops smoking, he or she is apt to suffer most from the intensity of emotions. The uplifting ones can be as intimidating as the anxious ones. Both scream "CIGARETTE"!!! The trick is to let these feelings rush by without succumbing to them. In time, you will learn to tend your emotions far more affectively without cigarettes than you ever did with them. DAY 5 As long as you smoked, your body operated under a tremendous hindrance. It had to adapt not only to nicotine, but to the 4000 plus other chemicals found in burning tobacco (over 40 of which are known to be carcinogenic). That smoke you took in didn’t just gum up your lungs, but passed immediately into your bloodstream. The carbon monoxide in the smoke displaced oxygen, making you tired and breathless. Nicotine sped up your heart rate and raised your blood pressure. When you lit a cigarette your body temperature also fell, and less blood flowed to your arms, legs, and feet. If you’re feeling tingling now in your fingers and toes, it’s because you’re noticing improved circulation. If you still want a cigarette, try the 4 D’s: Drink water, Delay, Deep-breathe, Do something else. The craving will go away in a couple of minutes — If you don’t smoke DAY 6 You do exercise, don’t you? Exercise lets you fully reap the sense of well-being that comes from not smoking. Exercise does well what the body does badly, which is to alleviate anxiety, depression, and restlessness. Both smoking and exercise give the brain’s neurotransmitters a boost, but the effects of exercise are much longer lasting. A cigarette produces only a few minutes’ reprieve from anxiety; a good workout creates genuine relaxation, lasting hours. For those who worry about getting fat, exercise is a critical part of the program. It’s necessary to find an exercise you can bring yourself to do regularly. You can hate running and still like ice skating or racquetball or weight lifting or bicycling or swimming or yoga. Good old walking will do fine. An easy stroll is far better than nothing. In your early weeks of not smoking, you should try to at least one exercise break a day. The exertion cuts the craving for a cigarette, and there is satisfaction in making the most of your body’s growing capabilities–now that it is no longer a smoking machine. DAY 7 "Just for today" is a key slogan in Nicotine Anonymous. "Just for today, I will not smoke." You may reassess the situation tomorrow, whereupon you may decide to smoke again. Thus, your only problem is getting through today. In the years to come, if you want to smoke, say to yourself, "Well, maybe tomorrow." Tomorrow, one hopes, you will decide you can get through tomorrow. This takes the chill off making a lifetime decision. The thought of forever may be too much to contemplate. And if tomorrow seems too close to forever, there’s "just for the next 7 minutes I will not smoke."
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: I loved these, haven’t seen them in eons.. aren’t they originally from a : book or something? : Thanks for reposting them, they are great to read 
I don’t remember, Kita… at least I didn’t save that info. I did see that the following is in a couple of them: : > By: Meditations for surviving without cigarettes Hugs, Kathleen
Response:
I loved these, haven’t seen them in eons.. aren’t they originally from a book or something? Thanks for reposting them, they are great to read – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Posted originally by Padders, these really have helped many people…. > With hope and heart, > Kathleen > DAY 1 > Welcome to the majority. Only 26 percent of adult Americans smoke, and > they nearly all wish they didn’t. Public opinion holds smokers in low > esteem. When a person lights up a cigarette, others see a poor soul > lacking in self-control, a victim. To put it unkindly, a drug addict. > After all, precious few people smoke because they want to. They smoke > because they can’t stop. Yet they are surrounded by people who could > stop and did. How does that make them feel? > Bad. As you did until today. No you have crossed to the other side. > You can hold up your head. You can sit in the non-smoking section. You > don’t have to subject yourself to other people’s whims by asking the > sniveling questions "Mind if I smoke?" Now you’re as good as they > are. > Twenty minutes after your last cigarette, nicotine ceased to affect > your blood pressure, pulse, and body temperature. Within 8 hours, the > carbon monoxide level in your blood drastically fell, and increased > oxygen is now reaching all the tissues of your body. > By: Meditations for surviving without cigarettes > DAY 2 > Don’t feel sorry for yourself. People moan about the pain of quitting, > but what about the pleasure? Things are looking up already. You’ve > cleared out those vile ashtrays. You smell better. You don’t have to > look for your cigarettes. > You probably don’t feel your best today. You crave a cigarette, > naturally. You expected that. But you may also be bowed down by > headaches, nausea, sweatiness, aches, and digestive upsets. Not to > mention irritability, restlessness, anxiety, and difficulty > concentrating. These are normal nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and they > pass quickly. You can ignore them, or if you prefer, declare yourself > sick and go to bed. It’s best to stay away from smokers; this is a > perfect time to haunt museums, movie theatres, parks, and mountain > trails. one woman spent the first two no-smoking days on her bicycle > miserable and depressed. On the third day she felt wonderful. > Withdrawal is a nasty business. Wouldn’t care to repeat it, would you? > Even if you’re on a nicotine patch, you’re unlikely to be feeling > wholly yourself. Observe your feelings, as if they were a passing > parade. They will retreat, and so will the urge for a cigarette, > unless you smoke. Tomorrow will be different. > DAY 3 > You have conferred tremendous benefits on yourself by quitting > smoking. You’ve added not just eight years (on average age) to your > expected life span, but eight much healthier years than you could look > forward to as a smoker. Put to good use, they will be happier years, > too. You are now in a position to get more out of life than you ever > could as a smoker. That cloud of smoke stood between you and life’s > full experience. > At the moment you may be coughing or clearing your throat more than > ever before–so much that your chest may hurt. Be glad! You’ve > recovered the ability to clear out blocked airways, which were stuck > full of mucus. The clearing-out process lasts only a few days, and > your old smoker’s cough (the body’s attempt to protect itself from the > irritants in cigarette smoke) will be history in a few weeks. > Fatigue during the day and wakefulness at night are normal withdrawal > symptoms, not likely to last more than a few weeks. Intestinal upsets > can also last weeks, but most of your other symptoms will pass in a > day or two. The worst cigarette cravings should now be behind you. > DAY 4 > Your worst physical withdrawal symptoms should have passed by now. if > the only reason you smoked was that you’d once had the bad luck of > becoming addicted to nicotine, you’d be home free. > But people are not such fools that they smoke out of addiction alone. > They smoke because smoking is rewarding. Chances are, you have a > number of hurdles still to cross in your metamorphosis into a > non-smoker. In the past, smoking has helped you to regulate your > moods, ignore pain, control excitement, ward off anxiety, and medicate > depression. But as smoking provides only a distraction, not a cure, > smokers tend to have a lot of unfinished business in their psyches. > When someone stops smoking, he or she is apt to suffer most from the > intensity of emotions. The uplifting ones can be as intimidating as > the anxious ones. Both scream "CIGARETTE"!!! The trick is to let these > feelings rush by without succumbing to them. In time, you will learn > to tend your emotions far more affectively without cigarettes than you > ever did with them. > DAY 5 > As long as you smoked, your body operated under a tremendous > hindrance. It had to adapt not only to nicotine, but to the 4000 plus > other chemicals found in burning tobacco (over 40 of which are known > to be carcinogenic). That smoke you took in didn’t just gum up your > lungs, but passed immediately into your bloodstream. The carbon > monoxide in the smoke displaced oxygen, making you tired and > breathless. Nicotine sped up your heart rate and raised your blood > pressure. When you lit a cigarette your body temperature also fell, > and less blood flowed to your arms, legs, and feet. If you’re feeling > tingling now in your fingers and toes, it’s because you’re noticing > improved circulation. > If you still want a cigarette, try the 4 D’s: Drink water, Delay, > Deep-breathe, Do something else. The craving will go away in a couple > of minutes — If you don’t smoke > DAY 6 > You do exercise, don’t you? Exercise lets you fully reap the sense of > well-being that comes from not smoking. Exercise does well what the > body does badly, which is to alleviate anxiety, depression, and > restlessness. Both smoking and exercise give the brain’s > neurotransmitters a boost, but the effects of exercise are much longer > lasting. A cigarette produces only a few minutes’ reprieve from > anxiety; a good workout creates genuine relaxation, lasting hours. For > those who worry about getting fat, exercise > is a critical part of the program. > It’s necessary to find an exercise you can bring yourself to do > regularly. You can hate running and still like ice skating or > racquetball or weight lifting or bicycling or swimming or yoga. Good > old walking will do fine. An easy stroll is far better than nothing. > In your early weeks of not smoking, you should try to at least one > exercise break a day. The exertion cuts the craving for a cigarette, > and there is satisfaction in making the most of your body’s growing > capabilities–now that it is no longer a smoking machine. > DAY 7 > "Just for today" is a key slogan in Nicotine Anonymous. "Just for > today, I will not smoke." You may reassess the situation tomorrow, > whereupon you may decide to smoke again. Thus, your only problem is > getting through today. In the years to come, if you want to smoke, say > to yourself, "Well, maybe tomorrow." Tomorrow, one hopes, you will > decide you can get through tomorrow. This takes the chill off making a > lifetime decision. The thought of forever may be too much to > contemplate. And if tomorrow seems too close to forever, there’s "just > for the next 7 minutes I will not smoke."
Response:
DAY 22 If you’re still having strong impulses to smoke (or worse, succumbing to The impulses), keep track of what brings up the urge. Parties are hard for a lot of people. It may help if you break the ice when you arrive at a party by announcing immediately to somebody that you’ve quit smoking. After that, most people find it too humiliating to be seen with a cigarette. If that doesn’t work, lay off parties for awhile. Not smoking is more important. The liquor at parties adds to an ex-smoker’s vulnerability. If drinking makes you smoke, then drinking may have to go. And if you can’t stop drinking, you have a drinking problem. Call Alcoholics Anonymous or the National Council on Alcoholism. DAY 23 The American obsession with thinness has the tragic effect of keeping many people hooked on cigarettes. It’s all very well for doctors to say that you could gain 100 pounds and still be healthier than if you smoked. Given the choice, you’d rather be dead. There is a fair chance that you are going to end up weighing more than you did while you smoked, but probably not by much. It appears that smoking lowers your natural weight–setpoint–and so when you stop, the body perceives itself as underweight. Consequently, you may suddenly find yourself eating like a horse. The important thing is not to panic and imagine that you’re gong to go on eating like a horse indefinitely. Once the body reaches its new chosen weight, your appetite will drop off. A few people do add considerable poundage, which can take a few years to deal with, but a fair number of people do not gain weight at all. Exercise, like smoking, seems to lower the body’s setpoint, as well as transforming belly fat to muscle. DAY 24 The life of a smoker has become particularly miserable in recent years now that many households are hostile to smoking. A visit with friends entails suffering for the smoker. While others are making merry, the smoker is longing for a cigarette. She becomes more and more distracted as the question looms larger "When can she make a break for it?" Just as she’s about to go into the garden for a cigarette, dinner is served. After dinner, when it would seem reasonable to have a little smoke outdoors, some bore is telling an endless story, and she can’t politely exit until it’s finished. And then soon after she’s served her addiction, the old urge starts all over again. It’s just as bad in restaurants. Even understanding friends may admit that smelling smoke while they’re eating makes them sick. Smoking was certainly more fun when there was a happy conviviality about it. Now, a person who unveils a pack of cigarettes feels like a murderer. DAY 25 In your first few weeks as a nonsmoker, your sleep may be disturbed, but you may soon be sleeping more soundly than you did before, particularly if you’ve been getting some exercise. You may find yourself needing more sleep than you used to (you’re more active during the day) or less (you have more energy). Don’t get overtired, which leads to carelessness, which leads to smoking. Meanwhile, keep a good book next to your bedside and be glad you don’t have to worry about falling asleep with a cigarette in your hand. In Baltimore, a three-year study found that more than half the house fires were caused by smoking. Of those who died, 39 percent were not the smokers themselves. DAY 26 Although cigarettes have been the downfall of most contemporary tobacco addicts, there are other ways to go — pipes, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco. In India there’s the problem of reverse chutta smoking–which is the smoking of a cigarlike stick with the lit end inside the mouth. The practioners of these minority methods should not imagine that they are exempt from the problems of cigarette smoking. When the mortality statistics are highest for cigarettes, each method of nicotine intake has its own nasty side effects. Pipe smokers have high rates of lip and pharynx cancer; cigar smokers get tongue cancer; and snuff and chewing tobacco lead to tongue and gum cancer and heart disease. Furthermore, all nicotine users are drug addicts and consequently to some degree are escaping reality and operating beneath capacity. If your problem was tobacco, but not cigarettes, just substitute the name of your habit when reading this book. Be assured that your vice, whatever it was, was just as vile as cigarettes. DAY 27 Among smoking diseases, lung cancer is one of the quicker ways to go. Emphysema is one of the lingering ones. The air sacs of the lungs are destroyed; by the time the disease is diagnosed a large percentage of these sacs are gone. The sufferer may be left struggling for breath for years before death comes. Smokers have ten times the emphysema rate of non-smokers. Even in the early years of smoking, tobacco is inflicting permanent damage on the lungs. Damaged lungs cannot be reconstituted, but fortunately one can breathe with lungs that operate way below capacity. If the damage is arrested, one may be lucky enough to never seriously suffer from the harm already done. DAY 28 It may seem surprising that the simple act of smoking can cause such varied damage to remote areas of the body. The explanation is that tobacco smoke is made up of a wide variety of toxic chemicals that circulate through the entire body in the bloodstream. Carbon monoxide is only one of the deadly chemicals produced. Nicotine itself is the usual suspect when it comes to raising blood pressure and forming blood clots, but it’s the other chemicals that cause cancer. More than forty have been identified as carcinogens, and some are complete carcinogens, capable of starting tumors single-handedly. One is beta-naphtylamine, which causes bladder cancer, a cancer seven to 10 times more common in smokers than in nonsmokers. Wherever tar lands in the system, it produces abnormal cells, which is where cancers start. For pipe and cigar smokers who don’t inhale, the main cancer sites are the lips, tongue, mouth, jaws, larynx, and esophagus. For cigarette smokers, the primary list goes on to include the lungs, bladder, kidneys, and pancreas. DAY 29 The debate is over as to whether it is harmful to be on the other end of the smoker’s cigarette. It is. Passive smoking is now recognized as the third leading preventable cause of death – after active smoking and drinking. Nonsmokers living with smokers have a 30 percent (or higher, according to some studies) risk of death from heart attacks. And nonsmokers who live with smokers cannot be dismissed as the kinds of people who have heart attacks anyhow. The platelets of nonsmokers sitting for twenty minutes in a waiting room with smokers became stickier-a condition that leads to heart attacks. In one study, 69 percent of nonsmokers developed eye irritation when among smokers; 29 percent had nasal symptoms; 32 percent had headaches; and 25 percent developed coughs. And these were the non-allergic nonsmokers. The percentages were much higher among those with allergies. The nonsmoking majority is fighting back, and public places and work sites now often prohibit smoking. It is in the home that smokers most often find their victims-defenseless children. Day 30 Many are the ex-smokers who have turned to cigarettes at times of pressure. And just as many have been sorry afterward. When the heat is on, it’s easy to forget your priorities, such as how much you care about not smoking. There you are, your mind agitated when a devious thought comes to you: "I need a cigarette." And many months later, the only reason you may have to remember that day is that it was the day you started smoking again. It’s only the moment you have to get through, and the urge will pass. So be ready for it. Proactive. Conjure up difficult situations in which you turn down cigarettes. There you are in the hotel bar late at night when your ex-wife walks in. You suffered for two years after she left. She looks better than ever. She’s with her new husband. You’re with a friend who smokes. DON’T REACH FOR HIS CIGARETTES. That sensation of a rib breaking your chest will pass. You could be stuck with cigarettes forever. DAY 31 You’ve done it! A month without cigarettes. This is a time for celebration-perhaps a long-distance call to someone who will appreciate this good news? It’s also time for one of your periodic counting of blessings. Think back to the state you were in when you smoked. Do you feel better now? Look better? Smell better? Sleep better? Do you get more done? Do you hold your head higher? So, maybe not. Maybe you’re a nervous wreck. Maybe you chew your fingernails or scream at your children. Some people find themselves depressed at this point. If you smoked to avoid facing inner problems, the problems may have become much more apparent since you stopped smoking. But you still have something to be thankful for-at least you’re on the road to recovery. You’re not hiding in your private smoke shelter anymore. Possibly you could benefit from professional insight. Most medical plans offer short-term psychological help-and consider it particularly cost-effective in the case of people giving up smoking.
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Day 15 Irritability is a big complaint of people who quit smoking. All those little things that you once took in your stride bug you. The sound of certain voices may make you feel murderous. Being put on hold is more than you can take. Trying to be civil is exhausting. You miss the old easygoing Joe or Jill everybody was so fond of; anything that got on your nerves was met with a cigarette. You can be fairly confident that your irritability level will go down in the next two weeks, although you may not become like Buddha. It’s possible that behind that curtain of smoke, which you raised whenever any small annoyance was at hand, is a somewhat irritable person, one of the reasons you smoked was to obscure that unwelcome fact. Becoming less irritable, which you can do, may take some time and effort–with meditation, therapy, fresh air, biofeedback, exercise, etc. There are, however, some things that are just plain irritating, such as injustice and dishonesty. These should rightfully be met with action, rather than with either smoking or a smile. Day 16 It helps to practice turning down cigarettes before the chance even arises. Imagine Rhett Butler sidling up next to you while you’re standing line at the movies. "Cigarette?" he says. "NO THANK YOU. I DON’T SMOKE," you say. Rhett won’t stick around, but you could be stuck with the cigarettes for years to come. Suppose something frightening happens. Your brother is out fishing, there’s a storm, his boat doesn’t return. You are waiting at the pier with your sister-in-law, who is chain-smoking. DON’T SMOKE. Whatever happens, smoking will only make it worse. Actually, it’s usually the mundane situations that get you. Your cousin, a nonstop talker who has been boring you out of your skull for 25 years, is visiting. In a moment of clarity, you realize that chain-smoking got you through his visits before. Get out your knitting. Or get him out. If a situation is driving you to smoke, change the situation. DAY 17 A smoker is a slave, at the beck and call of a cigarette. you, however, are now free. As your life need no longer be arranged around smoke breaks, you can go anywhere and do anything. If you’ve dreamed of exploring interior New Guinea, you can go without worrying about running out of cigarettes. And speaking of running, you don’t get that awful pain deep in your lungs anymore when you dash for a bus. If you’re lucky, you stopped smoking before you had a heart attack. Young persons who have heart attacks are overwhelmingly smokers. The chemicals in tobacco accelerate arteriosclerosis, and hearts of smokers are starved for oxygen. Carbon monoxide, inhaled from tobacco, readily displaces oxygen in the bloodstream. A smoker has 8 to 30 times as much carbon monoxide in his/her veins as a nonsmoker–thus getting less oxygen than a nonsmoker would at 8,000 feet. Young males who smoke two packs a day have seven times the risk of a heart attack as nonsmokers. For young women–under age 50– smoking two packs a day raises the risk for heart attack to ten times that of nonsmoking women. DAY 18 Has anyone commented on how much better you smell? There are no two ways about it: smokers stink. One can usually detect a smoker by smell alone, and stale tobacco is not an endearing odor. A smoker’s house stinks, too. Most of us do not care to hang around inside one. Often it’s also overheated because the smoker has poor circulation and jacks the thermometer up. The smell inside a smoker’s car does not bear mention. DAY 19 Another aesthetic consideration: wrinkles. Women especially wrinkle up from smoking, probably because of a lack of blood flow to the skin. One study of smokers and wrinkling, based on photographic portraits, concluded that smokers ages 40 to 49 had as many wrinkles as non smokers 20 years older. The coloring of a smoker isn’t pretty either. Likewise due to lack of blood circulation, the skin tends to be sallow, lacking that slight blush that adds to sex appeal. No amount of makeup substitutes for moist, dewy skin. You probably already look far better than you id twelve days ago. Men have tougher skin, but men who smoke are still far more likely to be excessively wrinkled than nonsmokers. Smoking certainly undermines the virile look, and a smoking man looks more beaten than bold. And in time, the health problems associated with smoking do their sad work. Nobody who is carrying an oxygen bottle looks sexy. DAY 20 Besides the smell and the wrinkles, another giveaway that someone is a smoker is stained, yellow teeth. Young people may escape tobacco-colored teeth for awhile, but eventually the effect catch up with them. Smokers get four to five times more gum disease than non smokers and are more likely to lose their teeth at an early age. A study of 17,000 people in Buffalo, new York, revealed that the condition of the gums and underlying bones of smokers was comparable to that of non-smokers fifteen years older. Among women with osteoporosis, the smokers are three times more likely to lose their teeth than the nonsmokers. Now’s the time to make an appointment for a teeth cleaning to get the old cigarette stains off. Your teeth should look a lot better afterward and will stay that way if you don’t smoke. If there’s irreversible damage, you may want to look into the new staining and bonding process. DAY 21 Nicotine Anonymous is a fast-spreading program. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, it is based on twelve steps, it has no dues or fees, and meetings are run by unpaid members. Sabrina P. has been attending meetings weekly for the two years since she stopped smoking. "I’d tried everything by the time I got to Nic Anon. The support and awareness I found there are the reasons I’m not smoking today. I had to realize that I’m an addict. That’s the baseline. People at meetings said, "Don’t listen to your brain, except for entertainment, because it’s addicted." I had been smoking two packs a day for thirty years. Who knew what this person was like without a drug? "Cigarettes had been my high power. They regulated my life. I preferred smoking to sex. When I smoked, I never felt alone because I had my cigarettes. When I put my cigarettes down I couldn’t stand the gaping hole inside. I felt I was one of those smokers who would smoke through the hole after a tracheotomy. It’s a miracle that I stopped. I prayed, I worked in my garden for six hours nonstop, I stood in my living room and screamed. People at meetings would say that if you’re going to stop smoking you have to be prepared to change your life. I was and I did. I’m not just healthier. I’m calmer, I have self-esteem, and my relationships are far better. Smoking kept me shame-based, a word I picked up from John Bradshaw. I’m not shame-based anymore."
Response:
DAY 8 Congratulations! Your first and worst week without cigarettes is over. It is not, however, time to relax your vigilance. Instead, count your blessings. You look better, you smell better, and you’re welcome wherever you go. You are probably enjoying your food more, too. Few great cooks are smokers, as smokers generally lack both the passion for food and the nose for it. You may, however, now be demonstrating an obsession with food that you’d rather not have, and you should take certain precautions. If you crave sweets, suck on lemon drops or Life Savers. Bowls of sunflower seeds around the house are diverting. Keep plenty of fruit, juice, and ice water on hand, and fill the fridge with ready to eat vegetable snacks. You can use the vitamins; as a smoker, you needed more and absorbed less. And eat good square meals, remembering that the US Government recommends that we all eat five to seven servings of fruit and vegetables each day. This is no time to diet. Chew gum if you must, but bear in mind that some people find gum chewing even more irritating than smoking. DAY 9 Even though he quit 16 years ago, Micheal Mery vividly remembers how difficult it was. "I loathed myself for smoking, for trashing myself, but it still took me a long time to quit. When I finally did stop, the first three days were just the normal physical withdrawal. Then a light-headedness set in that was so extreme that I was borderline dangerous. (Mery is a carpenter and works with power tools). At the same time, I was almost euphoric not to be smoking. "I’d also break out in a sweat from head to foot while just sitting in a chair, and I had major joint pain. I was irritable for months. Three months after I quit I had a drag of my then-wife’s cigarette. Having that one drag filled me with fury at myself for being so stupid. That was the last time I smoked." "I didn’t notice much physical change until one day I was shovelling horse manure into my truck for my mother’s garden. I was in a big hurry, and I loaded up in less than twenty minutes. As I drove away I was amazed to notice I wasn’t winded. Now, I run twenty miles a week. I’m just grateful to be free of cigarettes. DAY 10 Day by day, this book takes note of the milestones the ex-smoker passes along the road to recovery. Some body parts recuperate quickly, some slowly. For ease of reference, we collect together here some of the highlights in the progress of an ex-smoker. Twenty minutes after the last cigarette: Blood pressure, pulse, and body temperature return to normal. Eight hours later: Carbon monoxide level in the blood falls, allowing oxygen level to rise. Seventy-two hours later: The bronchial tubes relax, and breathing becomes easier. The lung power increases. Coughing decreases. Two weeks to three months: Circulation improves; stamina increases; lung capacity increases up to 30 percent Two Months: Chronic cough completely disappears One to nine months: Sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease. The cilia regrow in the lungs. One year: Risk of heart disease falls to half that of a current smoker Five years: Risk of heat attack and stroke almost equals that of a never smoker Six years: Risk of bladder cancer becomes half that of a never-smoker Ten years: Risk of lung cancer drops to half that of a never-smoker Fifteen years: Risk of lung cancer drops to almost that of a never-smoker Day 11 Chances are that you still feel a berserk craving for a cigarette from time to time. Even nonbelievers may take recourse in prayer at such moments. Saying "God help me" (white breathing deeply) comes as naturally to quitters as it does to drowning sailors. Both are, after all, fighting for their lives. Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, felt that people smoke, or took other intoxicants, to drown the conscience. He gives as an example the cook who cut his lady’s throat but could not finish her off until he smoked a cigarette. Thieves, gamblers, and prostitutes nearly all smoke–and so do people in lawful professions, says Tolstoy, if their behavior requires them to quiet their consciences. DAY 12 Most smokers cling to the odd idea that cigarettes reduce stress. In fact, the effect of smoking is quite the opposite. On lighting a cigarette, the pulse speeds up, blood pressure increases, and the heart pumps faster. The smoker may enjoy a moments tranquillity when the nicotine hits the brain, but that is quickly followed by the agitation of withdrawal. So the next cigarette quickly follows, sending a further valley of toxins into the body and to the nervous system. The upshot is that smoking is the world’s worst way to cope with stress. Rx for stress: Take three deep breaths, and hold the last one as long as you can. Have a hot bath. Run around the block. Do some stretches. Envision snowcapped mountains. Find someone pleasant to talk to. Pour out your soul into a notebook. Go to bed early. Day 13 Coffee drinking and smoking go together in the minds of many smokers like the proverbial horse and carriage — so much so that some cigarette quitters feel they must renounce coffee also. But adding the stress of giving up coffee to that of giving up cigarettes can be unduly traumatic. Most cigarette quitters would just as soon postpone caffeine withdrawal, perhaps till the grave. However, you might as wee be advised to cut down on the quantity of caffeine you’re taking in. Smokers metabolize caffeine faster than nonsmokers. In one test, caffeine levels went up 46 percent after smokers quit smoking–while still drinking the same amount of coffee. This could account for some of the irritability and nervousness attributed to cigarette withdrawal. So add some decaf to your usual coffee brew, and if need be, alter your rituals. The after-breakfast cup of coffee causes many recent ex-smokers to grieve for their after-breakfast cigarettes. Have that second cup of coffee (maybe decaf) but don’t sit around with it. Stroll in the garden. Strum the old guitar you’ve stowed in the closet. And this is an excellent time to write in your journal–where you can express those feelings you’re no longer trying to extinguish with smoke. Day14 Two weeks smoke free! You’re feeling like a real nonsmoker now, not even thinking about cigarettes for big chunks of time. You may still have bad moments, very likely in the evenings when you’re tired and your defenses are low. It’s a good idea to acquire new routines to get your mind off sinking into an easy chair with a cigarette. One couple who quit together now each evening take a stroll together. You may need to find things to do with your hands: Set up a picture puzzle, do the ironing, bake bread, groom the dog, sew, take up needlework, make a model airplane, pull weeds, or practice your golf swing. One ex-smoker started making a replica of the Vatican from a cut-out book. "It’s incredibly soothing," she says. "I methodically cut, fold, and glue, and the Vatican rises before me." Michelangelo didn’t smoke. If he had, at the age of eighty he could hardly been hanging from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel ceiling painting the frescoes.
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