OT: Smoking

Congrats, John. Any move is a positive direction is a good one. One step, one day at at a time.
 
Yeah I'm riding my Trek a bit more and checking my heart at Wal Mart I'm doing well... Maybe I will look into the drugs, I'm always up for help... I know people who really LOVE to smoke, I was never like that, smoking for me passed the time and gave me something to do. And with my state banning smoking all over the place and the rising costs, and for health I was just like I can't keep doing something that just isn't worth it anymore...
 
They say nicotine is more addictive than heroin. Somewhere approaching a year is when the metabolism readjusts to the lack of the stimulant- that means crankiness can be a long time, and this is when people gain weight. The weight can be taken off after the first year.

Never smoked. Dad smoked for years and quit- but always wanted one. He finally got it down to smoking 2 or 3 cigarettes a day, and did this for many years. Now he is quit.


munk
 
Buddy of mine is on Wellbutrin. He doesn't seem to have reduced smoking desire, but he is losing weight...probably because he eats when stressed.

John
 
I'm a 55 + year smoker and will be cremated with a carton of Camels. My lungs are the best organs I own. Great Uncle Frank smoked for about 80 years. It's all karma.
 
I never realized how unpleasant and offensive I smelled when I was a smoker, but after years of non-smoking I see what my friends and loved ones had to tolerate. I don't see how women who were non smokers could have gotten close enough to me to be intimate. I must have been a great lover, or maybe they were just desperate. Now that I think about it, not many did get close enough to be intimate. Anyway, I'm going with "great lover" theory.
 
Wellbutrin aka Zyban is not a cureall, and you can smoke beyond the quit date (said from experience). The smokes start tasting icky, and feeling funny. But if you are a die hard smoker you get past that, and get used to that icky taste. By then though, the Wellbutrin aint gonna do anything for your quiting. The whole you gotta want to quit thing is so true. Many who try and fail, deep down didnt really want to quit. Though as Munk says, smoking is as addictive as heroin, via the physical and mental withdrawals. I know I didnt quit for years, just because everytime I would try Id feel like I was dying. Worst withdrawals ever experienced, of course not that I am admitting to any other kinds of withdrawals. Anyways, some say smoking is related to depression. I know the studies are skewed, but I know I used to be in a real dark place, on a whole bunch of different meds, but after quiting smoking and getting physically active again Im in a better place than I have been in years without meds. There are still those dark days, but it seems a good bike ride can always make em a little less dim, when a whole bunch of other meds just made Mr. Happy (trying to keep it G rated) go limp.
 
After more than ten years off tobacco, I still have an occasional dream where I'm buying a pack of cigarettes. Not too often, but it proves that once the hook is in, it goes in deep and stays in.
I got hypnotized. Saw an ad in the paper and figured - for $35 what the hell? Must have been 200 people in the room and this guy did a wonderful job. Tossed my back of cigarillos on the table by the exit on the way out, and never smoked again. Best $35 I ever spent!
 
Bri in Chi

I quit the same way, but it was $200 in a private consulation. She even gave me an audio tape to listen to for reinforcement, I listened to it every night for about 6 months.

Havent had one since, must have been 1995. I rarely want them anymore either.
 
Bri in Chi said:
..I got hypnotized...Tossed my back of cigarillos on the table by the exit on the way out, and never smoked again.
Click to expand...

In 1958, while attending college in Colorado, I was in my dorm room listening to the radio. A guy comes on and starts talking about taking a hike and how hot and tired we were getting. We continue on getting more tired with every step until we come to a shady clearing and we lie down on the grass. He then proceeds to take us through a series of mental exercises where we thought of our muscles as elastic bands and stretched them out and slowly let them relax, progressively getting more and more relaxed. Finally when we are fully relaxed, laying on the cool grass in the shade, he has us pull out our Kool cigarettes and light up.

As a Psychology major, I immediately recognized this as an exercise in hypnotic induction. I had worked with identical techniques. I don't know what the advertising laws were like at that time, but it blew my mind that this type of thing could be done on the public airways.

I never heard the ad again, and I have never come across anyone else who heard it. It didn't work on me as I couldn't afford to smoke anything but Bull Durham, but I have always wondered what the sales of Kools looked like the next day.
 
That's funny; I never smoked, but purchased many hundreds of cartons of Kool...



munk
 
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