How to stop smoking in a totally new and different way<\/p>\n
By Clare E. Urwin<\/p>\n
This is the first of two articles offering tips on how to quit
\nsmoking. The second will appear on this column next week.<\/p>\n
SURABAYA (JP): If the title of my column makes you curious
\nenough to look at what follows, please do yourself the biggest
\nfavor in your life and continue to read it.<\/p>\n
Don't worry, this article is not full of dire warnings about
\nthe evils of tobacco.<\/p>\n
Nor does it try to scare you by going on and on about the
\nterrible health risks involved, how awful and disgusting smoking
\nis, or how much money you are wasting when you smoke. None of
\nthose things helped me to stop during all the years I smoked and
\nif you are reading this, they obviously haven't helped you
\neither!<\/p>\n
I want this article to make you think about the subject of
\ngiving up smoking in a totally new and different way. Be prepared
\nfor your own personal wake-up call. No feelings of deprivation
\nnecessary.<\/p>\n
By reading this article and seriously considering its
\ncontents, you are going to want to give up smoking and will find
\nit easy. You are going to enjoy giving up smoking and be so happy
\nand relieved to be free.<\/p>\n
Understanding the real reason people smoke and why they find
\nit so difficult to give up is the first part of your wake-up
\ncall. Smokers are not stupid or weak. In fact, most smokers are
\nstrong willed people. Often dominant type in responsible and
\nstressful situations.<\/p>\n
They are all well aware of the statistics about lung cancer
\nand heart disease but continue to smoke because they have been
\nconned into believing that it relieves stress, helps them
\nconcentrate or relaxes them.<\/p>\n
Also, the mere thought of stopping makes the serious long-term
\nsmoker quietly panic. The fear of finally giving up that crutch,
\nthe horror of a continual unsatisfied craving and the lack of
\nconfidence in their own ability to actually quit, keeps them
\nhooked.<\/p>\n
Hooked is the operative word unfortunately. Smoking is not
\njust an antisocial \"habit\". Smoking is an addiction to nicotine
\nand nicotine is a drug. Probably the fastest addictive drug in
\nthe world.<\/p>\n
Every puff on every cigarette rapidly delivers a small dose of
\nnicotine, via the lungs and the blood stream, to the brain. When
\nthe cigarette is finished, the level of nicotine rapidly falls
\nand within an hour the smoker begins to suffer withdrawal pangs.
\nHe then lights another one and is \"rehooked\".<\/p>\n
Yes, every smoker does initially make the choice about having
\nhis or her first cigarettes. Usually it's for unwise sociable
\nreasons. Perhaps wanting to appear mature, sophisticated and
\ngrown-up, to help keep weight down or because of peer pressure.<\/p>\n
However, no smoker ever chooses to become an addict. None of
\nus wanted to \"need\" cigarettes almost desperately and to feel
\ninsecure and anxious without them. We were virtually unaware of
\nthe insidious process of our addiction, thinking we could stop at
\nany time we wanted.<\/p>\n
But how quickly we all became trapped, and like other traps,
\nthe nicotine one is designed to keep us entangled permanently.<\/p>\n
It is a fallacy that smoking relieves stress, helps
\nconcentration or aids relaxation. In fact, smoking promotes
\nstress by causing the addiction in the first place.<\/p>\n
The apparent \"relief\" and \"comfort\" felt when you light up a
\ncigarette is only your satisfying some of the withdrawal pangs.
\nAs with other drugs, our bodies tend to become immune to the
\ninfluence of nicotine and so the longer we are addicted the more
\nwe have to smoke to obtain the same effect.<\/p>\n
Eventually, even smoking the cigarette itself doesn't
\ncompletely relieve the longing. You may feel better than before
\nyou lit the cigarette, but in reality you are actually more
\nnervously stressed, poorly focused and less relaxed than any
\nnonsmoker will ever be.<\/p>\n
The cigarette has made you feel like this and every time you
\nlight another one it doesn't relieve the feeling, it actually
\ncauses and reinforces it.<\/p>\n
Concentration is adversely affected by smoking with the
\ngradual blocking up of the arteries and veins with gunge from
\ncigarettes that starve the brain of oxygen. How can your full
\npotential for inspiration and intellectual growth be realized if
\nthis is the case?<\/p>\n
Lighting up while you are doing something else or when the
\nphone rings actually means your priority is relieving the
\nwithdrawal pangs and feeding your habit. When you are a nonsmoker
\nyou can fully concentrate and focus on something worthwhile.<\/p>\n
Nicotine doesn't relax you either. It's actually a chemical
\nstimulant which increases your pulse rate. One of the so-called
\n\"favorite\" times for a cigarette is after a meal, but smokers
\nlight up then not to relax, but to satisfy some of those
\nwithdrawal pangs.<\/p>\n
While the nonsmoker is fully content after eating and
\ndrinking, the poor smoker can't be at ease and so he has to have
\na cigarette. Never completely satisfying his nicotine craving he
\nneeds to smoke more and more.<\/p>\n
The longer he is addicted, the worse it gets. Smokers have
\nforgotten what it feels like to be completely relaxed. That's one
\nof the many pleasures to come when you stop.<\/p>\n
Every smoker wants to quit, even if they won't admit it. Just
\nask anyone who smokes if they would like their children to take
\nit up. Of course they wouldn't.<\/p>\n
But at the same time, all smokers have to say that they really
\nenjoy the habit and want to continue to smoke. I remember, I did
\nand was adamant about savoring every single cigarette. Let's face
\nit, nobody wants to appear a total fool!<\/p>\n
This is worth a smile. Imagine trying to justify the following
\nbehavior. A so called \"grown-up\" continually clinging to and
\nsucking at a thin white dummy filled with dead leaves. You set
\nfire to it, then deeply inhale the smoky poisonous fumes.<\/p>\n
This smoke robs you of your energy; it ages and cripples you,
\nmakes you smell and gives you bad breath while it slowly and
\npainfully kills you off! But, you insist you enjoy it! No wonder
\nmore and more nonsmokers seem to be laughing at us. Or even
\nworse, pitying us.<\/p>\n
Before giving up cigarettes I was smoking more than 30 a day
\nand all the health warnings in the world had no effect on my
\nstopping whatsoever. Incidentally, like all smokers I had every
\nintention of giving up one day but just not right now!<\/p>\n
In the meantime I resented the way society \"criminalized\"
\nsmokers and made us such easy targets to blame for almost
\neverything and anything. Public places, offices, restaurants,
\ntrains and even airplanes started to forbid smoking. Nowhere was
\nsafe. Having to listen to \"holier-than-thou\" ex-smokers was even
\nworse. I felt like chain smoking two cigarettes at a time when in
\ntheir company!<\/p>\n
Some nagging doubts were ever present though. Looking around
\nat nonsmokers, it slowly dawned on me that I was the odd one out
\nand not them. They seemed to be just fine and very happy without
\ncigarettes; getting on with their jobs, experiencing full social
\nlives and enjoying their food and an occasional drink. Why did I
\nneed tobacco to do all those things? Did these people know
\nsomething I didn't? Were they in some way cleverer than me?<\/p>\n
Another irritation was that smoking was taking up so much of
\nmy time. I had to continually think about whether I had enough
\ncigarettes left for each evening, or when going out, had I bought
\nenough with me? Were there any places left open to buy some if I
\nran out? Come on; shouldn't my brain be used for something better
\nthan that? Finally was the realization that I no longer
\ncontrolled the cigarettes.<\/p>\n
The cigarettes were controlling me. Acknowledging that fact
\nwas humiliating.<\/p>\n
-- The writer is a nutrition, fitness and health advisor based
\nin Surabaya.<\/p>",
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