Cracker by Damian Christie

Great Friday links. I think telling people you are quitting helps too ; )

Are you giving up smoking so you don't miss out on awesome opportunities to get seduced again?

Good luck on the non-smoking - although, it sounds like this time, you mean business so no luck needed.

I personally found the Carr book helpful, but really, it boiled down to one simple thing, all my previous failed attempts were only because I knew smoking = bad. It took me years to actually want to stop smoking. From there it was relatively easy.

But I did notice as a side-effect that for some time afterwards I was a two pint screamer ...... the replacement theory in action.

Nothing extreme, just a wee nip of scotch every time I’d normally have a cigarette.

Years ago I read an interview with Janeane Garofalo in Bus magazine. She'd recently lose weight, and they asked her what her weight-loss secret was. She said she ate bananas and whenever she felt hungry, she'd do a shot of tequila. lolz

Yup, I also replaced smoking with drinking, unintentionally.

I found that even wanting to stop smoking wasn't enough - but I had to want to stop being a smoker. I think that's the drive behind the Carr book; the first half was good for that, but the second half was heavy-handed and patronising.

Essentially, smoking was a significant part of my psyche, for any number of obscure reasons, but its importance fluctuated. One day the (ever-present) desire to quit finally became stronger than the desire to be identified as a smoker, and I quit, not too much hassle at all. After (mostly) not smoking for about a year, I'd swung the opposite way, to the extent I can't even understand what I was thinking, wanting to be a smoker.

I found that even wanting to stop smoking wasn't enough - but I had to want to stop being a smoker.

The most useful advice I've heard about quitting smoking was from a lady who had previously been a serial quitter and relapser.

She said whenever she had quit smoking, she'd always focussed on being a non-smoker, on not smoking. Eventually she realised that people who have never smoked aren't all like "Whoo-hoo! I haven't smoked for 32 years!" Smoking just isn't part of their lives. They don't think about it.

So once she'd gone through the first few weeks of withdrawal, she started to move her focus away from being a non-smoker to generally being healthy. And it worked.

I found drinking deadly to efforts to give up smoking. It weakened my resolve, and face it, nicotine's an upper, goes nicely with the downer ethanol. So I made a rule that I would not bum cigarettes of my drinking companions. I would always buy a new pack, and donate the unfinished pack to someone who looked like they need them on the way home.

Banning smoking in pubs has made it a hell of a lot easier to avoid backsliding.

Having noted that: I think that at some point, you're ready, and you stop. I've been doing some interesting reading about addiction. There is a theory out there that Alcoholics Anonymous and their fellow travellers have done terribly damage to the whole practice of giving up, with their (untested, unscientific) notions of once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, that you can never go to moderation, and so on. Carr is equally unscientific, but I like his "just stop, idiot" attitude.

Oh man. I really, really like the autopsied books. What a brilliantly simple, yet technically and creatively prodigious artistic concept.

Do want.

Robyn: "[Nonsmokers] don't think about it"
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and yet -- as Stephen points out -- is diametrically opposed to AA's "one day at a time" approach. Weird. Or do addictions to these two drugs benefit from different approaches?

Re autopsied books: oh my gods, yes. The concept may be simple, but the execution (such an apt word!) is mindboggling. Really puts all the usual talk about "finding the sculpture within the stone/wood/etc" into perspective.

--Robert

wow, that Phoenix Foundation is cool, kinda like a lysergic Moody Blues (and I mean that in a good way)

Lysergic as an adjective - Like it. Gonna steal it.

Lysergic as an adjective - Like it. Gonna steal it.

Oh FFS, it's only Monday morning and PA is at it already.

Is that a Delorean in the PF video. And if so, was it shot at Southward Car Museum? Cool.

Seeing as I am on a bit of a gripe this morning, can someone at Air NZ or the Reserve Bank upgrade that pathetic Wikipedia entry on the car museum. Totally fails to do it justice.

Lysergic never was anything but an adjective - like citric, oxalic, nitric etc. But we know what you mean.

Well done that man!! I finally realised that I wasn't that worried about health - one has to die sometime - but the money!! My doctor suggested writing on the kitchen calendar how much I hadn't spent each day on smokes. Astounding!! Every time I see cigarettes at the shop and notice the price I am strengthened in my delight at not supporting the tobacco barons.

Yeah, perhaps understandably I've been having a lot of soul searching discussions about the true nature of 'giving up', and the main difference with the Carr-ians is the idea that no, you're not 'giving up' anything. There is no benefit, no enjoyment, other than brief respite from your 'withdrawal' symptoms.

I can see the point, which is why I really don't feel like I'm 'missing out' this time. Still, I get a bit twitchy when I have long drawn-out conversations about it. Nervy, rather than reaching for the cigs though.

I find a good alcohol-related challenge essential in the first week or so. Like Jesus being tempted by the dessert or whatever that bible story is. Throw yourself in there and if you can survive the night, it'll take a helluva lot to break you after that.

Jesus being tempted by the dessert or whatever that bible story is

I know it - Jesus ate only entrees & mains for 40 days & 40 nights, until he was visited by a Devil Cake. But he was firm.