Day 32

I feel very fortunate to have all of your support and I very much appreciate it. I have been listening to all of you and many have mentioned your own vices you’d like to give up. Some mentioned parenting and not getting frustrated as often, some mentioned smoking cigarettes, and some admitted to food addiction. Whether it is gambling, doing drugs, abusing prescription drugs, shopping, or just plain overspending, we can beat these demons.

I want to help anyone who has been there for me. I have an idea to help some of you with these bad habits. Let me put some things in perspective and have them in the back of your mind the next time you smoke, or eat, or gamble, or shop, etc. Maybe it will help. It may be an approach you haven’t tried.

You will not get a DWI for smoking cigarettes. Overspending won’t give you a hangover that makes you want to die and swear you will never spend a dime again. Being addicted to food won’t get you thrown in jail. Getting frustrated with your children and yelling a little more than you anticipated won’t make you black out and do things you will regret.

What’s worse, jail or terminal cancer? Lung cancer is one of the most preventable and the most terminal of all the cancers. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in both men and woman. Cigarettes are 85% responsible for all lung cancer deaths. They even put the Surgeon Generals Warning right on the cigarette box that states, ‘cigarette smoking causes lung cancer’. They don’t say may cause. Jail won’t kill you in six months to a year and at the most, let you live five years after diagnosis.

Even after knowing the statistics people still smoke. It’s a very hard addiction to break. I know. I’ve been there and quit after thirteen years. I had great incentive though. I quit the day I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. Next time you want to light up, imagine having to prepare for death. First you get the diagnosis for lung cancer, and then you have less than six months to make arrangements. Imagine all the arrangements you have to make with your friends, spouse, children, and grandchildren. Most people are so sick from the chemotherapy they have to quit their jobs, and cannot do much during treatments. They have no energy, they don’t want visitors, and they don’t want to see or talk to anyone. A lot of the time they are so sick they just want to give up right then. Since the diagnosis comes suddenly and there’s not enough time to prep for death, I have a solution that will help you and everyone else.

Instead of smoking a cigarette, get out some paper and a pen. On one piece, go room by room and make an inventory of all of your things. Be very detailed. Don’t even skip a pair of shoes because everything either has a dollar or sentimental value. This could take weeks, so each time you want a smoke, redirect your attention to the list and keep your hands busy by writing. When this list is done, make a list of your friends and family. Highlight each person in a different color. Highlight each item on the list in the person’s color you want it to go to when you die. People will miss you and heirlooms are very sentimental. Be sure to leave a color for charity, for sale, or just to throw away. This helps your spouse and children know what to do with your things after you pass. So many families fight over things after someone goes and there’s a lot of controversy. Do your family a favor and be proactive so they don’t have to decide what to do with everything.

Another important bit of information is be sure to collect everyone on your lists contact info so it’s easier for your children to call everyone to let them know you’ve passed so people know when the funeral will be. Just a couple of ideas to keep your mind ON the negative affects of smoking daily. Hopefully the daily negative long term reminders will help. I know this tactic may seem harsh, but it’s a walk in the park compared to lung cancer.

Really get your mind in this role. Why are you doing this? Why are you in this position? Learn to hate cancer sticks. Look at them as satin’s little whistles. Each time you take a drag you are sending a silent message to satin and he marks another day closer to death on his victory board. Each time you exhale a whistle sounds and alerts satin and he dances in delight as the whistles get louder.

Another way to help this process is keeping a daily log or journal. You can even blog. It’s free and easy and therapeutic. If you choose to have a cigarette you must explain why you wanted one. You must show your journal daily or biweekly to someone to be held accountable. If you and your accountability partners don’t think it’s a good enough reason to smoke a cigarette, then you’ll have to decide what you could have done instead. You need a quit plan and tools for all temptation and triggers. A day may look like this:

4/30/10 7:30 a.m. I just smoked a cigarette to reward myself for getting out of bed.
4/30/10 8:30 a.m. I smoked a cigarette to reward myself for drinking a cup of coffee.
4/30/10 9:30 a.m. I smoked a cigarette to keep myself occupied while on the phone because what the person had to say sounded so much better with a cigarette.
4/30/10 10:30 a.m. I smoked a cigarette to reward myself for going to work.
4/30/10 2:30 p.m. I smoked a cigarette to relax on break. (Nicotine is a stimulant not a depressant.)
4/30/10 4:00 p.m. I smoked a cigarette to reward myself for working a full day.
4/30/10 5:30 p.m. I smoked a cigarette to reward myself for driving home from work. 4/30/10 6:30 p.m. I smoked a cigarette to reward myself for eating supper.
4/30/10 7:30 pm. I smoked a cigarette once again to accompany me on the phone because the cigarette is clearly as important as the person I’m talking to.
4/30/10 8:30 p.m. I paused my favorite show to smoke a cigarette because although it was just getting good the show is even better after a cigarette.
4/30/10 10:00 p.m. I smoked a cigarette before I cash in for the night because I already have to take Tylenol PM to sleep, why not counter act them with a stimulant drug? This will buy me time to read a book before I fall asleep.

Total for day: 11 (Not bad, most people smoke a pack a day which holds 20.) This was a work day though. On the weekends this journal would be longer and the time between cigarettes would probably be a half an hour. Do any of these reasons sound silly to you? Can you think of any logical reasons you could have posted on this journal for having one? Are there any logical explanations for suicide? Are there other things you could’ve been doing during this time? Since you were rewarding yourself for daily activities you deserve a prize. Give yourself a pat on the back and cross eleven days of your life. Ouch! Sorry this psycho therapy is so sobering. But my goal is to help others. You must eat, sleep, and breathe that cigarettes are bad in order to get in a mind set that you don’t want one. I wish someone would’ve laid out the hard truth like this to me. Tough love is a good thing.

These are the reasons so many people continue to do these things. They don’t realize how bad a lot of their addictions are. You may continue to say you’ll quit one day, or you’ll just do it once a week, or only smoke when you drink (this one is a double decker killer. ) You can even quit for short periods of time just to convince others and yourself that you don’t have a problem. If you make up excuses, blame, or have to justify why you are doing it, it probably isn’t something you should be doing. If you have to do it in the closet, hide it, or regret doing it, it’s not healthy. If you think about it constantly and you’re world revolves around it, it’s gone too far. If it’s something you need to quit, then it’s bad for you.

I hope I don’t offend anyone. I am just trying to help lay it out like any other addiction. You need to journal to target your trigger points. Once you admit you have a problem, and truly want to quit, the next step is finding out why you are really smoking. Most people’s bad habits are psychological. Start referring to yourself as an addict. Just because cigarettes are legal, doesn’t mean you are not an addict. Alcohol is legal too.

Make a list of things that can be the underlying cause of your problem. Do you have unresolved issues from your childhood? Do you need to forgive and forget about something that could be holding you back? Do you hold resentments? Are you angry? Are you irritated by something or someone? Are you unhappy? Are you lonely? Are you bored? Are you sad?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these it may help you figure out why you are smoking or doing anything that you want to quit doing. You started smoking years ago and it gave you a high and made you feel good. It gave you a false sense of happiness. The drugs in alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes travel down a pathway in your brain and create serotonin. The more you use these things as coping mechanisms, the pathway gets shut down. What that means scientifically is that the drug alters the nerve cells, or neurons, and they eventually get quit working. You keep smoking more and more to get the same effect. Occasionally, you may hit another pathway that hasn’t been altered or fried and get a sensation you pray for, but by the time you are addicted, they’re all fried. You do not get the same effect as before, however, you continue your physical habit because you've tricked yourself into thinking that this drug is making you feel good.

We need to eliminate the reasons that make us want a ‘cigarette’ (this could be anything) and add rewarding and fulfilling things in our lives that produce natural serotonin. Being fulfilled naturally is so much healthier and adds years to your life.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about food addiction.

To be continued…