Off to the new Just One Cigarette Blog

I have four new posts up at the other blog, or the new blog, including the 6 month challenge that unexpectedly unfolded today. Link is below:

Just One Cigarette

How Far Have Women Really Come with Cigarettes?

“They say that when Pall Malls were originally introduced, women took to them immediately because they felt the extra length made their noses look shorter. Maybe this thin cigarette similarly could be liked because it makes your hand look slimmer and more graceful. Immediately we felt we were dealing with a feminine idea: women are the stylish sex. There was a tactile distinctiveness too -- equally important and advantageous...” - Hal Weinstein, Vice President and Creative Director, Leo Burnett Company (‘How an Agency Builds a Brand - The Virginia Slims Story).

After years of smoking, it’s easy to have residual anger. Even now, I can't watch the first few seasons of Sex and the City without wanting to slap Sarah Jessica Parker in the face each time she shoves a Marlboro into her mouth. One would think that, as a producer of the show, she'd know better. But money must talk for her character's televised cigarette habit to last more than two seasons.

It’s difficult to soak in the facts, that of the ignorance the feminists of the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s had when they permitted cigarette advertising in magazines such as Ms.
Sometimes I wonder what Gloria Steinem would have to say to the cigarette advertisements in Ms magazine. Other times I wonder why this bunch of ‘iconic’ female thinkers couldn’t really be bothered to go as far as to enlighten women about the poison that was packaged and advertised as the next best beauty product: the cigarette

CONTINUED HERE

I, Anti-Smoker

There are days when I think that I have become one of the people I despised as a smoker - the vehement anti-smoker. Today was such a day.
Feelings come and go, I usually snap at Mr Live-In, whom I’ll call Nick, for his hardcore anti-smoking stance, to the point where he’ll verbally comment on the ‘disgusting smoke’ in a smoker’s presence. I’m much more easy going. Now I fear becoming like Nick. He’s the way he is because he has come full circle. It’s as though he has spent four decades of his life smoking, to open his eyes and see the wood for the tobacco plants.

Continued..

Smoking Cessation: The First 3 Days

"The big picture is trying to figure out why people smoke. There are a lot of health risks, and the majority of smokers already know what they are. They want to quit but can’t. It’s not because nicotine is a potent drug; it doesn’t induce significant amounts of pleasure or euphoria. Yet, it’s just as difficult if not more difficult to quit than other drugs.” - Matthew Palmatier, assistant professor of psychology at Kansas State University.

November 2008

On the second and third days after quitting, the headaches set in. My headaches had little to do with nicotine withdrawal. On the second day, shortly before midday on, my head pounded. I took to the sofa, hoping a fifteen minute nap would alleviate the symptoms, to remember that I hadn’t yet made an instant coffee. Normally I’d be up to my fourth or fifth cup of coffee at midday. My old self would have taken the easy route - sneaked to the tobacconist, paid for a fresh packet and regressed for the twentieth, thirtieth...(Who am I kidding when I’ve lost count?) time, get stuck in a routine that would see feeling like crap each morning, to venture out and experience commuters avoid sitting next to me on the bus.

Post continued on the new site.

Quitting on a Sunday | Life on the Monday

My new post Quitting on a Sunday | Life on the Monday is here.
I'm finding it easier with the Typepad blogging platform.

Typepad Version of Just One Cigarette

Here is the Typepad version of the blog.
Check out my new banner there.

A Brief Change

In regard to this blog, I'm going to try out Typepad as well, so I'll also be blogging from the below address:

http://justonecigarette.typepad.com

It's just that there are more page layout options with Typepad, and I'm not a Blogger whiz

On Quitting: Anger to Pavlovian Conditioning

Quitting isn’t a single stage process. There is the social aspect that can conflict with the quitter’s objective. If colleagues smoke, it can be difficult and this difficulty doesn’t involve the actual nicotine but the very people. Outside work, smoking friends can create complications that elongate the process. Stop. Start. Stop. Start.
Quitting can resemble the on and off diet. You start on Monday to cave in mid-week. A few more years of this and starting on Monday means falling off the wagon on the same day. Such failure leads to feelings of shame and guilt.
Voila! A vicious circle is created and, if you ask me, it's insane. But that is how it is. It's similar to dieting. Dieters will be familiar with the guilt and frustration that follows indulgence. Relapsing smokers/ex smokers feel the same way. They don’t really want to continue smoking but once they fall off the bandwagon, they embrace what they know - the tobacco propaganda. It's tremendously easy to slip into the stream of excuses.
It's as though there are two personalities struggling for supremacy. There is the logical self, the one who recognises the folly of nicotine, the tobacco industry and cigarettes. Then there is the equivalent of the little red devil or bad conscience, that little voice that creates excuses for everything. People may differ, but smokers have similar excuses. Long term smokers have used cigarettes for things other than relaxation. Relaxation is like an umbrella term for things like anxiety, frustration and anger.
My personal weak point is anger/frustration. This duo really pushes me on the edge. Six months after quitting, and I still have to take time out. Even if it means removing myself from social situations that include a few smokers, I'll do it.
After numerous attempts at quitting, the longest taking place in 2000, when I quit for 8 months, I know the triggers and if the individual looks deep inside, the triggers are there. My triggers:

• Frustration situations that leave me short tempered. These can be anything ranging from incompetent co-workers/managers to a pain in the butt bureaucrat. A recent example: entering a work recruitment agency to sign up and having to wait for the two receptionists to end their non-work related conversation before I could fill in all the paperwork.
  
• Going shopping for clothes, to find that a) I need to lose (even more) a few more pounds to fit into something. Right now, I'm down to a size 14, and the Australian women's sizing standard is in the toilet. It also doesn't help if 99.5% of clothes are made in China, where women's sizing tends to be smaller. After struggling in fitting rooms, it can take me two hours to get over frustration - I go home, go to my room and take a nap.
• The fact that my landlord is taking ages to repair a few things that need repairing before winter.

It doesn't matter what it is. There is no real valid excuse. But the emotional response is a lot like the conditioned response in Pavlovian conditioning. Frustration/Anger ---> the conditioned response of lighting up a cigarette. That's all it is. Many behavioral outcomes can be fit into Pavlovian Theory.

More simply:

1. Smokers teach themselves how to smoke or how to perform the 'neat tricks' of drawing in smoke, exhaling smoke (One of my first tricks as a ten year old was to exhale smoke rings). And if they don't teach themselves at first, no problem, they've already spent hours watching either their parents or other people smoke.

2. Logic follows that if smokers can teach themselves to smoke, they can teach themselves to quit.

Today's Quit Tip: Nicotine Exposure

This tip may not be the best, but here it's a small window to my daily routine. I've actually had to ease myself into re-exposing myself to smokers. Don't get me wrong. The individual may not be vile. It's the smoking that's vile. Unfortunately it weaves its way into the individual (literally). The clothes and breath is the first to go, followed by the teeth which turn a ghastly yellow.

How to overcome smoking with so many smokers? It's not bloody easy.

I don't have much to offer office workers here. I've been fortunate enough to quit while off work. If I had to quit at my previous workplace (to Australian readers, who'll probably hate me: I worked at Telstra, a workplace that was so stressful, annoying and riddled with middle manager bullies and idiotic work performance targets that a small portion of its workers committed suicide). For smokers working in heartless corporations like Telstra, I'd suggest small lifestyle changes (join a gym, consult a nutritionist and therapist) before quitting, because if the workplace's insane policies don't get you, then your co-workers (bosses included) may inspire you to relapse and ingest nicotine (and sidestream smoke) faster than a Lollapalooza act.

Seriously, you may need to reassess your life if things are overwhelming. Separate your monthly bills from your well being. If a job is creating abnormal stress levels that may have adverse effects, like shortening your life span by presenting a host of physical symptoms (high blood pressure, insomnia, negative self talk, dietary extremes, etc), then it gains significance.

Take recessions. I personally find recessions a pain in the butt and this isn't based on my finances (realistically the less money/assets I have the less stress: I fewer decisions. It's not like I have to worry about my accountant, strata title rates, council rates, etc), it's based on employer stinginess. Many companies may not need to downsize, but a strange thing happens during recessions: they follow the same Jones' mentality. If corporate behemoth downsizes, then the smaller company will downsize, thinking that the larger company knows what its doing. That, I'm afraid, is a myth. Unfortunately, the worker bears the mental brunt. The stress is horrible, but the sobering reality is that many of these events are beyond a citizens control - I don't have enough space to go into governments, how they coddle corporations and let them shift work offshore and all that...
Most huge corporations have no idea what they're doing and many make stupid decisions or decisions that are too large for their means. Look at General Motors.
Bottom line: If you're job is health hazard to your physical and mental health, look for another job. The idea of solving everything and being a hero works better in films, television and comic books. Not real life.

Weeks into quitting, you may want to consider maintaining a regular physical regimen. I've noticed that quitters who don't have a higher chance of relapsing. The beauty of exercise is that it requires a fit body, and if you're not fit, each attempt -whether it be cycling, a gym class, walking - will make you fitter. Rome wasn't built in a day. Quitting nicotine is the same.

This is what I do on a daily basis:

I make sure that I walk to most places. I no longer avoid the vile group of smokers (office smokers, telemarketers, pub locals). And apologies in advance, but they are vile. Walking past these small groups alters my thought processes. I think: "Jesus, I used to smoke like that?" (Yes you did!), "God they stink!" (Like you stank.), "Don't they see the wretched habit for what it is?" (How long did it take you to see it?).

On Tuesdays, I am hardcore. I go to my regular spin class, and half way through the 45 minute session, usually during a hill climb when my lungs are screaming at me to stop, for me to continue, I mentally flagellate myself: "See, you'd be fitter if you didn't spent twenty years puffing away," and "You think this is bad, you want to start smoking again. You want to smoke another cigarette, bitch?"

Believe me (insert gloomy horror movie music), one spin class a week is enough to scare my socks off.
Quitting cigarettes isn't just about quitting an alleged craving. It's about altering the lifestyle and improving fitness.

How can you improve fitness if you're inhaling poison?
And that is what nicotine, but more importantly, the 500+ chemical ingredients in cigarettes are. Poison. Just think. The cigarette you're possibly inhaling, that you've probably inhaled (if you're an ex smoker), contains the same ingredients as toilet cleaner.

Tobacco and the 21st Century

Tobacco companies no longer require magazine or newspaper advertisements. They don’t require television adverts or epic cinema trailers featuring the Marlboro Man. All they need is a sophisticated socialite, It Girl, “Hunk of the Moment” or rock star to be photographed by paparazzi photographers. The images are syndicated around the world and they may not be blatant adverts but they do help to create a subconscious message: A-list actor is sexy and smokes---> Smokers are sexy ---> If I smoke I may be as attractive as A-list actor. It’s not a question of gullibility and more about subconscious associations. We trick ourselves with images and subtle symbols that operate on a subliminal level so what chance do we have if professional magicians, in the form of advertising executives, marketing wizards and their psychologist allies, work together to persuade us to consume? If a celebrity raves on about Brand X perfume, then fans are intrigued by Brand X and because they want to be associated to the celebrity, they’ll purchase the perfume. Subtle cigarette advertising in the form of ‘candid’ paparazzi photographs may operate on the same level as can film product placement that usually depicts ‘cool’ smoking characters.

It was philosopher Descartes who said, "I think therefore I am". I’d like to say, I smoke therefore I am...stupid. However before later in life stupidity there was the period that was my childhood, the adult role models within it and widespread social acceptance of smoking as - depending on which form of propaganda you remember - a sophisticated, glamorous and relaxing pastime. It’s a three stage process. I started smoking to gain sophistication in the form of feeling and - in my childish mind - pretending to be grown up. During middle to late adolescence, I practiced various oral moves that were geared toward providing just enough smoke display to entice. Forget fellatio. Smoking was the first oral technique most 20th Century women learned. Judging by the seemingly sophisticated ‘It’ Girls taking up smoking, it still is the first oral technique females learn in the 21st Century.

When the sophistication and glamor fades, the excuse to smoke for relaxation kicks in. “It relaxes my nerves,” or “It soothes my stress” become regular excuses. What happens when the supposed relaxing properties begin to wane, as they tend to wane after a level of tolerance is reached? More nicotine is required. The smoker requires more cigarettes per day. Hello 30, 50 and 100 cigarettes a day. The lie begins to take shape but what will we do now that we rely on the damned things to temporarily relieve stress, curb the appetite or feel a sense of social belonging?