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I'm quitting smoking tomorrow. I went to the first (of four) smoking cessation classes Tuesday, and tomorrow they'll prescribe nicotine patches and Zyban (for those who need it -- I will).
I started smoking at 18 years of age. I was a freshman in college and I wanted to look "cool". Good reason, huh?
It's been almost 23 years since I started, and my rate of consumption went from a pack a week to a pack a day. Occasionally, when I was truly stressed out, I could smoke up to 3-4 packs a day.
My current rate varies between 1-1.5 packs per day. It's getting expensive these days. "Sin taxes on cigarettes amount to about 80% or more of the 18-25 (US) dollar price per carton. Individual packs sell for between 2 and 4 dollars, depending on where you buy them.
I'm tired of spending that much on a habit that provides so little pleasure. I'm tired of my wife complaining about the smell (I smoke outside in all kinds of weather, but it clings to your clothes). I'm tired of coughing when I don't have a cold. I'm tired of running out of smokes at 8:00 p.m. and deciding at 10:00 that I MUST have another cigarette, so off I go to get them.
I am also tired of self-rightious people joining the temperance movement of the nineties and casting smokers as deluded people with an evil habit. We're not deluded, we're addicted. Don't jump all over a smoker because they haven't quit yet. They will eventually develop a desire to quit if something else doesn't kill them first.
Be supportive. In my case, I will ask (but not require) that if you can, please make as few references to smoking as possible for the next 3 or four days (perhaps over the weekend). The mere mention of that "demon tobacco" is likely to trigger a craving I have little experience resisting.
Wish me luck. I've tried several times before and I'm hoping the Zyban will make a difference this time.
*Cough!*
--Baloo
------------------ WARNING: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.
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Good luck, Baloo! We're all rooting for you!
------------------ "Some people call me the Space Cowboy. Yeah! Some call me the Gangster of Love. Some people call me Maurice. Whoo hoo! 'Cause I speak of the Pompatus of Love!" - Steve Miller Band's The Joker
posted
You've got all my support Baloo... I had to quit too. Good Luck!!!!
------------------ If Galileo had lied to save his life, would America, or the West, or Space have been discovered? And if Columbus had never set sail, would the Earth still be flat?
Remember: calling someone stupid for doing something as a teenager is rather like calling an elephant a pachyderm.
Yesterday we got the prescriptions. The Zyban has to be mail-ordered (sent the envelope off today) and we won't get the patches until we actually quit.
The way Zyban works, you take it for 7 days before quitting. The eightth day, you stop smoking. After ~180 days you stop the Zyban.
I have a friend who quit smoking with the aid of Zyban, and he said it was "A piece o' cake!" That's encouraging.
------------------ WARNING: This Product Warps Space and Time in Its Vicinity.
I've been on the Zyban for a week (as of tomorrow). I have the nicotine patch laid out where I will see it & remember to put it on when I get dressed in the AM.
Hoo-boy!
------------------ Dogged persistence is often a suitable substitute for raw intelligence.
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I hope you make it, Baloo - stops to cough and light up another True Blue - please post how well the Zyban works. All Nicorette did for me was to induce the weird kind of high I got when smoking grapevine as a kid. BTW - for a while do NOT watch any movies from the '30s and '40s. Really. The smoking is just too seductive. I'm sure Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart have knocked more than one person off the tobacco wagon.
------------------ "'I'm afraid there's nowhere for you to sit,' I said coldly; 'the verandah is full of goats.'" --Saki "The Guests"
Orion Syndicate
He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!
Member # 25
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Good luck Baloo, I'm not a smoker, but I saw my father go through it, and he did give up (for seven years until he started again), but I'm working on that now.
------------------ The public is wonderfully tolerant - it forgives everything except Genius.
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A guy I know found that gargling mouth wash helped. And my grandfather cut pencils to the size of cigarettes because he was used to holding cigarettes to much to stop.
------------------ Josh: I think they're getting to know each other a bit too well, if you catch my drift. Me: Oh, I agree. I think they're spending too much time together, that is of course, if you catch my drift. Asher: I think he's *ucking her, and he's cheating on his wife, and he's risking his marriage, and if his wife finds out about it she'll leave him and take their son, and his life will be ruined. If you catch my drift...
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