Who managed to quit smoking? or is trying to quit?

[Your closest friendnt]

16 hours ago, AlsoBroken said:

So many pages of comments and replies on this topic, I’m curious as to why! Maybe because it’s all about a bad habit and most of us can relate to having bad, unhealthy habits. Humans are so peculiar though, because while smoking nowadays is VERY frowned upon (and definitely not what “good” Christians do, right?) eating all manner of sweet foods, and grossly processed foods, is acceptable. The Seventh Day Adventists who very religiously eschew coffee, alcohol, pork and shellfish, and who espouse the Vegan/Vegetarian diet (most that I know of) and who pride themselves on knowledge of the scriptures, have church potluck meals that will include an entire table of sweet, sugar laden desserts! And although I’m no purist in my own diet, I do KNOW that too much sugar destroys a person’s health! Diabetes and obesity having greatly proliferated in the last few decades!

It could be a local Christian issue but they still preach the Gospel to them. That is not a Salvation issue..

It is a Health Issue and this is why the Governments are involved....and they have ban smoking in the work place and in public places...

This issue has been a catalyst for the people to began and seek be more health conscious in other important areas of their health...about condroling salt and sugar and transfat and saturated fats intake...and the ban of various chemicals and highliting the healthier alternatives. 

The objective is to develop discipline in people...and by highliting the benefits of healthier alternatives they make the people taking control of their lives...makes them leaders of them selves...and not victims of their environment...as it was in my case...the same as with the discipline to recycle which was absent at the time when I was growing up. 

Many people had to learn how to have healthier habits whether they smoked or not. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Your closest friendnt

[AlsoBroken]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:49 PM, farouk said:

@AlsoBroken So are some ppl still trying to beat up on you because of your cigarettes?

No. I live by myself and keep my addiction to myself and don’t smoke around anyone unless they smoke too. We are a very exclusive club 🤣 of misfits. I just wanted to point out the weird ways Christians make rules and have health standards that make no sense (I.e. the sugar thing) when other habits are examined. 

[AlsoBroken]

17 hours ago, Your closest friendnt said:

It could be a local Christian issue but they still preach the Gospel to them. That is not a Salvation issue..

It is a Health Issue and this is why the Governments are involved....and they have ban smoking in the work place and in public places...

This issue has been a catalyst for the people to began and seek be more health conscious in other important areas of their health...about condroling salt and sugar and transfat and saturated fats intake...and the ban of various chemicals and highliting the healthier alternatives. 

The objective is to develop discipline in people...and by highliting the benefits of healthier alternatives they make the people taking control of their lives...makes them leaders of them selves...and not victims of their environment...as it was in my case...the same as with the discipline to recycle which was absent at the time when I was growing up. 

Many people had to learn how to have healthier habits whether they smoked or not. 

Thanks. I’m aware of all the above but it’s beside the point that I was trying to make. 

[farouk]

2 hours ago, AlsoBroken said:

No. I live by myself and keep my addiction to myself and don’t smoke around anyone unless they smoke too. We are a very exclusive club 🤣 of misfits. I just wanted to point out the weird ways Christians make rules and have health standards that make no sense (I.e. the sugar thing) when other habits are examined. 

I agree.

[farouk]

14 hours ago, AlsoBroken said:

 We are a very exclusive club 🤣 of misfits.

@AlsoBroken I think you are maybe still trying to beat yourself up!

I read that over a century ago in New York City a woman was actually arrested because she was smoking in public: i.e., ladies were supposed not to smoke, so the police were supposed to enforce the taboo.

(But within a few years, women were involved in sending huge quantities of cigarettes to the troops in World War One; and huge numbers of women started to work in factories because of labor shortages, and suddenly huge numbers of women were smoking cigarettes, as part of their strategy to cope with busy, stressful lives.  And by the 1920s, bobbed haircuts and cigarettes were widely regarded as typically feminine.)

[AlsoBroken]

On 5/30/2023 at 9:26 AM, 3Nails4Given said:

I smoked for about ten years.  It’s one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. Somehow after beginning a career in law enforcement and having to run to emergencies I decided to quit. 
 

My mom smoked for years.  She used to smoke in the car and in the house and my sister and I would beg her not to smoke in the car or house.

After growing up in that, I swore I’d never smoke.  Between peer pressure and my own stupidity I started smoking at about 15.

After I quit I pleaded with my mom for years to quit.  After she had developed a cough that wouldn’t go away, she decided to quit.

She got real sick and the doctors treated her for bronchitis for about six weeks and she didn’t get any better.  I got her in the car and took her to the closest big city hospital.

They admitted her and after two days of tests discovered she had small cell cancer, smokers cancer.  After a biopsy it was determined to be stage 3 cancer inoperable and terminal.

They decided to treat her with chemotherapy.  After twelve chemotherapy treatments, they said the tumor was dead and the cancer was virtually gone.

 They followed the chemotherapy with radiation treatments.  Which burned her esophagus leaving her virtually unable to eat.  After ten radiation treatments to the tumor site in the lung, they decided to do five preemptive radiation treatments to her brain.  They said this was because small cell smokers cancer always metastasized to the brain.

These treatments to her brain seriously damaged her remaining quality of life.  If she would have known what it would have done she said she’d never have taken it.

I watched my mom suffer immensely and die eleven months after her smoker’s cancer diagnosis.

During her last two weeks of life, in our local hospital.  The respiratory therapists would suction the fluid out of her lungs daily.  Then they would step out the back door and smoke.

There were five respiratory therapists working at our hospital.  Three of them were smokers?

After I watched them suction out that thick fluid from my mom’s lungs, almost jelly like, I asked the guy, “How can you smoke? You see this daily, my mom is dying from this, I’ve only seen it once, how can you witness this and still smoke?”  He said, “I know I need to quit”, and kept right on smoking.  That is insanity.

Wow 3Nails, thank you for this account of your mom’s suffering. And how you stayed by her side. It’s been said that quitting smoking for some is harder than quitting heroin. God help us. Our addictions ARE insanity. 

[farouk]

15 hours ago, AlsoBroken said:

Thanks. I’m aware of all the above but it’s beside the point that I was trying to make. 

@AlsoBroken Can't remember if I asked you or not: did you try vaping?

Sometimes ppl find that vaping, where you can gradually cut down on the amount of nicotine that you add, is a viable way of cutting down on cigarettes.

Smokers of course find they need varying levels of nicotine. (Perhaps you are at the level of a low tar already, maybe you still need a high tar for the time being, IDK.)

[farouk]

@SaraJane FYI............thread started; any wisdom?

[AlsoBroken]

On 6/1/2023 at 8:05 AM, farouk said:

@AlsoBroken Can't remember if I asked you or not: did you try vaping?

Sometimes ppl find that vaping, where you can gradually cut down on the amount of nicotine that you add, is a viable way of cutting down on cigarettes.

Smokers of course find they need varying levels of nicotine. (Perhaps you are at the level of a low tar already, maybe you still need a high tar for the time being, IDK.)

I have tried it. But not very much. It remains an option but only for when I am SET with a quitting date. 

[Anne2]

On 6/1/2023 at 7:36 AM, farouk said:

@AlsoBroken I think you are maybe still trying to beat yourself up!

I read that over a century ago in New York City a woman was actually arrested because she was smoking in public: i.e., ladies were supposed not to smoke, so the police were supposed to enforce the taboo.

(But within a few years, women were involved in sending huge quantities of cigarettes to the troops in World War One; and huge numbers of women started to work in factories because of labor shortages, and suddenly huge numbers of women were smoking cigarettes, as part of their strategy to cope with busy, stressful lives.  And by the 1920s, bobbed haircuts and cigarettes were widely regarded as typically feminine.)

Great post here IMO. Not so great we became an addicted society though. Fit's with how I started really. Decades later. This effect hang around for very, very, long time.