Sazerac

When I can stand the stench, I still go outside to talk to people, to look at the stars, to gather my thoughts. Smoking is not a part of it anymore, that is all.

You cannot go back, we can only go FORWARD. Embrace this journey. Educate yourself. This thread can help you negotiate your way around here. 10 Ways To Effectively Use This Forum. Pay attention to all the advise we are sharing with you. You can have a successful quit as soon as you commit to yourself to Not One Puff Ever.

Oh, @Sirius ! Congratulations on your Five Years of Freedom ! My favorite words from your well of wisdom are; 'Next time a craving plunks down on your face ask yourself, "What price you are willing to pay to own yourself?" ' Thank you for sharing your quit. S

@Whispers lol. nobody would ever hire me as a moderator. funny. I am a proponent of cold turkey only because cold turkey is my experience and I know that you don't need a plan to quit because I quit, almost six years ago on a whim. Over these years I have supported ALL kinds of quits, I believe the community will back me up on this. How one quits, matters not. ALL quits are good quits. Please, there is no reason for your vitriol towards me or, Joel or, anybody here. This is a kind and supportive place where we may have different views or techniques in conquering our addiction, but, at the end of the day, we are on the same side. Here is MQ's post on the subject of Joel Spitzer MarylandQuitter By endurance we conquer Administrators Posted January 27, 2018 Joel ASKED me if he could join up and cautioned me that his presence could cause some discord. He then asked me how much I wanted him to post to which I told him he could post as often as he would like to. After all, when you Google how to quit smoking (or related searches) Joel's materials are always at the top of search results so why not allow (not that he ever needed my permission) him to post here? It would be insane not to, as his materials have helped masses of people from all over the world quit smoking. The notion that his materials are insignificant or somehow illegitimate because he never smoked is preposterous. The psychiatrist who successfully treats patients doesn't have the prerequisite to have had the same disorder in which he/she is treating in order to see results. He or she only has to have empathy, experience, knowledge and most importantly, the data which shows efficacy of treatments. Through the many clinics that Joel ran through the American Cancer Society and on his own, he gained a vast and invaluable collection of data which came directly from smokers over the course of decades. He, like the Dr. helping a person cope with the devastation caused by a divorce, losing a job, a spouse or a child does not have to have experienced the same to help the patient. You know who spoke truth to me about my drug addiction to nicotine? My Dr. He never smoked a day in his life yet he knew about this addiction and what it would take for me to quit. He steered me to a place to get help which led me to Joel's materials. Lastly, those who mentioned that his posts were spam ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Spam is profit driven or driven for some other nefarious purpose. Joel has never made a dime from any of his materials. His time spent here behind the scenes before he ever joined was free. He has a desire to help people quit smoking and stay quit. He's never asked for anything and to assume that he posts to drive people to YouTube or elsewhere is bananas. Do you not realize that ALL of Joel's videos were posted on this site long before he ever joined?? If click bait were the case, he would have never allowed me to do this. He encourages anybody to use his materials with the goal of helping people save their lives. Talking about inflicting bodily harm to Joel because of efforts is very telling of where some people are at. Should it get asked, QT is funded solely by me; always has and always will be. Nothing on this site came to me as free as I have to retain programmers, designers, pay for licensing of the software etc. Moreoever, QuitTrain is a Registered Trademark which was also not free, but imperative to the longevity of something that myself and few others created (the Moderators) and what was created is protected. I allow no advertisements and don't take donations etc., even though I've been asked to. Hell, I don't even allow Facebook logins because in case you didn't know, when sites allow this, they gain access to your friend list and can send adverts etc. to which I want NO PART OF. I share the same desire as Joel and my moderators to freely give time and money to help ANYBODY quit smoking and stay quit. To this, you do not have the right to make false accusations regarding the motives of those who take their time and money to help complete strangers save their lives by quitting this deadly addiction. Joel will not be posting here and that is his choice. However, he will still be in daily or weekly contact with me as he has for several years now. He has lots to offer and ways to help and I am always grateful for this.

@Ankush, you are SO right. Thank you for the reminder. I appreciate it.

Congratulations on your Three Months of Freedom, @Ankush ! Please remember to continue to reward yourself The Significance of Rewards and believe all of us when we say, things get better and better and better. So glad you are here with us, your support of others and your story is invaluable. S

I didn't think you were disparaging Joel, Ankush. You were very clear which was v. appreciated. I was responding to the other poster. Again, sorry for the mixup, @Ankush ! We have to stop meeting like this, lol.

Joel gets this shit all the time. It is ridiculous. An oncologist doesn't have to have cancer in order to help a patient just as a psychiatrist doesn't have to be a sociopath to help a sociopath or a psychopath for that matter. They are learned professionals, just like Mr. Spitzer. Please, take what you need a leave the rest. There is no reason to disparage a man who has committed his life to help people quit smoking and has helped so many.

I lurked here and learned all I could about addiction. I danced wildly. I walked willfully. I sang, took screaming showers, went down to the tracks and primal screamed when a train rolled by (love that). I yelled, 'FREE YOUR HEAD' over and over and over. I buffed out my fingernails, my toenails to a gloss. I did a super detail house clean, top to bottom. Everything smelled so good. Washed all my clothes, shined all my boots. Drawers were artistically arranged, closets compulsively organized. Folders of personal ephemera were sorted, letters bound with ribbon to save. The purge had no boundaries and I threw out a ton of detritus. It also looked like I had gone to 'the agent orange school of gardening' there wasn't a 'weed' anywhere, everything horribly neat and tidy. Thankfully, I resumed my happy garden to it's riotous nature but, I do miss that neat-nik woman keeping my house spic 'n span, where'd she go ? Thanks for bumping this, @Doreensfree great to see the 'old' faces. I was still lurking back then and these were some of my heroes, two months later, I joined with a 10 month quit under my belt.

"@Ankush You will find that your stress levels will drop as you settle into your nicotine free life. Remember that this is a journey you have begun and have patience. You are building a successful quit that will continue to reward you with benefits." ^^^^^^ This was the part I wrote thinking of you, the rest was just my personal experience responding to the original post. I should have separated the two for clarity, sorry @Ankush ! I am so glad you 'can do without the smoking', that is all that matters, every moment, every day....

here is an interesting vid and text on this issue from our friend, Joel. Conventional wisdom in smoking cessation circles says that people should make plans and preparations for some unspecified future time to quit. Most people think that when others quit smoking that they must have put a lot of time into preparations and planning, setting quit dates and following stringent protocols until the magic day arrives. When it comes down to it, this kind of action plan is rarely seen in real world quitters. I emphasize the term real world quitters as opposed to people quitting in the virtual world of the Internet. People who seek out and participate in Internet sites do at times spend an inordinate amount of time reading and planning about their quits before taking the plunge. Even at our site we see people say they were reading here for weeks or months before finally quitting and joining up. Although I suspect there are a fair number of people who had already decided to quit right away and searched us out after their quit had begun, and some people who may not have actually decided to quit but who when finding WhyQuit.com and seeing cigarettes for what they are decided then and there to start their quits. Getting back to real world experience though, the best people to talk to when it comes to quitting smoking are those who have successfully quit and have successfully stayed off for a significant period of time. These are people who have proven that their technique in quitting was viable considering they have quit and they are still smoke free. Talk to everyone you know who is off all nicotine for a year or longer and find out how they initially quit smoking. You will be amazed at the consistency of the answer you get if you perform that little survey. People are going to pretty much fall into one of three categories of stories. They are: People who awoke one day and were suddenly sick and tired of smoking. They tossed them that day and never looked back. People who get sick. Not smoking sick, meaning some kind of catastrophic smoking induced illness. Just people who get a cold or a flu and feel miserable. They feel too sick to smoke, they may feel too sick to eat. They are down with the infection for two or three days, start to get better and then realize that they have a few days down without smoking and decide to try to keep it going. Again, they never look back and stuck with their new commitment. People who leave a doctors office who have been given an ultimatum. Quit smoking or drop dead–it’s your choice. These are people for whom some sort of problem has been identified by their doctors, who lay out in no uncertain terms that the person’s life is at risk now if they do not quit smoking. All of these stories share one thing in common — the technique that people use to quit. They simply quit smoking one day. The reasons they quit varied but the technique they used was basically the same. If you examine each of the three scenarios you will also see that none of them lend themselves to long-term planning — they are spur of the moment decisions elicited by some external circumstance. I really do encourage all people to do this survey, talking to long- term ex-smokers in their real world, people who they knew when they were smokers, who they knew when they quit and who they still know as ex- smokers. The more people do this the more obvious it will become how people quit smoking and how people stay off of smoking. Again, people quit smoking by simply quitting smoking and people stay off of smoking by simply knowing that to stay smoke free that they must Never Take Another Puff! Joel © Joel Spitzer 2006 The British Medical Journal reported an interesting study that tied into this article very well. Here is a link to the study: http://www.bmj.com/content/332/7539/458 I wrote a reply to the Journal that was posted on its response website. Here is a link to that reply: http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/31/setting-quit-dates That commentary elicited a reply from another person, who was basically trying to give the impression that serious scientists shouldn’t put too much emphasis on real world experiences. I wrote a reply to this editorial but it somehow did not seem to get past the editorial review board at the British Medical Journal. I think the reply is still valid so I am attaching it below: Re: Flawed reasoning Joel Spitzer, Health Educator Conduct Stop Smoking Clinics for the Evanston and the Skokie Illinois Health Departments 60201,60076 Send response to journal: Re: Flawed reasoning “…because something commonly happens in a particular way ‘in the real world’ then this should be considered the best way. ” Smoking cessation experts often seem to have to be telling people to dismiss real world experiences. Usually I see a little different variation of the comment above. Common statements I have seen are something to the effects that while it is likely that a person may at times encounter real world quitters who succeeded by using non-recommended techniques, usually meaning no pharmaceutical intervention or in what this study is showing, people who used no set quitting date, that these people are just the exceptional cases. What the experts are trying to do in effect is discredit observations made by people, making them think that the occurrence of such experiences are really rare. The author above was at least accurate enough to say, “While it is true that most smokers who quit do so without any specific behavioral support or pharmacological treatment…” The rest of the comment was going on to try to give the impression that there would have been even more successful quitters if people would just do what smoking cessation experts say should work as opposed to doing what actual quitters continually say has worked for them. The tactic being employed here is to leave the impression that we could just have a whole lot more successful quitters if people would just utilize the miraculous effective products out there that actually help people to quit. There is also the perception being portrayed that there really are very few ex-smokers out there because most who have tried to quit have done so unaided and everyone just knows how improbable it is for people to be able to quit in an unaided attempt. Medical professionals and the general public are being misled to believe that quitting smoking is just too plain difficult for people to do on their own and that the odds of a person actually quitting on their own is really pretty dismal. This would all make perfect sense if not for the fact that we have so many successful ex-smokers in the real world. In America, we have more former smokers than current smokers. Over half of the people who used to smoke have now quit smoking. From the comment made above it should be clear to all that most of the people who have quit either did not know of professional recommendations for quitting or chose to ignore professional intervention techniques. Yet these people successfully quit anyway. I think that this is an important point to hit home with all medical professionals. The medical profession has got to start to help people to realize the real potential of success that individuals do have to quit smoking instead of perpetuating the idea that quitting is just too hard for an individual smoker to expect to actually succeed without help. While this article should have been about planning techniques, the original author and a few experts weighing in on the discussion have tried to turn it into a referendum on selling pharmaceutical interventions. Nicotine replacement products have been around for over two decades now– and a significant percentage of smokers have used them to try to quit smoking. If a product has been around for decades, used by millions of people worldwide, AND, has been truly effective, it should be easy for most health care practitioners to come up with lots and lots of successful patients, colleagues, family members and friends who have quit with these products. As I said in my original commentary above: ” I don’t believe that there is a single professional smoking cessation “plan your quit” advocate who will suggest other medical professionals should take a similar survey. For if they did their study results would almost certainly be called into question when the health care professional starts seeing the results of his or her real life survey. The experts will end up having to spend quite a bit of time trying to explain away the discrepancy, using rationalizations like the people who planned their quit “didn’t do it right” or didn’t “plan” long enough or were “just more addicted smokers.” In all honesty, I don’t expect my encouraging of real world observations by health care professionals to have much impact with smoking cessation experts. They are going to profess to believe whatever other experts keep telling them to believe or, what the funders of their studies believe. I do however believe that health care workers who are on the front line and actually deal with patients who smoke are going to be a bit more critical and analytical about this. If they spend any time talking with patients they are going to see through the rhetoric and the rationalizations of the experts. I have always tried to disseminate the message that just because something works in the lab or in study conditions doesn’t necessarily translate to the fact that the process will work in the real world. The smoking cessation experts seem to have to work on the basis that just because something works in the real world doesn’t mean that it is a good approach if it doesn’t seem to work in a lab. I have high hopes that medical professionals really wanting to help their patients are going to be more influenced by what they see is successful than by being told by the experts what should be successful, but somehow not replicable in their own practices. Also related: “I will quit when”

@Ankush You will find that your stress levels will drop as you settle into your nicotine free life. Remember that this is a journey you have begun and have patience. You are building a successful quit that will continue to reward you with benefits. I believed ALL the lies, too ! I would miss the me that was me. When I quit, I was expecting quantum change and wasn't sure I would recognize myself at all. But, from the moment I quit I knew, in my heart of hearts, I would not miss the bondage and all the gnarly craves/persistent triggers only solidified my pursuit of Freedom. The me that emerged was a sincerely confident and strong woman. nice post @greenlight

A Bottomless Cup of NOPE

Firing up some poblano peppers for a lazy broad's chili rellenos.

Thank you for taking the time to check in, @abbynormal ! You have a sturdy and inspiring quit going on. Sending light and goodness your way, please, take great care and reward yourself for this milestone in your quit. S

2 hey D, are the lad's overwhelming you ?

Here.

Congratulations on your decision to quit ! Maybe you'd like start a thread introducing your newly quit self in Introductions. You may find writing a blog is useful to you and others, as well. We learn and find encouragement from each other's stories as well as gain perspective from our own writings. Please avail yourself to all the information here, education will give you a sturdy quit.

Thanks for you thoughts, @Ankush. I believe in across the board decriminalization. However, I would love to see Big Tobacco/Big Pharma, cartels and governments be held truly accountable for their lies.

Congratulations on your Six Months of Freedom ! Stop in and tell us about your quit, if you will.

Congratulations on your Three Years of Freedom !

Wow, Linda ! Congratulations on your ELEVEN months of Freedom ! We are SO proud of YOU !

bump for @hesteralumni23

My Cigarette, My Friend by Joel Spitzer

I am in agreement with Ankush. Here is an interesting article FROM CRUELTY TO CARE: DRUG POLICY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION. and another one DRUG DECRIMINALISATION IN PORTUGAL: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT.