GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please -- join us!
You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts, or access the GUS Library at dKosopedia for a great list of stop-smoking links. Check it out!
NOTICE: Though this GUS diary is not about dental insurance, there are mentions of Jaws. Follow me over the fold, while being careful not to jump the shark.
Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) clenches a killer in his Jaws (1975).
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From Jaws (1974), by Peter Benchley
The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short
sweeps of its crescent tail. The mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills. There was little other motion: an occasional correction of the apparently aimless course by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin – as a bird changes direction by dipping one wing and lifting the other. The eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses transmitted nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain. The fish might have been asleep, save for the movement dictated by countless millions of years of instinctive continuity: lacking the flotation bladder common to other fish and the fluttering flaps to push oxygen-bearing water through its gills, it survived only by moving. Once stopped, it would sink to the bottom and die of anoxia.
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That paragraph had stuck with me since I first read Peter Benchley's Jaws 35 years ago (oof). I like how the author compares the movement of a sea-bound shark to that of an airborne bird: "the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin."
Anoxia is the word that rocked my little socks. If the shark stops moving, it'll die? About two decades later, in a 1995 Smithsonian Institution on sharks (reposted at sharkfriends.com), Benchley would clarify that there is actually a species of shark off the coast of Mexico that can remain still, as the indigenous water currents carry oxygen over their gills.
Unlike those privileged top 1% of sharks who can afford to have their oxygen delivered to them by warm equatorial currents, most of us recovering smokers have to move for our air supply, to break from inertia and welcome the excitement over what to do next. One way that I made smoking work for me was to light a cigarette in order to delay, to contemplate, to ponder that next decision. What to do? Shopping, or laundry? Oh yeah. It's a doozy, all right.
Or calling people, just to catch up. Who do I call? Shush, and just dial. Whether it's that I'm a worry wart, an introvert, or just excited and nervous around other humans, the phone is a considerable trigger for me to smoke. At just over three months in the quit process, with almost three months off all nicotine, I'm making stumbling improvements in engaging telephone therapy, and welcoming group support in my more immediate life. I can be neurotic when answering the phone without a Camel Light as a shield against (gasp!) all those possibilities inherent in human interaction. Yet I always feel relieved and energized after getting off the horn with someone I haven't talked to in a while, be it friend or family. I don't know why this is. Best to look at it as like doing push-ups. They'll get easier, eventually.
There is always an hour (or three) on any given day to sit at the computer and engage in blogging, working on music, or counter-teabagger manifestoes menus. But there may only this one opportunity in your life to click the play button below, take a few deep breaths and stretch while the video is buffering, clear the furniture out of the way, and dance.
Soul 2 Soul - Keep on Moving
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As of 2009, the ISAF (International Shark Attack File) recorded a total of 2,251 attacks worldwide since 1580, with 464 attacks being fatal.
In 2005, the Center for Disease Control estimated that:
during 1997--2001, cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke resulted in approximately 438,000 premature deaths in the United States, 5.5 million YPLL, and $92 billion in productivity losses annually. Implementation of comprehensive tobacco-control programs as recommended by CDC can reduce smoking prevalence and related mortality and health-care costs.
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Such a disparity in casualties tells me that there's no shame in being eaten by a shark.
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From the Wikipedia entry Shark attack:
Many shark experts feel that the danger presented by sharks has been exaggerated, and even the creator of the Jaws phenomenon, the late Peter Benchley, attempted to dispel the myth of sharks being man-eating monsters in the years before his death.
To further explore this notion, I highly recommend the above-linked Smithsonian article (reprinted by sharkfriends.com).
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Anyone on the buddy list, or anyone who wishes to join the buddy list, is welcome to write a diary for GUS. Remember, snark diaries are appreciated, as are Photo and Pootie Diaries, and youtubes.
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