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! The nicotine demons still banging on your brain? Read the Demon Diaries to help defeat the Demon Nicotine
G'day, eh !! By way of introduction let me say I was a 35 year 1/2 pack a day smoker. I am 29 days quit. But relapsed ????? Nope, not yet. I'm past the 3 week hurdle. I'm still short of the 2 month non-smoking stint I did last winter. I'm only 1/2 way to the 4 month mark which was the longest I was ever off the weed. But I'm not relapsed.
Last week there was the fourth in a series of quit smoking meetings at my local library. I went to it although I hadn't gone to the first three of the series. You guessed it, the topic was "Slips and Relapse". Now that 'just one cig' has always, ultimately, been my downfall. I have occasionally started smoking in a rush after a short quit. Said 'ahhh, what the hell', bought a pack and blazed away. However, most often it has been the ' innocent ' bumming of a single cigarette from a friend or co-worker.
An' now you ridin' on the freeway.
I'm still one puff away from a pack a day.
I have two reservations about the 'rules' I learned about at the meeting.
The first is they're not real rules. It's just ink on paper or pixels on the screen. The only way they have any use is if you agree, pledge, abide by them. So really it ain't no thing, it's up to you and your willpower. Same as always.
The second is a little more serious, I feel. The rules essentially lay out a path back to cigarettes, and by proscribing a path they add legitimacy to the destination. Not a good thing, on one level. The point of the path laid out is that it is a more difficult path, a path that hopefully will turn you back, a path that requires more thought than the path you may be tempted to take back to smoking.
Presenting:
Three Rules of Relapse
- Never smoke a cigarette you did not buy
- Do not smoke a cigarette that is given to you by a friend or stranger. You must buy the cigarette that you plan to relapse with.
- Surprisingly few of the people who have started smoking again actually bought that first cigarette. Most asked for one from another smoker or had one offered to them, reinforcing the spur-of-the moment nature of relapse.
- If you think about it, bumming a cigarette is kind of a weird notion. If you are on a diet and want a snack, you aren't likely to pick some food off the plate of a perfect stranger! Or if you are at a party and are thirsty, you don't ask someone for a sip of their drink. In both of these situations, you would go and get your own food or drink.
- If having a cigarette is really that important, take the time to go out and get the cigarettes yourself. Give yourself time to think about this decision to make sure it is what you really want -usually it's not.
- Never buy cigarettes in the place where you are about to relapse
- Leave wherever you are and buy the cigarettes somewhere else.
- Wait ten minutes before buying your cigarettes.
This rule does several things. First, it removes you from the situation that you are about to relapse in. It removes all the cues to smoke that are affecting you - the sights, the sounds, and the "heat of the moment." Second, it buys you something very important - time. It gives you time to evaluate, and re-evaluate the short-term benefits of having a cigarette versus the downfalls of becoming a smoker again.
- After buying a pack of cigarettes and smoking just one, immediately throw the rest of the pack away
- Do not smoke the cigarette in the place you decided to relapse.
- If you want another cigarette, fine. Buy another pack, smoke one, and throw that pack away.
- If you think this rule is extreme, think about what you are trying to accomplish - the cigarettes are much better in the garbage than in your lungs!
- Most people in this situation say they never intended to start smoking again - they wanted "just one." Don't tempt yourself!
Adapted from: How Women Can Finally Stop Smoking, by Robert C. Klesges and Margaret DeBon
How 'bout dem apples eh ?? It's over ten bucks for a pack for cigs around here. I'm cheap enough that throwing away a full pack would be just like ... like .... setting a 10 spot on fire and watching it go up in smoke.
Heyyyy ... wait a minute ......
So what do you think ? Is that enough of a process to slow you down, make you think, re-consider the impulse or decision to have ' just one ' ?
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I would have included songs and pictures and stuff but I'm not that good at that kind of thing and I would have drove myself nuts trying to get it half-way right, so I'll stick to what I do best, which is writing run on sentences ;)
Okay, okay, I could have included a small chess problem or just a chess question, but really. Isn't this diary boring enough without the inclusion of chess ? Okay, okay, if you insist.
What is the least amount of moves in a chess game that result in a checkmate. Who earns the mate - white or black ? Bonus points for giving the name of the mate. ( The move count in chess is considered to be moves by one player. If white mates in 32 (lucky dog ), it means that he makes 32 moves, which means black would have made 31, seeing as white moves first. The moves in the game would be considered 32, not 63. ) I could do more on chess but I will leave you with a possibly related saying :
One definition of a gentleman is a fella that can play the accordion ... but doesn't.
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I don't know if you are aware that luvsathoroughbred -- Chris -- has breast cancer? Nasty stuff, too, so her treatment is brutal. Sara R has agreed to do a community quilt for her. Her diary is tentatively set for next Monday, and I know a lot of the GUS members would like to contribute messages (and, hopefully, make contributions to defray the costs) if they know about it. I think you two quit about the same time, didn't you? Do you know which GUSsacks would particularly like to take part, and will you give them a heads up?
Stuff happens. Seriously shitty stuff sometimes. I'm sure I can say that all of our thoughts are with you, luvsathoroughbred and I am sending positive vibes and hopes for the best. May I also add the I like horses too. They're delicious ( just kidding ) ;)
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