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Here’s an interesting California law that I didn’t know about:
“It is an infraction for a person to smoke a cigarette, pipe, or cigar in a motor vehicle when a minor is present in the vehicle. The law applies whether the vehicle is at rest or in motion, is secondary enforcement, and punishable by a fine.”
I wonder how many parents are aware of this and how many follow it.
I’ve written about the dangers of second-hand smoke, and surely in a car the smoke can be even more concentrated so that children would possibly inhale even more toxic fumes and particulates than they would in a larger space. When I was little there was no law for this and my parents smoked all the time in the car, in summer with the windows open and in winter with them closed.
Do you have kids? Do you smoke in their presence? Do you smoke with your kids in the car? Consider the dangers of smoking and how it affects your children, and hopefully you’ll come closer to deciding to quit.
Your kids will thank you!
Due to unforseen circumstances I’m going to have to postpone my teleclass to Tuesday, September 21 at 5:30 p.m. Pacific (8:30 Eastern). Sometimes life intervenes. I will be putting a sign-up box on my site very soon so you can sign up for the teleclass and give me any questions you might have about quitting. Thanks for your interest!
I just read an article here that talks about how you think about cigarettes. They asked smokers to think about the immediate satisfaction they get from cigarettes and then to think about the long term effects (emphysema, lung cancer, etc.). Here’s an excerpt:
“This gives us a biological explanation for how cognitive regulation of craving works,” said Hedy Kober, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. “By changing the way they think about cigarettes in moments of craving, by focusing on the negative long-term consequences, [smokers] can reduce craving and change their own brain activity.”
Isn’t that cool? Another tool for your quit smoking toolbox. Add that to your quit plan.
I’ve been thinking about that notion of “being bad.” There is something kind of romantic in breaking the rules, doing what we’re not supposed to do, what I call being bad. Sometimes when we try to follow the “straight and narrow” road the allure of not being so good all the time gets in our mind and we want to do the very behavior we’re trying to change. For example, let’s take food, that’s fun. So we say to ourselves, “okay, just for today I won’t eat any sugar (or bread, or cheese, or whatever today’s obsession is).” Precicely because we made that vow, we find a very strong urge to break it. We begin to obsess on it.
There is an urge (in some of us, but surely not all) to … what? Be different? Be a rebel? Not let anyone tell us what to do (even if it’s ourselves!)? There is an urge to fall down when we’re supposed to stand up. For me, I imagine it is about the rules I had to live by when I was a child. There were a lot of rules in my household, and I think now, even as an adult I’m still chafing under those rules and wanting to break free.
And what constitutes breaking free? Surely being self-destructive can’t be good for me. Ultimately, I think it’s about getting off that track all together and choosing another track to drive on. Instead of constantly being in reaction to a rule that exists only in my head, I need to move over and forget those rules and either make new ones for myself, or learn how to live an authentic and healthy life without rules.
So it was with me and cigarettes. I knew cigarettes (or other tobacco products) were bad for me, they harmed my health, I wanted to quit, I knew better. But then over and over came that time when I would start to think about cigarettes, I would begin to romanticize them. Or maybe I didn’t romanticise them, but I obsessed over them. Or maybe I didn’t obsess over them, but I would just think about them, and think and think until I couldn’t get them out of my head, and I would begin to wonder if maybe I could have just one, and this is so darn hard, do I really want to quit? and I’m craving a cigarette right now, can I really do this?
Do you know what I mean?
When we are in the midst of quitting, the act of quitting suddenly becomes foremost in our minds. We wake up in the morning, remember that no, we cannot smoke (like we have done for the last 10+ years) and begin to obsess on not smoking. Then our break comes, and suddenly once again we remember we are not smoking. And on and on. In the beginning it’s all about remembering that we don’t smoke any more. It can be tiring. And sometimes we just don’t want to be reminded any more, or it will just feel too hard, and we’ll find a way to lose our tempers, or have a bad day, or “just have one,” or drink too much, just enough, to lose our ability to control the urge.
So I urge you to get off that track in whatever way you can. Decide you are not a smoker any more. Make a firm decision, no matter what happens smoking will not be the solution you choose for the situation that comes up. Something else might be: lots of water, a walk around the block, banging on a pillow or screaming into a pillow, meditation, just sitting with the craving until it goes away. Because you love yourself too much to smoke. Because you are no longer on that self-destructive track, that merry-go-round of quitting, slipping, quitting and slipping. You are starting a new life that doesn’t include tobacco in any form.
What do you think?
 Once again, I’m thinking about how we change, what brings us to it, and what pulls us back to our old ways.
I was at a retreat this weekend for my support group and camped with some friends. I was talking to one of the people I know about where he came from and how he got to where he is now. I saw his journey as being quite heroic, actually, although he was helped by many people along the way, and now seems to be a fully capable human being who is well adjusted to his new world. He told me he didn’t think he was very different from who he was before, which surprised me since he was obviously living a different life than he did before. And I got to thinking about who we are innately. What do we carry inside that maintains us and keeps us going? How do we move from a behavior we are doing that we don’t like to one we really are happy with?
Take smoking, for example. Many of us who smoked (or smoke) liked it when we were doing it, at least in the beginning. For whatever reason, that cigarette was pleasurable. I’ll talk about myself here: it calmed me down, or gave me the stimulation I needed to get a job done. I smoked when I woke up and when I wanted to sleep, so obviously I wanted to smoke. When I saw my parents die one after the other, the call was there to quit; I didn’t want to end up like either of them, one with cancer, the other with emphysema. In California the anti-smoking laws were also getting stronger every year and although I had been able to smoke in the workplace when I first started working, by the time I was in my mid-30s that was no longer possible. I had been getting the message from elsewhere as well (including my spouse!) that it was time to quit.
I went from liking smoking to not liking it, mostly because I was trying to quit and I couldn’t. I “failed” over and over again, every morning when I woke up and had to have that smoke. I was no longer enjoying it because I had changed. I had an attitude shift for various reasons. I was also physically having some effects like coughing that didn’t help. My body was changing physically in that it could no longer tolerate my smoking. My change of attitude happened gradually over time as I gained more information about smoking, experienced the negative effects of smoking and began to try to change.
Then, when I was finally able to put the cigarettes down I changed again, this time somewhat drastically. I was part of a support group and had a set of guidelines that I was living by and that helped me see the world in a different way. I also saw that I was capable of quitting which really helped my self-esteem. I could finally Affect my own life instead of being the Effect of it. So, the act of quitting smoking allowed for more changes in me; it’s like it made room for more growth to happen. This could also have to do with the fact that I wasn’t in a fog whenever I felt something, that my feelings and emotions were more there and not covered up by the drug nicotine.
Some things that happened after I quit weren’t so good, but I weathered those. And other things really were good. I met some cool people in my support group and we continue to be friends and share the bond that we were smokers in the past and now we aren’t. And I’ve continued to grow and change with the times.
 Change is actually a good thing, because, like a tree, flower, or blade of grass, you are part of nature, and nature is all about change. To try to resist it is impossible (resistance if futile!) because no matter what, change is inevitable, and our adjusting to the changes that happen to us every day keeps us flexible and growing with each moment that passes.
So, even if you aren’t ready to quit today, the best thing you can do right now is find out as much as you can about nicotine, about cigarettes, about tobacco, nicotine replacement therapy. Try to put your cigarettes down for a day and see how that feels. Take a look at how much you want in your life that you aren’t getting. Look at how much money you spend on cigarettes, and how much of your precious time is spent fulfilling a drug addiction. Is that how you want to be? Wouldn’t you like to change? You will hopefully begin to see the value of being free of nicotine and tobacco and living a life that is healthier and unmedicated.
I’m offering a FREE TELECLASS on quitting smoking and tips on quitting on August 31, 2010 at 5:30 PM Pacific / 8:30 PM Eastern. Details to follow. Come and listen, see what you think!
Catherine
I received a newsletter from the American Lung Association the other day with a link to a site to check the air quality in your area. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the newsletter:
“Many people aren’t aware of the serious risks that bad air quality poses to even the healthiest of individuals. Air pollution increases the danger of damage to the lungs, raising the risk of asthma attacks and worsening the symptoms of COPD, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Bad air quality can even shorten your life.
“Children and seniors are especially vulnerable to air pollutants, but anyone with breathing and cardiovascular problems or diabetes should limit outdoor activities or exercise on poor air quality days. So please, before making outdoor plans, check that the air in your community is safe, and you’ll have a happy and healthier summer. “
And here’s the link: http://www.airnow.gov/
It saddens me that this site exists and that we need to check the air quality in our area, and be aware of spending too much time outdoors if the air isn’t safe. Hopefully our children and grandchildren will know what life is like without these concerns, but only if we do something about it today.
My goal here is not to be political or proselytize, but rather to speak to you about smoking, other tobacco products, their effects, and hopefully how to quit. But one thing many of us former smokers have are lung problems and the air quality will affect us whether we want it to or not. Best to be safer than sorry.
Enjoy your summer and those clean air days!
Catherine
I’m slowly learning about RSS feeds, how to suscribe, how to make it possible for you to subscribe, etc. If you are already subscribed to my RSS feed, you will have received 5 previous blogs that all went out on Tuesday night, please don’t expect this every day!!! <g> I cut that down from ten.
It makes me think about learning new tricks. When we quit smoking, we definitely are faced with learning new “tricks.” The first trick is how to live without smoking a cigarette every twenty minutes. Another trick is learning how to do those things you’ve always done with a cigarette without them. I remember those first days. Having a meal and NOT smoking, drinking a beverage and NOT smoking, having sex, visiting with a friend, talking on the phone, finishing a task, waking up, falling asleep, all without a cigarette. In the beginning it can be jarring because you are constantly reminded you are not smoking. Eventually you get used to it, and then it’s only the occasional event or crisis that reminds you that you used to deal with that with a cigarette.
It can be annoying, but you can change your outlook and think of it as one more way you are getting free. Each time you are struck with “oh, I used to smoke when I did this,” you can add to that phrase, “and now I don’t have to!”
Enjoy not smoking. Even if it’s somewhat difficult in the beginning, with an attitude shift you can make it be the best thing you’ve ever done.
I recently got news that my 9-year-old cat has a chronic form of leukemia, which means he’s going to die within a couple of years. We have to give him pills every day for the rest of his life, and will spend lots of money on his medical care and prescription drugs.
I can’t imagine how I would deal with this if I were smoking. Well, maybe I can. I would smoke. And smoke. And smoke. And smoke. I would smoke so that I wouldn’t feel the sadness and grief I feel about my cat. I would smoke so that whenever I worried about money I wouldn’t have to feel it. I would smoke because that’s all I knew to do whenever I was confronted with an insurmountable problem.
I wonder how many smokers are really aware how effectively smoking masks their feelings. Of course, when you try to quit, many times the first thing to come up is anger. But that can be explained away by saying it’s the frustration over not being able to smoke. It’s the discomfort of withdrawal. It’s also one of the many feelings we smokers try not to feel when we smoke. Nicotine also masks sadness, loneliness, hunger, overwhelming joy, satisfaction, etc. It gives users a cotton ball to keep around their heads so that they won’t feel any of the bumps.
I had a hard time when I quit smoking and started to feel again. In Nicotine Anonymous they say, “we began to feel again, sometimes to the temporary peril of those around us.” And that’s true. I was fortunate to have supportive friends around me who understood when I was grouchy and not much fun to be around.
I made it through, and now I do feel again. I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel happy and a deep sense of peace at perfect moments. It’s all there, the messiness of emotions, and I love it. So, despite the deep grief I felt when I learned that my cat’s life would be cut short, I didn’t pick up a cigarette so I wouldn’t feel it. I moved through it, and I feel in some way it allows me to be even closer to my cat and my partner as we both take this journey with our beloved animal.
What feelings and emotions are you hiding from in your cloud of smoke?
There are many addictions that have been identified and one is a money addiction. This manifests in more serious ways as excessive debting and gambling, but it manifests in lots of people as underearning.
Underearning comes mostly from lack of self-esteem for whatever reason, which might be disguised in many ways. For example, you might have difficulty asking for a raise, but the feeling might be disguised as not wanting to cause any problems, fear of facing your superior, believing that the company can’t afford to give you a raise, etc. Underearners are also characterized as people who give away a lot of their time without pay, by volunteering to a point where they have no time to themselves because of all their commitments to volunteering, or even just helping out friends. Underearners don’t value themselves. Often they remain ignorant of the value of what they do so they don’t have to face the conflict of wanting more and not “deserving” it.
There are many wonderful money coaches out there, but I’d like to recommend one of my friends, Elín Anna Bjarnadóttir. She is from Iceland, but speaks very good English and really understands underearning and how to overcome it. Her web site is FromUnderearningToAbundance.com. Check it out.
Catherine
It should come as no surprise that there are companies now manufacturing marijuana e-cigarettes using “kief” to deliver a dose of THC in each puff.
And, of course, the FDA is critical, as it has been of e-cigarettes. There are issues of the possibility of secondhand smoke from these legal devices for people who might not be able to tolerate the residual “smoke.”
The company marketing this product is instructing it’s customers to get their products from their local dispensary where medical marijuana is being sold.
I am undecided about medical marijuana, and am not highly informed as to the side effects and health dangers of using it, but my gut feeling is that it should be more regulated. It is, after all, a drug, like nicotine, alcohol, and other illegal drugs, and does affect a person’s mental capacity and moods. It is my belief that we use drugs to escape from reality, to not feel, to not experience pain, anger, loss, grief, sadness, depression, etc. There are many non-drug ways as well: gambling, food, media of all kinds, even excessive reading of books can be considered an addiction if it removes you from your world for long periods of time.
Why do we succumb to addiction? There’s a good reason for it because we do it. Whatever we are addicted to we are using it to stave off something else we don’t want to pay attention to. And of course, that thing (or things) never goes away it just gets lots of band-aids pasted on top of it. It will never heal until you look at it, and work it out.
There are lots of ways to do work out unresolved issues and hurts, conflicts and concerns: counseling in some form is always a great place to start (psychotherapy, psychiatry, 12-step meetings, hypnotherapy, your local pastor/minister/priest, etc.). And there are many places people can get counseling at a reduced fee if you have a financial issue. Coaching can also help with present-day issues to help you get back on track and moving in the direction you want to move, and works really well in tandem with therapy.
My belief is that we are here to grow, learn, experience all kinds of emotions and experiences, to enjoy our bodies in the myriad ways that is possible. But I also believe that I should be present. Not for others (although obviously they would benefit), but mostly for myself. To experience every moment to the fullest.
I am extremely fortunate to live in the SF Bay Area; we are surrounded with parks, hiking trails, lakes, and all kinds of possibilities for activity. When I take an afternoon to go for a hike in the park above my house time changes for me. I become more aware of the sounds, the smells, the colors, the feel of my feet walking. I see different things that slow me down. Nature is always in present time. Did you ever think about that? Nature doesn’t worry about the past or the future. It just is in the here and now. When I walk in nature, I return to the present. I have a lot of difficulty bringing my worries with me into the woods or to the ocean because there’s so much to see and do right then and there. I can worry about all that stuff when I’m at home sweeping the floor or paying my bills, or whatever.
What’s your experience of nature? Are you afraid of bugs like spiders, ants, and other little critters? Have you ever hugged a tree <g>? Have you ever stopped for a moment and really looked at the bark of a tree, all the different colors, the little critters that live on a tree, the feel of it, the smell of it? In the Sierras there’s a fir tree that has bark that smells like pineapple. Isn’t that incredible? And another tree with bark that looks like pieces of a puzzle. It’s amazing if you slow down and really look.
And eventually, your problems recede and you actually enjoy being with yourself, which is what this is really all about. Being with yourself.
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