Did you know that each year nearly half of all smokers try to quit? I hate to add that only five percent are successful, according to a study conducted by the University of Minnesota Medical School.

For most of us, kicking the tobacco habit is one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. It can be done, but it’s important to acknowledge the struggle. Following are a few interesting facts that demonstrate just how tenacious a nicotine addiction can be.

• Squirrel monkeys will press a lever up to 250 times just to get one intravenous dose of nicotine.
• You’d think a heart attack, angioplasty or coronary artery bypass surgery would persuade a smoker to quit. Nope, 21 percent of people who experience these conditions/procedures continue smoking.
• Up to 50 percent of people who have been diagnosed with cancer continue to smoke.
• When you first stop smoking, the nicotine receptors in your brain zoom up–just to test your mettle.
• Nicotine is both a stimulant and a depressant. It can help you get moving in the morning and stay on task or it can help you chill out when you’re stressed.
• According to Britain’s Royal College of Physicians, nicotine is as addictive as cocaine or heroin.
• Only approximately 30 percent of female smokers who learn they’re pregnant quit smoking.

Does it sound like kicking the habit is just too hard? Think again. More than 38 million Americans have quit successfully.

Jeff has been a real champ for taking a tough-love stance during my quit process. He’s been rigidly unyielding in nagging me to not smoke. Jeff’s normally not stubborn with me at all, so the tough love routine is a real effort on his part. It has helped immeasurably.

Now if Jeff was still a smoker and didn’t support my effort to quit, I would have found it rough going to kick the habit. A friend of mine sent me the following email message:

Sue, I’m with you this time for good! I quit smoking Sunday night, October 1st. I’m done and I’m not even going to take a single drag anymore. If *Mike even tries to sabotage me, I will ban him from smoking indoors, which I should probably do anyway. I just knew that quitting in the summer would be twice as hard since we spend most of our time outdoors dining. I am steadfast this time and I feel so much better when I’m not smoking and I feel better about myself. I can’t even imagine standing outdoors puffing away during our cold and windy winters anymore. It’s so much easier NOT to smoke and I know I can quit for good and so can you! I just refuse to be one of those obsessive lecturing non-smokers, because I too believe everyone has the right to engage in self-destructive behavior, but educated people should know better and it’s such a stupid way to kill yourself. Given a choice, I will choose death by chocolate.

Mike’s mother died of lung cancer from smoking and he has developed a chronic bronchitis type cough, but of course he’s in complete denial and he gets really upset if I bring it to his attention. He’s well into 2 packs a day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night and he’s almost incapable of going more than 20 minutes without a smoke. When I weigh in all of the statistics, I sincerely believe that he will most likely die from a smoking related illness in the not too distant future. He has a diet too high in fat, doesn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, doesn’t exercise at all, has a heart palpation that he was born with and doesn’t get any kind of annual check up. He is probably the typical 50 year old American male who could live a long and healthy life, but he’s making all of these self-destructive choices and it is a recipe for disaster. I know he’s in trouble but he thinks he’s perfectly normal. Again, a typical male, but I keep trying to help him make any small changes that I can.

I actually like Mike a lot. But in this matter he’s being a first-class louse.

A Lingering Death by Chocolate

Death by chocolate makes contemplation about the end about as appealing as it can be.

I had an international chocolate company as a client for a while. A chocolate factory is about as close to paradise as you can get. Big vats of molten chocolate!

I brought chocolate home that was left over from a photo shoot for this client. To keep it where I could control its consumption, I tucked it far in the back of my bedroom closet.

One day my older son, age 14 at the time, came home from school with his best friend. A trail of chocolate packaging led the boys to our Springer Spaniel mix, Bailey–looking green and guilty. (Well, green in a dog way.)

Knowing that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, the boys decided Bailey needed to be purged of the chocolate–quickly. After an unsuccessful search for the ipecac, they headed to the kitchen to make their own, sure-fire emetic. Vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, maple syrup, cayenne pepper…all combined to make a powerful substitute for ipecac.

Somehow, they poured the vile concoction down poor Bailey’s gullet. But they neglected to take him outside. And blessed be, it worked! Oh, how it worked. In every room of the house.

* Name changed to protect the guilty.

I had half a cigarette yesterday, the final one from the pack that was in my car. (Not to be confused with the single cig in my glove compartment that I knew about forever. I finally threw that one away.)

July 1 to September 3

I had been so resolute about not lighting up between my July 11 quit date and our trip to France and Germany–we arrived in Germany September 3. During that time period, I didn’t do any smoking beyond the occasional single puff.

At that time, I wouldn’t have opened that pack of cigarettes, much less smoke them.

September 2 - September 14

We were in Europe between these dates. (It already seems like our vacation was months ago. I’m ready to go again–but to Paris and Provence this time.) Yes, I smoked in Europe. Not nearly as much as before my quit date. But, when we got on the plane to come home, I didn’t smoke for nine days.

September 23 - Present

The black dog of depression sank his teeth in my ankle and I smoked several cigarettes on the 23rd. Since then, I’ve had one cigarette, most days–until I finished the pack.

Now What?

I need to return to the tools and techniques I used when I first quit:

• Cigarette substitutes like the nicotine lozenges, peppermint candies, plastic straws cut to the length of a cigarette, cinnamon sticks, licorice sticks, old-fashioned candy sticks–one reader said a glue stick worked for her. In desperation one night, I inhaled away on an unlit cigarette. That actually worked pretty well for me.
• Distractions were incredibly important the first couple of weeks after I quit. Good distractions include: walking the dogs, doing research on the computer, reading, watching a movie, doing a crossword puzzle, taking a bubble bath, cleaning the house, sorting through photos and putting an album together. Shoot! You could do your taxes early. Now, that would be a distraction.

I don’t want to smoke.

I continue to struggle with about one cigarette a day, most days, since September 23. Fortunately, there are only three cigarettes left in the pack I found under the driver’s seat of my car. I will not buy another pack. Jeff suggested that I get more nicotine lozenges. I think that’s a good call.

The Smell of Success

Now that I’m (nearly) not smoking, I can smell cigarette smoke on people half a block away. I’d rather not deal with it, but I can’t imagine delivering a rabid tirade to a smoker just because I catch a whiff of tobacco smoke.

Yes, some smokers can be pretty rude. As a smoker, I became extremely frustrated with inconsiderate smokers because I didn’t want guilt by association with their behaviors. For example, the Trust buildings and grounds are maintained in pristine condition–we employees take quite a bit of pride in our surroundings. So why did some smoker start throwing cigarette butts on the ground by a popular smoking spot here instead of walking eight steps to the ashtray??!

Secondhand Smoke

I’ve become painfully aware of the impact of secondhand smoke since I began this blog. You may recall the June 28 blog entry discussing the Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s press conference that focused on second-hand smoke.

Dr. Carmona said second-hand smoke increases the risk to nonsmokers of:

• heart disease by 25 to 30 percent.
• cancer by 20 to 30 percent.
• Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) for infants directly exposed to second-hand smoke and infants whose mothers were exposed to second-hand smoke during pregnancy.

I feel strongly that people have a right to be protected from second-hand smoke. Yet the following quote from another blog demonstrates how ugly some anti-smokers have become.

“You are a perfect example of why we need to legalize the immolation of smokers (by pouring gasoline) who smoke in the presence of non-smokers. The only reason I advocate keeping immolation illegal is that the person throwing the gasoline could be hurt and I don’t want to see non-smokers injured.”

Now wouldn’t this person be exposed to more smoke if he/she followed through with this?

The Right to Self-Destruct

We have the right to do all kinds of self-destructive behavior. We can eat too much food and become obese, get diabetes and heart disease. We can be gung-ho for dangerous sports. We can avoid exercise. We can binge drink. We can perform self-surgery on our feet and toes.

And…we still have the right to smoke.

That said, it’s darned stupid to smoke. I should know.