About 15 years ago, a good friend of mine laughingly accused me of smoking out of defiance because the habit is viewed so negatively by the bulk of American Society. At least at the time, I suspect there was some truth to her claim. After all, I grew up around smoking–my parents, grandparents, and most aunts and uncles all smoked. What right did anyone have to tell me not to smoke!

Family Smoke Signals

When my brother married, his spouse wouldn’t tolerate being around smoking–or around our family because we smoked. She was allergic to tobacco smoke. I had horrendous allergies, particularly as a child, and had also tested positive for allergy to tobacco smoke–and I smoked. As a result, I was less than understanding of my sister-in-law’s extreme position. Heck, I could handle it, so she could too.

The day my younger brother got his Master’s Degree, my parents rented a large suite with a kitchen and lots of comfy seating for a celebration. Food was catered and all generations were having a great time. And almost everyone was smoking.

As the evening progressed , the smoke became a San Francisco fog to which most everyone was oblivious. Finally, my brother, a non-smoker, asked if I could do something.

I opened windows and doors and asked people I knew well if they could please not smoke in the suite any longer. (Imagine me asking people not to smoke!) The die-hard smokers pretty much ignored me.

I can remember looking into that suite at the bank of smoke. Yecch!

Mother

I’ve mentioned many times that Mother was a heavy smoker. She’s the only person I’ve ever known who carried an ashtray in her purse. It looked like a dollhouse-size silent butler that the manservant would empty ashtrays into as he tidied the manor house.

Being obsessively fastidious, Mother wouldn’t dream of leaving cigarette butts around. At home, she carried around a little red ashtray shaped like a frying pan. This went from room to room with her so other ashtrays wouldn’t be soiled unnecessarily.

Funny, I don’t ever remember Mother smelling like smoke–just Shalimar.

It seems the U.S. isn’t the only government around that commands a good belly laugh (or other intestinal ailments) on a somewhat regular basis.

Bureaucrats in Britain decided that it was a great use of taxpayers’ dollars to take their smoke-free campaign to church by posting no-smoking signs in more than 16,000 houses of worship.

As in our country, however, you just don’t find people lighting up in church.

Churches in the U.K. received notices informing them of the signage decision–on Ash Wednesday.

Weekdays have seen me low enough to kick the cat and leave empty toilet paper rolls in the bathrooms. I’ll tell you, when I’m like this, one minute I’m thinking, “To heck with it–we’ve all gotta die of something. I’m going to buy a pack of cigarettes.” The next minute, the thought of a cigarette is disgusting.

It’s a drag to be in Black Dog mode. It screws up my thinking and my resolve to not smoke. I don’t even care that I have a daily smoke. When the Black Dog’s not around, that once-a-day cigarette bugs the heck out of me and I’m ready to get motivated to kick it.

I wish it was possible to have more control over this disease (depression). It would make a lot of things easier–including smoking cessation.

I smoked a cigarette this morning. We had just taken our 12-year-old Cocker Spaniel, Dickens, to the vet. There was no hope for the little guy and our concern about his condition and quality of life had reached a panic point as he started hurtling downhill the last few days.

While the shot was being administered, we petted him, spoke to him gently and looked right into his eyes. After he was gone, I just cried for the old pooch. Jeff and I stood outside the vet’s office and hugged. Then we drove to a nearby convenience store where I bought a pack and smoked that cigarette. (Yes, I gave Jeff the pack.)

In a time of distress, it seems I turn to cigarettes. (One cigarette.) I guess that confirms that I’m still psychologically addicted to cigarettes.

Cocker Spaniels

Have you ever seen a Cocker Spaniel puppy? They are the ultimate in classic puppy cuteness. If Norman Rockwell had ever painted a picture of a darling tot lifting a puppy out of a stocking on Christmas morning, he would have painted a blond Cocker puppy like our Dickens.

Unfortunately, we unwittingly got Dickens from a puppy mill and he had every health problem that runs in the breed. We’re actually lucky we had him this long. Last fall, our vet identified a heart murmur and by today the old pup’s ticker just wasn’t working well at all. Last night, he wasn’t able to get around much and was slightly disoriented. When I got up this morning, I had trouble waking him. Oh…enough!

Dickens was the most intelligent dog I’ve ever owned. He also was the most alpha– Jeff and I both have scars from little Dickens teeth. Dickens became more sweet and dear as he grew older. We’ll miss him a lot.

I’ve been feeling teary and tired all day. And I want another cigarette.

I used to have a colleague–one of those spandex-clad bicyclists–who hated cigarette butt litter. When stopped at a light beside a car, he would pick up just-dropped butts and hand them back to their owners.

I happen to think any kind of litter is disgusting. I’ve felt this way for many years, but it was reinforced during the time I lived on a street with a lot of auto and foot traffic. Bicyclists too–I don’t know why they didn’t pick up the butts like my friend.

Fossilized Filters

I’ll confess that, for many years, I really did think cigarette butts were biodegradable. (Yes, call me SUCKER.) They’re actually made of a form of plastic that decomposes very slowly. The facts are not pretty:

• 175 million pounds of tobacco-butts are stubbed out in the U.S. each year.
• Many butts end up in waterways, where they are ingested by birds, fish, whales and other creatures of the deep.
• In the back yard, a curious toddler needs to sample just three cigarette butts to become seriously ill with nicotine poisoning.
• As few as two cigarette butts can kill a small animal. (Think puppies and kittens, will you please.)
• In the U.S., more than 900 people are killed and 3,000 critically injured in fires caused by the old carelessly tossed-out cigarette butt.

If you’re still smoking, please dispose of your cigarette butts properly.

I heard from Norm, a reader of Callin’ it Quits, in response to his comments to my March 2 entry and my reply on March 12.

After taking a look at my answers to the interesting questions he posed, Norm asked the following:

So, how about that 1 cig?
View it as ‘the enemy’? Delay, distract, defeat.
Pre-think it with negative anticipation + the subsequent cognitive & emotional consequence.
Negative imagery - skull & crossbones.

I do know that delay and distraction work, but I haven’t totally conquered my smoking habit, given my daily cigarette.

Oh boy, can I drum up some negative anticipation when, currently, I really look forward to that cigarette? I really, really anticipate that cigarette with pleasure.
Consequences and negative imagery–they can work for me. Perhaps I could print some of the most disturbing visuals of the effects of smoking and put them up where I can’t miss them when I go outside for the cigarette.

I really think that’s a great idea. Norm, thank you!

but you want the satisfaction of taking a deep drag on a cigarette, you might be interested in NicStic.

NicStic is a cigarette-shaped plastic tube with heating coils and a replaceable filter that has a nicotine reservoir. Pop one into a special case and it will warm up in about two seconds, ready for you to inhale the warm nicotine flavor, without smoke—arsenic, tar and formaldehyde.

An invention of the clever Swiss, NicStic is available now in most European countries. Alas, you can’t buy them yet in the U.S.

I found it very helpful (almost satisfying) to puff on an unlit cigarette during my first few totally non-smoking days. Perhaps NicStic will be another handy trick in the grab bag of smoking cessation aids. It’s certainly different from other options I considered.

It sure seems that much of the trouble in this old world is the fault of those blasted smokers.

Now it has been revealed that smokers are ruining Great Britain’s economy.

A study of 1,000 smokers by the Beneden Healthcare Society found the average smoker takes three 10-minute smoking breaks a day. All told, the organization estimates that 290,000 working days are lost each year in the UK because of those lousy smokers.

I just happen to have some thoughts about this:

• Now, I can’t remember taking three smoking breaks on a work day unless it was a really bad, awful, totally disastrous day or I was putting in work weeks of 50 to 60 hours.
• I personally know many smokers who are conscientious (or concerned about looking like a slacker) and more than make up the work time spent on cigarette breaks.
• If you are or were a smoker, when was the last time it took you 10 minutes to smoke a cigarette–if you smoked a whole cigarette?
• Research shows that short rest breaks increase productivity, decrease the incidence of workplace accidents, help reduce the chance of developing certain health risks such as blood clots in the legs and stress-related problems.
• I can attest to the fact that with some regularity, my workplace benefited from conversations I had during smoking breaks and ideas that sprouted while I puffed away on a cigarette break. (Ideas are a big part of my work.) I also used to read trade magazines and research during while I’d take a breather with a cigarette.

And what about all those virtuous non-smokers who spend parts of their work days chatting with their pals, shopping online, sending private email messages and taking personal phone calls?

Phew! I needed to say this. Thank you for hearing out my rant!

I’ve received a couple of supportive posts from a kind reader, Norm. I wanted to share his most recent message with you because he poses questions that hadn’t occurred to me.

Hi Sue - checking in again. I’d read this post before and your first line keeps niggling away at me; about the one cigarette a day. I know you said you’d looked at that from all angles. What I wonder is, what is the significant thing about having that one. Do you have it anytime? Or at a specific point in your day? What’s the worst consequence of NOT having it? Do you feel you’ve let yourself down when you have it? Or is it a 5 minute oasis in your day; an indulgence.

I’d be interested in your thoughts.

I’m going to take a stab at answering these questions. I have a feeling Norm will know better than I about significance of my answers.

1. Do I have the cigarette any time?
   I sure do. After my 20-minute drive home from work, I go inside through the garage, dump my stuff on the kitchen island, *pet the pooches and say hello to whoever is at home. Then, before I take my coat off, I go outside and smoke a cigarette.
2. What’s the worse consequence of not having it? Well, it gives me a few minutes to clear my mind between work, the drive home (I’m a lousy, nervous driver) and attending to the evening and people at home. I like that break and would find it difficult to give up. It has become enough of a habit that I’d also jones for that cigarette pretty bad.
3. Do I feel I’ve let myself down by having that cigarette? Yes. It kind of ruined the QUIT that I was so proud of. I don’t beat myself up over it–I’m well aware that I’ve come a long way toward my goal. That said, almost every time I have that cigarette I think of the statistics that show even one a day can have a profound impact on your health. I’m frustrated that I don’t seem to have the will to give it up.
4. Is it a five-minute oasis in my day? See my answer to question number two. I’ve explained my need for a little down time when I first get home from work to my family so many times that I’ve given up. What happened to the tradition of dads coming home in the 1950s? You know the routine–the cushy easy chair, pooches bringing in slippers and the newspaper, and dad gets to kick back and–smoke a pipe.(!)

I don’t know what my answers reveal.

Antabuse for Smokers?

My friend, Kathleen, asks if there’s an equivalent of antabuse for smokers. Antabuse is used to treat alcohol addiction. If someone drinks when taking the drug, they get sick–from what I’ve read, very sick.

Currently, there is no such medication to help smokers give the habit a heave-ho by making them feel like…heck.

The new smoking cessation aid, Chantix, reportedly makes some people queasy if they smoke while taking it. Others say the antidepressant, Wellbutrin, can have the same effect. Studies conducted on silver nitrate gum and lozenges have been inconclusive.

More specifically–Kathleen questions whether the powerful tobacco interests have impeded development of a nicotine-aversion drug that would work like antabuse.

I searched and searched for information on this, to no avail. It does make me wonder, however, which industry is more powerful–tobacco or pharmaceutical.

I’d put my money on the pharmaceutical industry having the greatest muscle. And just think of how big the market would be for an antabuse-like nicotine product.

*O.K. Dudley begs for kisses and I’m a total dope about Dudley. I never thought I’d be nuts enough to kiss a dog, much less admit it publicly. The Dog Whisperer would lock me in a crate.

Have you tried everything to help stop your smoking habit? Then you haven’t tried doctor-recommended, smoker-tested shock aversion therapy!

Honest! In this method, people use the following “tools” to instill within themselves with a strong, enduring aversion to smoking.

• Self-administration of a small jolt from a device hooked up to a 9-volt battery while you smoke. (This makes you a shock absorber.)
• Contemplating your smoking habit in a small, smoke-filled booth, inhaling/exhaling/inhaling/exhaling rapidly on your nasty, hot little cigarette. Oh yeah, there’s a large, overflowing ash tray in front of you.
• Smacking the heck out of your arm with a #32 rubber band (think tourniquet).

These techniques have been around since the 1970s. And they really have been studied. Proponents of this kind of aversion therapy claim a 50 percent success rate after one year.