So far so good. Except that I'm not doing so well on quitting. I wanted to wait to do this page until I had better news, but it was getting to be a long time. What prompted me to continue these pages was some e-mail from a reader. Here are his comments and questions (preceded by'=') and my responses. Where I paraphrase him, I enclose in [square brackets].
= Well how did it turn out? I went through your = day by week thing and it ended in Dec (5th I = think). Did you quit for good (til now)? =
Well, when I finished the patches I ran into some stressful times and am back to about a pack a day. I still feel that I am in the process of quitting, even though I have backslid to this point. I haven't yet said to myself, "i couldn't quit this time."
[he tells me something about himself, including...]
= I have been smoking for over 35 years ...
Sounds a lot like me. I'm 53 and started in my late teens. I like smoking -- it calms me and seems to help my concentration when reading or working at the computer.
I don't much care for having to stop after every flight of stairs to catch my breath, I don't like the smell of my den in the morning or the smell of my car after a cold damp night, I hate being a second-class citizen (many local restaurants are entirely non-smoking here in Ann Arbor -- PC center of the world), I hate waking up in the morning to find I have ruined another set of sheets or burned another hole in the bedroom carpet, and most of all I hate hiding from my wife who seems to have successfully quit (via accupuncture) beginning about the same time I did. She says it wouldn't bother her, but even so, I'm ashamed to smoke in front of her.
= I always thought that if I quit then I would = be run over by a run-a-way BEER truck ...
As for the beer truck, if it *doesn't* hit you tomorrow, you will be another day older and still smoking. This seems similar to those who say they could never go back to school because it would take several years; several years will eventually pass and that person will either have had the benefit of further education or they won't, but it will depend on what they choose today.
And commitment *IS* the answer. I got through the 10 weeks of the patches with only a few backslips by my initial commitment, and by restrengthening the commitment when I slid. I expect to do it again fairly soon. I'm still in the war, even if I lost this particular battle. My best luck in doing things that take commitment has been to wait until I feel strong and then strike.
I think I had better edit this letter and place it as the next in the series. I hadn't much felt like admitting that I had failed (as I saw it) but as long as I am still trying, it may be that keeping up the series is an important part of the process.
With your permission I will quote some of the questions you raised (without identifying you) to introduce different parts of this proposed page. Please let me know if this is OK with you.
I sent that off, and got back another letter
with permission and some comments on my comments.
Some of these had to be reconstructed.
I do think I understand about the "beer truck". I had a few months recently when I thought I might either be dying or be facing some sort of complete paralysis. I was getting to feel as though it was a stupid idea to make the remaining time uncomfortable by doing all the things the doctors said were essential, including diet, medicine, an operation on my neck to remove a (benign) cyst (that wasn't causing me much trouble), 30-40 different blood tests, dozens of x-rays, a couple of MRI sessions, and, of course, quitting smoking.
None of the doctors ever found what was causing the numbness and tingling that was getting progressively worse; finally it began to reverse itself all by itself. One of the doctors said, "i wish i had prescribed some medicine or treatment; that way i could have taken the credit."
I'm about back to normal now, but I'm still taking the stuff for the other things they 'discovered' like high cholesterol, and an aspirin every other day to prevent strokes, no eggs for breakfast any more. Foo.
So, I do know what you mean about why take a chance on making your (maybe) last days miserable. Still I think I'll keep trying, and as long as I've started working on the other things, I guess I'll keep on doing them. It turns out not to be so miserable now that I've got used to them.
= [He says both he and his wife know they should quit.]
I would say not to worry if you don't feel the commitment right away. I've been thinking about it and making half-hearted attempts to quit smoking for over 15 years now, and this was the first time that the "yep, this is it" feeling lasted through more than the first day or two. As my dentist says, "if you can't quit smoking, at least don't quit quitting."
It's hard to say whether you and your wife need to quit at the same time. On the one hand, mutual support and not having another smoker right there might make it easier. On the other hand, having two people around the house going through the discomfort and edginess of quitting at the same time might be fairly stressful. You would probably have to make sure you each had some place to get away for a while.
Either way, the real commitment can only be made to oneself; you can't quit for someone else. Keep thinking about it and a time will come when you can say, "yep, this is it." I think that keeping it in mind will make the day come sooner.
That was most of the exchange as well as we could reconstruct it after a disk crash wiped out most of my recent e-mail. Fortunately, he had kept copies of what I had sent, so most of the reconstruction was of his comments.
I still consider myself to be in the process of quitting, even though I'm currently smoking. I am not going to "give up for the time being"; I am just gathering my strength and will for the next assault. I hope to have better news in the next of these pages.