How to Quit Smoking (Meddling Hispanic Style)
With all the fevered debate over health care, I'm surprised that few people have addressed the root cause of so much misery: the failure of our society to keep people from getting sick in the first place.
It's actually pretty simple to get people to adopt healthier habits. Well, actually, it's easy only if strong-willed Latinas run one's family.
For example, when my grandmother moved to this country, over two decades ago, she was a multipack-a-day smoker. My mother and aunt were naturally concerned that their mom was on her way to an early, hack-coughing, phlegm-coated death. So they asked her to stop smoking.
My abuela rejected their request with the scorn of someone who has lived to old age and uses that fact to dismiss other people's opinions. Thus blocked, my mother and aunt hit upon an effective, albeit ethically dubious, workaround.
They told her that smoking was illegal in America.
My grandmother, who spoke no English, was in disbelief. What kind of place was this America?
Keep in mind that this was in the days before Spanish-language cable channels or radio programs. And considering she had just moved here and that we were among the few Hispanics in the city at that time, she had no outsiders whom she could seek out to confirm this shocking fact.
She had to quit, her daughters told her, or the cops would bust her. My grandmother refused to believe this at first, and she pointed out that she saw people smoking on the street.
"Yes," my aunt said with great patience. "They are breaking the law."
My mother added that the smoker was taking a grave risk, analogous to stealing a car in broad daylight. My grandmother didn't want to stick around for that, lest she get caught up in the imminent police raid. So she went home, finished the last pack that she had brought with her from El Salvador, and went cold turkey.
Years later, when she was long off cigarettes, my grandmother learned that the whole thing had been a lie. Of course, she was pissed off, and she sputtered threats and issued oaths and sent everyone in the family to hell.
But she still hasn't started smoking again.
Granted, this technique only works on recent immigrants who haven't learned English yet. And even then, most immigrants now have an instant community that they can join or websites that they can check out or any number of opportunities to discover if their well-meaning children are lying to them for their own good.
It's a completely different world today, in large part because immigrants like my grandmother have come over in greater numbers and with more of a drive to know what the hell is gong on in their adopted country. So maybe the anti-smoking trick isn't effective anymore.
In any case, my home state has just instituted a ban on indoor smoking, which many other places have already adopted. I'll have to ask my grandmother if she thinks it's a good idea.
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That's a great story!
My wife has been a long time smoker and just recently she has made the switch over to E-cigarettes to help her get off smoking. I am not a smoker therefore I'm onboard with the fact that I don't have to inhale any secondhand smoke. And they are actually cheaper than cigarettes too.
Check them out they are a viable alternative to smoking.
http://gre
Switching from one nicotine delivery system -- cigs -- to another -- vapor -- doesn't end the nicotine addiction.
Quit selling death.
One lie can be better than a thousands truths.
Alternative are better than smoking but they still will evetually lead you back to smoking. Its best to just stop. check out how to stop smoking i found it useful.
Yeah, maybe if we keep everyone dumb and uneducated we can trick them all into making the choices we want to make. Too bad natural-born citizens and more recent immigrants are so well-informed, eh?
Does it not strike you that this is exactly the caricature of liberals that wingnut conservatives are always trying to sell?
I'm a smoker of 40+ years and I enjoyed this story. No one
can be "tricked" into stopping smoking unless they've thought
about it and are willing.
Anyone can quit and it doesn't take a great lot of will power
to do so. I did once. I was stationed in Arizona during the Viet
Nam War. Had stopped for about 4-5 days, then I received
word that my father had died. On the way to the airport to fly
home, I lit up and haven't stopped since.
For me, it was just a question of deciding and following through.
No big angst or withdrawal from nicotene or whatever is in
cigarettes. It was just no longer a part of the picture of how I saw
who I wanted to be so I decided to stop. And I did.
I respect the space of other people-smokers or non-smokers.
I'm saddened and sorry that the coming majority sees fit to try
and control what I can do or can't do in my own home as regards
smoking. That is Fear at its worst incarnation. We're all going to pass
to the other side someday, somehow, somewhere, but as long as
you fear it, everything you encounter will be suspect to you. Living
in fear is a life I wouldn't want to live.
Peace to you all and may your souls fulfill their destinies.
Sorry to hear john that you started back up after 4-5 days. I agree with the notion of freedom to choose. Go ahead and smoke.
Stain your walls, your curtains, your fingers, your lung tissue, your teeth, your dogs' lungs (if you have a pooch), your carpet, furniture, well, hell, everything, john.
40+ years. that's a lot of money given to the death merchants. Let's see: 1 pack per day, say $3 bucks a pack, that's $40,000 to Altrea, or Reynolds, or whoever. I'm sure they're happy with your decision.
My dad smoke for 60 years. Doctors treated him with chemo and radiation for about a year. His cancer went into remission for about a year after that -- he could barely walk though -- and then it came back, big time, aggressive large cell variety.
His regular doctors wrote him off. Non operable, they said. He found a doctor who disagreed. He said he'd take the lung out -- had to because the tumor was pressing against dad's heart.
He was near death when I held his hand before the operation, the one where they split your side open and yank that black lung out. A good time was had by all.
So yeah.
Quit. Now.
I also used whyquit to quit smoking. I had tried everything to quit, (pills, gum, and patches). Finally, when I was in my first year of law school, I went cold turkey after reading "Joel's Library" on the website. After two weeks I had no cravings whatsoever and I was furious when I realized how easy it really was---I could have quit ten years earlier!
I tell every smoker I meet about whyquit, but rarely does anyone look at the material. The most common responses are, "I'm just going to try to cut down to one cigarette a month/week/etc," "My friend/cou
(In an effort to head off 50 posts that argue that heroine addicts are stepped-down with opiates or methadone, I'll grant that my metaphor is not perfect because heroine has different withdrawal and pharmacological profiles than nicotine. Still, if you investigate the credible clinical data---not studies funded by smoking cessation companies---I think you'll find that cold turkey is the most successful protocol.)
Never take another puff!
4 or 5 days without a cigarette is hardly quitting.
Believe it or not, Howard Stern got me to quit. I heard him say that smoking was a sign of weak character. I thought about that and decided it was true. That didn't sit well with my ego.
Go cold turkey. Resist like hell when you are in a gas station or any place that sells cigarettes. Just make sure you don't buy cigarettes. If you don't have them, you can't smoke them. Don't bum them from a friend or co-worker. If you drink, give that up, too, for at least a month. My resistance was (is) always weakest after a couple pints of Guinness. (Guinness is good for you. Never give that up!) The ability to resist is MUCH stronger after about three months. Six months later, the idea of smoking makes me queasy ...most of the time.
Tobacco companies are evil drug dealers. Cancer and emphysema are ugly deaths. Smoking is sign of weak character.
What a horrible story of trickery, deceit and manipulation.
See Daniel Cubias's Profile
You say that like it's a bad thing...
What an adorable story, as a kid I used to steal my moms cigarettes and hide them until she left so I could take them outside to the trash. After awhile she caught on, but I never admitted it. Like many kids of smoker parents, I picked up the horrible habit. Quit, June 1st. It was and still is really hard, just reading this article makes me want to light up. But, I don't, I just choose not to. I never thought I would be able to quit, and then after the last tax increase I knew it was only a matter of time.
It all comes down to will power. Anyone trying to quit just needs to rediscover theirs. When ever you come across a craving, just decide NOT to do it. You're stronger than that cigarette, I promise, and the craving always subsides, eventually.
Yes. The craving subsides, usually within a minute or so, and as time passes, the frequency decreases as does the intensity.
You are correct. Never give in to the temptation. Flick it away, and then celebrate the fact that you did.
www.whyqui
Not all smoking should be condemned. Certain herbaceous offerings sometimes make the world a more empathetic and amusing place. One just has to make an easy choice to discern their best possible inhalations and devote their lung longevity to them. Beats driving drunk or with road rage. And you don't need a refinery to produce it...just solar power.
I love this story and I wish it were illegal to smoke in all states, inside or outside. That's because I'm a smoker, albeit a light one, and I'm having a terrible time trying to quit. The saying that quitting smoking is harder than quitting heroin is very believable in my opinion. But in reference to the current healthcare debate, I think prevention, i.e. quitting smoking should be a paramount requisite for any public option. And I do hope we get a public option which is a basic human need and human right.
You can quit. I did after 30 years.
Realize it is about chemical addiction, not will power. Arm yourself with the facts. Give yourself 3 days to plough through the withdrawal symptoms, and then, you're free.
www.whyqui
"Simple knowledge, passed from one person to another", maybe...ma
What is really interesting, and should teach us an important life lesson, is that education is what stops people from smoking. All the prohibition in the world cannot stop it, but education can, and did.
Smoking is at its lowest level in the history of modern America. Not because we made it illegal, or inconvenient, or even because we created a social stigma. Simple knowledge, passed from one person to another.
Well then in matters of style, I stand like a rock.
I'm educated, but also high strung. Quitting tobacco smoking is no easy matter. If only there was an effective, smoke-free substitute.
Actually there IS a great alternative to cigarettes that actually works great. It's called electronic cigarettes. I've used them to get off the cancer sticks. It's an unbelievable product and is very effective.
You can check out a video of people in a club in Miami Beach getting introduced to e-cigs for the first time at:
http://www
I love the reactions!
I started smoking 25 years ago. Still do. Had the knowledge been as readily available as it is now, I do not think I would have started.
Back then it was hard to believe anything the government said, I mean, whats with the egg in the frying pan? :-)
You don't think those "sin taxes" driving cigarettes up to $5 a pack had anything to do with it, huh?
To some extent, yes. What we are seeing now is an increase in purchases from the black market and Indian reservations. There is a fine line between taxation and loss of control.
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