The Delusion of Smoking--Some SmokeOut Thoughts

By Charles Tedesco

Here it comes again, almost like New Year's Eve
Resolution time: the annual Great American
Smokeout. It's on November 15 this year---the
American Cancer Society's regular push to get
smokers to quit for just a day. The theory
behind that is that, if someone can quit for a
day, they can quit for good. While I won't get
into discussing how realistic I feel that is, I
do have a high degree of compassion for people
who smoke.

I was a smoker myself for 26 years. Now I help
others to quit. It can be a frustrating business.
Most people who smoke would like to quit---about
80% of them, the statistics tell us. Yet most
are like a Don Quixote.....with blinders and
earplugs. They say that they want to quit, yet
most are unwilling to take action that is
consistent with that desire. Yes, they are
blowing smoke.

What I'd like to do here is provide some "food
for thought" for smokers thinking about quitting.
My other purpose in this article is to inspire
those who do not smoke to act a with a little
more compassion towards the smokers you love…and
those smokers who cross your path as you go about
living your life. It can be mighty tough feeling
like an addict without options

After I quit smoking for the final time, it
occurred to me that it would be rewarding to
share what I had learned with others. That grew
into the obsession with creating a top-notch stop
smoking system, one complete with all the
trimmings: manual, compact discs, and an oral
spray to help people get past the early cravings.
I think I've done that. Still, the world has not
beaten a path to my door.

I started with a great idea and a ton of
positive attitude.

As time marched on, though, I found that I was
learning the same lesson over and over: Most
smokers are so entrenched in their addiction and
their sense of powerlessness that they can let
their ego and their self-deception completely
overwhelm their ability to think rationally.
And their willingness to trust themselves to make
even small changes is often nil: "I just can't do
it."

That's their anthem. They'd rather not bother
trying if they're convinced they'll fail. No
sense feeling worse about yourself than you
already do.

Like Wile E. Coyote getting run over by the
same bulldozer, falling into the same pit or
having that boulder fall on him again, smokers
repeat the same fruitless actions over and over
Many think that with just a little more will
power or a few more weeks of patches or gum that
they'll be able to quit for good. That simply
isn't true.

They tell themselves that if Bob down the
street quit by using hypnosis, they should be
able to do it, too. Wrong again: we all have
varying levels of receptivity to hypnosis. Less
than 5% of those who use hypnosis stay quit for a
year.

The clear winner in the "Smokers' Biggest Fib"
Contest is this: "I could quit but I don't want to because I enjoy it." Have a little
sympathy for anyone stuck enough to share that
one with you. I hear it all the time. The
honest side of that coin is this: "I feel better
when I have my nicotine fix. If I don't get it,
I am irritable, angry and fearful. And why would
I want to try to quit if I just don't think I can
do it." It can be mighty tough feeling like an addict without options.

Let me pass along a few of the hundreds of
situations I've encountered in my work as a
Smoking Cessation Coach.

We're sitting in a booth at Coco's, Jack and
I. A friend of his had insisted that I call him
a 3rd time to talk about helping him. I usually
draw the line at twice. I learn that this guy has
lots of people who think the world of him and
that he is financially very comfortable. He is
delighting me with the glee he has in telling
stories about wartime cigarette smuggling and his
exploits with younger women. Jack is in his
early seventies, looks healthy and has a twinkle
in his eye.     As he starts to talk of his latest
visit to the doctor, that twinkle is replaced
with tears.    
"I've got emphysema. It's bad," he says.
After telling me that he thinks
he is now ready to quit, he starts coming up with
reasons that he is not. The people that he knows
and loves best are smokers. And it is simply
"out of the question" to set any distance from
them, even briefly. And he could never ask them
to not smoke while around him.
"Wouldn't be respectful," he says, throwing up
his hands in surrender. "Won't do it."    
I didn't want to be brutal in my response, but I did
want to be direct:
"So let me see if I've got this
right—You would rather avoid a little distancing
from these friends, even for just a few weeks,
even if it means that you keep on smoking and die
a rather painful death much sooner?"

It's true. Emphysema is no day at the beach.
It is a slow suffocation, the lack of ability to
breathe.

"I'm gonna die anyway. I've had a full life.
Done a lot of things I could tell stories about.
Let me think about your program. Call me
tomorrow." He insists on paying for lunch.

When I call the next morning, the conversation
is brief. "Thanks, but I'll pass. My daughter
might want to make use of your service. I'll
give her your number. Gotta go." Click.
************************    
Sometimes smokers
snap out of their habit after getting some bad
news from their doctor. But the latest
statistics show us that, of all heart attack
victims told by their doctors that they must
stop smoking, 70% continue to puff away.

One determined to quit, was a client named Anne,
who at 62 had just retired from a very
challenging career as a high school teacher. The
day before she called me for the first time, her
biopsy results had come in. "Cancer, the really
bad kind."    
Her progress through the pre-quit
phase of my stop smoking program was slow because
of the constant pain she was experiencing. She
was determined and optimistic as she prepared to
quit, though she told me soon that it was
excruciating just to turn a page of the stop
smoking manual. Cancer claimed her before we
could even set a quit date.
*********************************************
A few years back, at a Lung Association rally in
San Diego, I met Morton Downey, Jr. You may
recall him as the abrasive radio/TV talk show
host who used to insult his guests as he blew
smoke in their faces. At that time, he was a
staunch defender of smoking.
His parents, he would say, had both smoked and
they lived to be a hundred. He'd live to be a hundred,
too. Two words would suffice to describe him back then:
mean and arrogant.
Here I witnessed a very humbled man in 1998. A
cancerous lung had recently been removed.. Now he
was trying to sway people away from tobacco use. He
went on to be an inspirational anti-smoking activist.
"I feel really bad that I encouraged so many young
people to smoke back then. It's just so stupid",
he told me.
Morton Downey, Jr. died earlier this year from the
cancer in his remaining lung.
**********************************************
Last month I set up a Smoking Cessation booth at
a consumer fair at the Palm Springs Convention
Center. It was a booth largely ignored by
smokers. I would notice, with a smile on my
face, when they approached. As soon as many of
them noticed the purpose of my booth, they would
veer sharply away or look in a different
direction.    
Most who did stop wanted to share
their stories with me--- how they had stopped
smoking. It was inspiring to see the sense of
pride in their faces as they recalled how they
broke free from tobacco's hold. I let them talk.
I know how good it feels to tell that kind of
story.    
One who stopped at the booth was a
widow in her sixties named Emma. She had lost
her husband to "smoking cancer" when he was 43.
He had won a long-time battle with alcohol
shortly before being diagnosed with cancer.
Two days before he died, he quit smoking.    
"I am not going to die an addict", he told her,
straining to raise his voice above a whisper.
A doctor standing nearby overheard his pledge.
"You might as well keep on smoking", the doctor
told him.    
I saw her anger build as Emma relived that moment.
"If I'd had a gun, I would have killed that doctor."         
************************************************

A Marine stops by at the same Palm Springs
show. He is anxious to get off chewing tobacco.
He tells me that, after getting hooked on it
while stationed in Okinawa, he found out that all
the chewing tobacco available to him there was
laced with formaldehyde. Why? Supposedly to
keep it fresher and preserve the nicotine
content. I don't doubt it.    
Cigarette tobacco in our own country is laced with
a variety of added ingredients including ammonia,
patchouli, pine chips, and chocolate. Most
cigarette papers are dipped in a poisonous acid
that keeps the cigarette going once it is lit.
For a complete additives picture on the web, go
to http://www.ash.org.uk/?additives.
*****************************
Brian, a computer whiz in his thirties, had a problem
that I've seen more often over the past few years.
Not only did he smoke during off-hours and on
weekends, but he chewed a lot of the nicotine gum
during the work week. At the company he worked
for, it was taboo just to be a smoker, even if
you didn't smoke during working hours.    
"I feel like such a slave to nicotine", he told me.
Despite their poor record of success at
helping people off nicotine, the gums and patches
and inhalers are selling well. Collectively,
these products are part of the growing trend of
Nicotine Replacement Therapy. (NRT). What we
really don't know is how many are buying the
stuff to quit smoking and how many are buying it
for part-time use while in social or work
situations.    
If you look at all the research,
measure the results after one year, and verify
those results, the best these products can offer
is a 75% failure rate That's not something that
you would think would excite the public. Yet, it
sells. It amazes me to see people buying the
nicotine gum at $48 a pack at the supermarket.
To tell a smoker they're going to quit with this
stuff is like telling a heroin addict: "Hey,
we're gonna get you off smack with this "High
Time" Heroin Chewing Gum. It's in the spiffy
new clear, orange-flavored sticks now. Chew this
heroin to get off heroin."

"And to give you the same amount of nicotine
that you get in a 15 cent cigarette, we'll charge
you a buck or two." And smokers swallow this
stuff because it's healthier than smoking.

Let's tell it plain here: No matter how black
your lungs are, do you really want to be a drug
addict?

As an ex-smoker, it pains me to say this, but
folks who buy NRT products are suckers in more
ways than one, just like Brian still is. His gum
habit: $65/week. Plus another 15 bucks for
cigarettes.
*************************************************

For the last 5 years, I've occasionally run
free, one-night "Quitters' Quiz" forums at
doctors' offices in the San Diego and the Palm
Springs areas. The number who actually show up
is always much less than those who reserve seats.
One, a few years ago, was a woman named Betty
who came in a little early with an oxygen bottle
in tow.         
"Listen", she piped right up after
removing the hose from her face, "I am 72 years
old. I like my deserts. I like my Coca-Cola.
And I like my TV stories all afternoon. If this
is some program about making 'lifestyle changes',
I wanna know right now, 'cause I'm 72 and I'm not
gonna change and I wouldn't be interested."    
She went home for Coke and crumpets and more air
from a bottle.
***************************
Through all the challenges I've experienced as a
Smoking Cessation Coach, there are bright
moments, enough to sustain my enthusiasm for the
work. There have been moments when I've been
proud, memories that continue to inspire me.
Like clients around the country who started out
telling me that they were scared about
failing…and continue to call me with thanks on
their "Quitting Anniversaries".

It feels good. Like a drug.

Sarah, an Indian Wells caregiving grandmother,
had a double incentive to quit when she called me
for the first time. Not only was her bronchitis
getting worse, but her daughter had just laid
down the law: "You cannot hold or babysit your
granddaughter unless you stop smoking."    
The granddaughter is Sarah's first grandchild.
Before she stopped smoking, Sarah's voice was
dry, raspy, and difficult to understand
sometimes. In the two months since she's quit,
Sarah's voice has cleared. And it warms my heart
to hear her talk about how she loves cradling her
grandkid.
************************         
Most smokers who say they want to quit are
looking for something that has 4 specific qualities
in products or services to help them stop smoking.
For them to have an interest, it must quick,
cheap, simple and painless.
They would rather hear about a traveling
hypnosis show at the Holiday Inn for $39 than
something new and different that might cost more.
Even if they'e already tried hypnosis several times
before.

For most smokers who say they want to quit,
procrastination is a high art form. "It'll be so
much easier to quit when I have more love, money,
sex or spare time."         

What charges me up are the ones who choose to
finally get honest with themselves about quitting
and what it is going to take. No, it isn't easy.

But anyone can do it with a plan, some
determination, some personal support, and a
willingness to make some changes. Most of what
it takes involves how you think and what you do
to react to the challenges of life.

Is it OK with me if you choose to smoke? Sure,
as long as you're not blowing it in my face.

And if you're a smoker who has been thinking
about stopping, I'd like to think that this will
smoke a few of you out.
----------------------------------
Charles Tedesco is the founder of Smoking
Release Associates. Information about the
Smoking Release System is available at
www.SmokingRelease.com
               *********************
Tedesco's Top Ten Tips for Stopping Smoking

(1) Pound down the water—at least 2 quarts every
day to help you deal with stress.

(2) Practice deep breathing. A minute or two
several times daily. Don't do this while
driving at first; you may get dizzy.

(3) Get up and move around several times daily,
even if its just for a minute. Stretching helps.

(4) Every day, pick 2 things that you don't
usually do and set them as goals. Write them
down and then check them off when completed.
This helps rebuild your sense of self-trust.

(5) Rather than saying to yourself "I'm going to
stop smoking," turn it into a positive
statement: "I am determined to breathe freely."

(6) Instead of saying to yourself: "I am trying
to stop smoking." say "I am choosing to be free."
Talking about wanting to stop doing can increase
anxiety. And your brain understands when you say
that you are "trying" that trying is an ongoing
state, that you are continuing to fail.

(7) Reduce or cut out caffeine. Not only is there a psychological connection (that morning coffee and cigarette) but caffeine also binds nicotine to your body, which basically means cravings are tougher and can last longer.

(8) In the first month of freedom from tobacco,
keep alcohol consumption to a drink per day or
less.

(9) During that time, steer clear of parties
where there is smoking.

(10) Remember that exercise burns off stress
much better than hoisting a beer while you watch
TV.
***********************************************
JPEG images of the author and inspirational photos are available upon request. For information, call 760-771-9535. For more information about Tedesco's Smoking Release program see the web site at
www.SmokingRelease.com




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