Consequences of stopping smoking
OB
each totalling 0.3 of a cigarette, not inhaled).
Here's my own personal take on what stopping smoking really means for
the quitter, over this sort of timespan. First of all, a couple of
myths that need to be dispelled:
1) "Stopping smoking equals saving money".
Much of the Quit Smoking literature says stuff like "Just think of all
the money you are saving! After a few weeks, treat yourself to a nice
present with all the money you've saved by not buying cigarettes".
This is complete and utter garbage. Certainly in the short term,
anyway. Rather than being able to indulge in nice self-congratulatory
shopping sprees, the prospective quitter should rather start putting
extra money aside for what is likely to be a significant additional
strain on his or her finances.
Here's why. When I was a smoker, I got through a packet of Ducados a
day, or (in stressful times) a packet and a half. Total expenditure:
between 2 and 3 euros a day. Now, in order to maintain the expensive
habit of non-smoking, I am having to shell out between 3 and 4 euros a
day in the following necessary items:
chewing gum
liquorice sticks
sweets
assorted mixed nuts
crisps
doughnuts
radishes
But this isn't the worst of it. Before quitting smoking, my weight
fluctuated between 85 and 90 kg (I'm a 6ft2in-er, so about right,
perh. marginally overweight). After two months, it was already topping
100kg. Now, it's around 110 kg and counting. Consequence: hardly any
of my old clothes fit me any more. This Xmas, apart from the usual
expense of presents for family etc, I'm gonna have to get a complete
new wardrobe for myself, at a time when I can least afford to spend
cash on such luxuries.
But that's still not the worst of it. As already mentioned, one
necessary item for the recent quitter is chewing gum. I never used to
touch the stuff, but now it's become a vital necessity. Result: the
constant chewing of highly adhesive substances means that several of
your old dental fillings come out (usually at work). Consequence:
expensive dental treatment. I've already had one tooth seen to,
another due next Jan, total cost approx. 2 months' salary.
Be careful children. Stopping smoking is EXPENSIVE.
2. "Stopping smoking is good for the libido".
OK, well, a half-truth at best. Admittedly, it worked for the first
few weeks. After smoking my last cigarette, within a matter of days
the testosterone levels were sky-high. What was already a fairly
active wanking schedule became hectic in the extreme: I seriously
contemplated ringing in sick from work in order to dedicate my time to
intensive masturbation, it was hard to see how to fit it all in
otherwise... what stopped me is that here in Spain employment
legislation is somewhat archaic and there is as yet no standard legal
provision for "compassionate leave for attending to unruly hormones".
However, just as fast as the hormones had gone up, they plummeted.
After a couple of months of this, I woke up one morning to find that
for the first time in about 34 years, I had ABSOLUTELY NO interest in
sex WHATSOEVER. More bizarrely still, I found that my previous
interest in sex had been replaced by, of all things, a sudden and
unwonted fascination with Rooftops.
I don't quite know how to explain this, except to say that my earliest
experiments with smoking took place at an age when I still wasn't
really all that sure about sex, ie whether it was a Good Thing or a
Bad Thing, etc. In other words, I was really Very Young Indeed. So
what I suspect may have happened is something like this:
a) subject stops smoking
b) subject's hormone levels automatically increase (handbrake taken
off)
c) after a time, subject's Primitive Brain begins to wonder about
absence of nicotine. Concludes this must mean subject is dead.
d) subject's Primitive Brain decides no point in continuing to
stimulate interest in sex in the mind of a dead person, since corpses
can't mate.
Alternatively, it might have something to do with a Return to
Childhood (or to wherever you happened to be when you started smoking)
on some primitive preconscious level. I mean, I vaguely remember that
when I was a child I took quite an interest in the physical world
around me, as mediated by the sense of Sight. I looked at rooftops and
clouds (Hullo clouds! Hullo sky! fotherington-Tomas ect) and birds and
puddles and trees and things, all with a fair degree of interest. When
I started smoking, this interest in the World Around Me ceased totally
and was replaced (for presumably unrelated reasons having more to do
with Age) by an exclusive and somewhat obsessive interest in Women. So
maybe what it is, is, that, like, my body or Primitive Brain or
whatever has decided, quite logically, that since I have stopped
smoking it must mean a return to that earlier State of Consciousness.
I dunno, really. It's all very strange.
Anyway, what I really meant to say is, that if you're thinking of
quitting smoking either to save money or to become a Stud or Studdess,
then it probably isn't such a great idea. OTOH if you want to stop
smoking because you want to be Happier than you were before, then I
can thoroughly recommend it. What with all the wonderful Rooftops in
this part of town, I am really very happy indeed, at the moment. Let's
see if it lasts.
Thank you for your attention. And now, back to "Blood and Swash, the
Memoirs of a Sea Captain".
Paula
LOL. I don't know whether to congratulate you or commiserate with you.
Whatever the downside...I am sure there is an upside! Better breathing
perhaps? Smelling nicer? Lessening your chances of cancer?
Despite all of this, would you really want to go back to smoking? Or was the
only reason you quit because you wanted to save money?
Paula
Giggling a little...very funny post. And some truths in there too...
"OB" <nevil...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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GoddessXena
Good job on the four months, OB! Quitting sucks, but smoking sucks
more. You're doing great!
Battle On!
-GoddessXena
I have been tobacco-free for 3 weeks, 5 days, 9 hours, 2 minutes and 40
seconds. 527 cigarettes have not been choked down, saving $131.88. Life
saved to burn villages and torture others: 1 day, 19 hours, 55 minutes.
--
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt
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BERNIE8607
Still chuckling,
Bern
HumungousFungusAmongUs
OTS
"OB" <nevil...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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eerie rodent of unusual size & typing ability
news:6ebc501c.03120...@posting.google.com:
> Anyway, what I really meant to say is, that if you're thinking of
> quitting smoking either to save money or to become a Stud or Studdess,
> then it probably isn't such a great idea. OTOH if you want to stop
> smoking because you want to be Happier than you were before, then I
> can thoroughly recommend it. What with all the wonderful Rooftops in
> this part of town, I am really very happy indeed, at the moment. Let's
> see if it lasts.
Yeah, but if you were an M.D. you'd be making wry comments on people who
persisted in smoking even though they could barely breathe due to their
lungs having become mostly scar tissue or eaten away by tumors and so on.
Breathing is much better when you're not thinking how great it was when you
didn't have to make a huge effort to do so.
Colin Savage
>
> But this isn't the worst of it. Before quitting smoking, my weight
> fluctuated between 85 and 90 kg (I'm a 6ft2in-er, so about right,
> perh. marginally overweight). After two months, it was already topping
> 100kg. Now, it's around 110 kg and counting. Consequence: hardly any
http://new.wavelist.com/tv/036/102_need.wav
From a 6ft3in-er packing on the weight...
Colin
2W 1D and change
Colin Savage
OB
True. Friend of my mum's died last year of emphysema. He'd always been
a bit of a wheezer, but his last 12 months or so, well, "living hell"
is prob. about right. Yes, there is that too.