A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

I hope you find this helpful if you're hooked on something unhealthy. Perhaps sharing what I went through in the '80s might shed some light on your situation.

One of the many reasons I relocated to Los Angeles was the non-smoking policy in public places and businesses across the board (and they're getting tougher/saner). Second-hand smoke, the stuff that comes out the burning end, is MORE lethal to those who breath it because it's filtered by neither the fibre thing stuck on the other end, or the lungs which spew it back into the environment and other people's lungs.

 

I kicked cigarettes - nicotine addiction - au naturel all by myself, long before the helpers we have today; patches, gums and pills were just a pipe dream then. How I did it 'cold turkey' might be endemic to other substance use problems and useful to you or someone you care about.

Early and mid-80, early disco club mania New York City, I was fully aware that cigarette smoking was just about the dumbest thing a so-called bodybuilder could possibly do to him/herself ... I still smoked. While I was training, or jogging or disco boogieingall I could think about was the next drag. Super Dumb.

I put my analytical mind to work, researched the common knowledge to date and the printed factoids. No internet, just libraries, magazines, books. Thus, began an all-new, all-vital self-empowerment mode - it was powerful then, it still is today.

I kept a journal noting my mental and emotional state when I really needed a fix, the time, the place, the situation, my mood, what piqued the urge. Often it was my stupid job, my ass of a boss, the noisy neighbor next door, the cab that splashed my good pants, realized I'd been short-changed ... you know what I mean. 

The journal verified some good stuff: seems I needed a nicotine fix before, during and after everything: before morning coffee, with morning coffee, after morning coffee, before breakfast, after breakfast, before lunch, after lunch, before and after snacks, instead of snacks, around both sides of dinner, sex, work, play, study, reading, drinking, doing nothing, sleeping .... not at all selective. Obviously I was dealing with addiction, pure and simple. Damn!

Stopping cold turkey was pure hell on wheels, you really know bad you're hooked then and how powerful the addiction is. They say it's as hard to kick as heroin. Fucking HEROIN, man! No wonder!

I tried parsing out the day's coffin nails, just 10 at first, scheduling them like medicine, cutting back a few, staving off the urge as long as possible while NOT keeping a stash of extra packs hidden from myself, purposely inconveniencing myself to go out to buy another, trashing the cute lighters and ashtrays, eliminating my chimney 'friends', getting out of bed in the dead of night to go to the corner for yet another sad pack of smokes. I'd snub the fuckers out half-way burned, I just smoked twice as many half-cigarettes. More expense, more denial. Switching to low-tar brands was bull, again I just smoked more of 'em. Smoking pot just exacerbated the deal. Eating was no substitute. Shit, this was fuckin' nuts.

I put a dollar in an envelope for every pack I bought, raising the cost of my habit two-fold or more. That slowed me down only slightly.

Maybe acupuncture would have helped, or hypnosis. At least I was taking steps forward to get a handle on it - admitting a problem is half the solution. That much felt great and right-on. But there was NO magic bullet then. No helpers or quick fixes.

After 'quitting' yet again for a day or two, a week or three, several months over and over again I always fell back to many sticks per day, piece of cake to go back to a pack or two daily.... Each time I 'quit' I announced proudly "It's been 2 days, 3 hours and 22 minutes since my last cigarette". What I was doing wasn't enough, not hitting the core, the source of the problem.

I tried aversion therapy - sniffing butts and ashes from a covered jar before and ideally instead of lighting up. Yuck! But my two best buds smoked, most of NYC did then. They were huge factors weighting the mix.

Apparently, I wasn't digging deep enough. Every chemical addiction is monitored by some function of the brain, right? Synases and receptors that fire or misfire, accept a substance or reject it. Couldn't nicotine be turned off or inactivated volunatarily, cognitively? The mind is incredibly powerful. Couldn't it be re-programmed or nullified altogether?

ADDICTIONS AND ALLERGIES. Could you be addicted to the very foods and beverages you're allergic to? It is very possible and very likely. Read more in the book.

There's more in the book...

Copyright © 2005-2015 The Muscle Kitchen. All Rights Reserved.

DISCLAIMER   |   PRIVACY NOTICE   |   SHOP   |   SITE MAP  |  CONTACT