ex smokers - a question for you

[emchy]

i am primarily a social smoker. out at clubs. at band practice. like once maybe twice a week i light up. usually on someone else's dime. other ex smokers/ ex social smokers - how do you not smoke in these situations?  

i know its more of a mental game than physical at this point 
i hate how my body feels and that is why to quit 
but i still romanticize the smoking. it still makes me feel good and tough and like i will live forever so why not when i smoke. i feel more alive. ironic right as it means i will actually live shorter. but it makes me feel like i am living for the moment. devil may care. etc. 
 
i feel like i need to roll differently this time. to talk more about the stopping. to look for tips and ways to succeed. rooster asked me how she can help and i don't know. i don't even know how to help myself. when trying to change eating habits or lose weight i was always the extremist. only celery cut out all other foods. and it drives me to a bigger reaction the other way. i know that isn't healthy and leads to binge eating. ironically i have tried to do the same thing with smoking with the exact same binge sort of reaction. which is why i thought that social smoking - knowing i could have one if i wanted here and there, was a solution - i thought - to keep me from daily smoking. and it has kept me from daily smoking. but holding an unlit cigarette to squash the mind instinct to barely smoking one turned into a slippery slope. sure it's less than when i was working at atom and taking smoke breaks from the stress, or even at jaman where i would stress myself into a smoke break now and then too. but at jaman i broke the smoking at work habit. in the fall after tour. i just kicked it and was able to go back to the unlit cigarette at bars thing. and like i said slippery slope. now full of rationalizations and bad breathing last weekend i took a good look at what was going on and realized i needed to stop the social smoking. and that felt scary. my stress reliever pressure valve yay i am out having a good time and devil may care vice needed to go away. so i was coming around to the idea and was gonna cut it off casually. but last night i got a wake up call. and realized yea no i need to do this real. i need the quitting to not be a dirty little secret just because i am afraid of other people seeing me fail. i need it to be out in the open so that i am more accountable to myself. i need to figure out a way to have faith in myself that i can do this and that being open about it is one way to do that. i need to swallow the shame i have from being a smoker and not let that stop me from talking about quitting - from talking about the shame around the dependency. 
 
it's scary. smoking has mostly been there for me for a long time as a mean little safety net when my emotions felt too big to handle and i needed to burn some of the intense off. when i wanted to just blow off some metaphorical steam. when i felt nervous or socially awkward and it gave me something to do with my hands or a good reason to not talk. when i wanted a reason to strike up a conversation with people outside of a bar that might make interesting connections and friendships.  when i wanted a reminder of how it felt to be 17 and smoking on ianthe's porch or with judi out at the lake. there is a lot of emotion and memory and attachment tied up in it. it's a low lying physical addiction if any - but it's a huge mental and symbolic break to be making. i know smoking is neither sexy nor cool and yet my mind sees it that way. part of me thinks if i leave it completely behind do i leave all of that sexy outsider outlaw behind too? i know the answer is no logically, but emotionally i am not there yet. but there or not i need to do this for me.
 
i would rather be playing my accordion with 'grandma emchy's hot hopping jug band' at 98 years old out on the porch than i would be smoking on the sidewalk this weekend outside of a club. 

and so a new journey begins. scaring the crap out of me. 

suggestions or tips or advice welcome.

Comments

[goodbadgirl.livejournal.com]

Truthfully, I stopped smoking socially when I worked in the radiology office in Seattle and frequently had to read the charts of lung cancer patients for work. They were sufficiently brutal enough to get me to stop. But I was smoking even less than 1-2x a week by that point and had been for a long time.

Would you be open to trying hypnotherapy? I know folks who have achieved very good results.

I also suggest replacing another, non-toxic devil-may-care activity for smoking....something that feels just as badass but doesn't hurt your gorgeous bod.

You can do it! I wish I was there to pull the lit cigarettes out of your mouth and smoosh them out in the obnoxious way I used to. :) :) :) :) o

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

any eccentric devil may care thing you have in mind please suggest babydoll

right now i am not open to hypnotherapy - mostly due to some bad experiences i had with it in the past :(

and darlin i never thought you were obnoxious

[goodbadgirl.livejournal.com]

Rock climbing?

Surfing?

ok, expensive.....


Flashing and mooning people every day? :) I am working on it............

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Hm. I've been through this cycle a couple times.

One thing that helped me was having someone dare me, basically. "I bet you can't give it up cold turkey." "Oh yeah? Watch me!" And I did. Because I'm stubborn that way. I totally knew I was being played for my stubbornness, but that was OK. I dunno if it would work for anyone else, but it worked for me.

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

heh right now it's more like i don't know if i can do it and the daring me thing isn't working because my blustery YES I CAN has devolved into you're right i am not good or strong enough and i can't. it woulda worked a few years ago but around this issue i have failed enough that i feel pretty beaten down.

[borggrrl.livejournal.com]

As much as it sounds not fun, you might try avoiding the smokers outside of clubs until you have a month or two of not smoking under your belt. It was *really* hard for me to be around smokers when I was first trying to quit but, after a year, it's pretty easy for me. I mean, I still have the urge to smoke, but it's the ceremony surrounding it that I miss, the false romanticism of them, not the actual taste or smell of the cigarettes themselves.

I know John used toothpicks to help him quit, but I suspect that might not be your thing. Perhaps you could try chewing on a drink straw or something? (Not like a toothpick, but in a more feminine way, if that makes any sense.) I've always worried that such things would become permanent replacement habits for me, so I've always avoided them, but your mileage may vary.

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

someone suggested using smoke break times to get a really nice drink to enjoy only during that time... that may be an option

i have been chewing on a straw all day and now my jaw just hurts :(

[lemonmerchant.livejournal.com]

I'm actually doing basically the same thing right now, although I slipped a bit on Easter Sunday. My only suggestion is to have people around who know what's up and who are supportive. It's handy that Sheila knows and approves, and she is around most of the time that I'm around smokers, and at this point basically I'd feel like a heel for smoking.

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

true. i don't smoke when my lady is around for the heel factor as well as knowing she doesn't like it and not wanting to bother her asthma. but yea i am telling more people in order to up that supportive factor...

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping Jess will weigh in as she has been pretty amazing about it.

Having never developed the habit, I have few helpful insights. I can say that when I was occasionally indulging in puffs of my friend's cigar at the club, I know what you mean about feeling badass. And having pretty much always been a non-smoker, I have often felt "left out" without a reason to go stand around together, have a smoke break, meet other people thanks to asking for a light, etc. But it's never been worth how it feels (increasingly sensitive asthma took the fun out of the occasional cigar habit).

I just wish you the best as you make the change. I know Jess used some kind of online resource to help her out, but she'll have to tell you what it was. If we're hanging out at the club and you want an excuse to go outside, I'll come with you and stand together and not smoke, OK? :)

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

thanks for the standing and not smoking with me. that's actually kinda huge.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Oh, heck, I'll do that too, for sure.

[sparklydevil.livejournal.com]

i'm right there with you mama! i'm at the same place now -- i quit smoking completely during the week, and only have a couple of cigarettes on the weekend now, when i'm drinking...but i want to quit COMPLETELY!

there is this:

http://www.njoythefreedom.com/

and i know a few people who've used it successfully. the only drawback is that it's quite pricey...but if i break down and order one, i'll let you know how it goes, okay?

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

definitely let me know how it goes!

[doriankatz.livejournal.com]

I had a similar experience to pantryslut. My doc gave me some perscriptions but didn't think I'd quit soon. I quit 3 days before the next appointment.

Drugs worked for me. I took a low dose of wellebutrin and went on the patch.

Maybe instead of a smoke break you can take a friend to the bathroom. It can be innocent-- apply more lipstick or something glamorous. Another fun thing is if you know the album by Bongwater called The Power of Pussy, there's a song where Magnuson is saying things like an ice queen to a spurned lover in a haughty voice. Talk like that to your cigs:
You bore me. I simply don't care. You fill me with inertia..

I was at the point where I was sick of being angry at myself for not quitting-- that helped a lot too.

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

i like the idea of snark talking to the smokes - nice!

[redshrike.livejournal.com]

what's worked the most, for the longest, for me, has been getting at the biggest reason why i smoked. sure, it was the rebellious badassness, but under that, especially as i got a little older, i saw that i was smoking to punish myself: i'm a fuckup, i'm flawed, i do things the wrong way, and i don't deserve health. i need a physical discomfort tomorrow morning, or my fun tonight was undeserved. i can't relate to people socially without this habit in common. and so on.

being able to genuinely say, "i don't need to punish myself like that" was the biggest hurdle. and when i've fallen down in the past year or two (it has happened), it does tend to be because i'm feeling like i suck. (those times, i get back up again largely because the taste in my mouth the next day is so godawful that i can re-convince myself that, once again, i don't really need to punish myself that way.

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

there is totally a lot of that behind it. and i have to say - i am not coming at the quitting from a good place. it's a place of necessity but also some really hard emotional stuff. the i suck factor is high. but i think that's part of making this post public and sharing the stuff around this. to not just quietly fail and feel all shamed. but to try and enlist my pal support.

[odelenu.livejournal.com]

I quit over and over again until I hit 27 and got slammed with the kind of bronchitis that nearly took me out and left me with asthma. I couldn't even be near a cigarette for about a year it would lend me back in the hospital. It was probably the only way I was ever going to quit properly. I'm fine around cigarettes now btw.
When I tried to give up avoiding all those triggers was the best way for me to not reach for a smoke. Avoid the places where you really want a cigarette until you have two or three months behind you and then when you do go back, have something to chew on instead. Gum helps in the interim. I think for a minute I had the menthol tooth pics in my mouth which sounds weird now.
I have joined the ranks of the horrible anti smokers. I'm angry that the cigarette corporations target the poor and the working classes. That has helped me to never ever want to light another one again.
Good luck!

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

my illness from the holidays and how it's not leaving and keeps flaring up and my asthma being so much worse since then is my strongest motivator for sure. but yea the anti corporate pieces are huge for me too.

[stopword.livejournal.com]

The one cool thing about quitting smoking (and seriously, it's the ONE cool thing) is that you always know if you're doing it right. So even that one cigarette means you are doing it wrong. Whereas with dieting, you have to keep your calories at a certain level, and you can fudge quite a bit during the week and still be doing it right.

I was a seriously addicted pack-a-day smoker, so I really had to focus - I think it might be harder to keep the habit down forever if you are a social smoker, because you have been able to take it or leave it for so long. Nicotine replacement helped me a lot. Avoiding smoking situations helped. And the other thing that helped was when I realized that quitting is not going to have immediate positive effects. It took six months before I felt better than when I'd quit, for instance. Not everyone has this hosanna moment one week in where everything is suddenly better.

I definitely had a lot of the emotional things, too, where I had been using cigarettes as a method of deflection, and needed to learn new coping strategies for being frustrated or bored or anxious. Maybe social situations themselves are a trigger for you? Anyway, like Redshrike said, figuring out your "why" will help a lot with stopping.

[cindymonkey.livejournal.com]

true - i will always know if i am doing it right - that is the one sure thing in a world of unsure.

[smileserena.livejournal.com]

I quit aged 28 after 16 years of smoking by reading the book 'the easy way to stop smoking'. It's really self hypnosis but I still feel as exhilrated at having quit today as I did 11 years ago when I put out my last cigarette. I was a really heavy smoker, 30 a day at least. I liked the book because it took apart every single argument for keeping on smoking. But I read it at a time when I was ready and like any addiction...you gotta be ready to do it.

Good luck :)

[rednfiery.livejournal.com]

this approach works for me (at least in part) because i'm not good at self-deprivation, but i am good at procrastination. :)

i am a very occasional smoker, but there are times when i feel the attraction more strongly and succumb more frequently, and i realize how easy it would be for me to fall back into the habit. when i catch myself bumming too many cigarettes i do a mini-version of the alcoholic's compromise -- in essence, i tell myself to hold off till next time and if i want one then i can have one. and then the next time i tell myself the same thing.

(p.s. -- note that "next time" can mean next smoke break, next time i see my friends, whatever.)

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Smoking is the best. Tobacco is the best drug--the safety net you describe and the reasons and the hands and the most fucking sexy ever and fun and your history. You get to mourn leaving that all behind. Truly mourn it: there is loss here.

And it's a shackle that keeps you from everything you want--lungs and stamina and long life and good smelling. It's the lover who who always lies while smiling. You will be so glad to be rid of her.

Acupuncture worked wonders for me--there's a great detox protocol. (What did NOT work was cinnamon sticks, in case you were thinking of trying them--in quantity they're an upper, and you will be as wired as you wanna be.) I would also, like others, advise avoiding things that make you want to smoke for a while. At least you can go to most bars these days; I had to stop even that because they were still smoky!

You might also hook up a "sponsor"--someone you can call when you want a cigarette and laugh and cry and bitch and get past it. Or get Buddish about it: be with the feeling, but don't hold onto it, and observe how the craving manifests and then evaporates. (Really, it does.)

And know we're all cheering you on.