Ciggyfree Blog & Gov Alert

Some people like keeping track of quit smoking progress and there are a number of meters to assist with this endeavor. I currently use QuitKeeper 1.08 created by Dedicated Designs.

Quitkeeper has a nice sleek graphical user interface (GUI.) It is very user friendly and quite intuitive for a computer novice. Currently QuitKeeper is the Ciggyfree quit smoking meter of choice for Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP operating systems, and it is free!

The QuitKeeper Developer stated in an email to ciggyfree:  “I am pleased that Quit Keeper is helping in yours and others quit. I had a lot of fun writing QK (and it gave me something to do once I had so much more time after quitting)

Good luck with the website and the quit!”

Mark

QK Developer

I have been quit for 5 Years, 6 Months, 4 Weeks, 13 hours, 33 minutes and 52 seconds (2,037 days). I have saved $12,225.39 by not smoking 40,751 cigarettes. I have saved 4 Months, 2 Weeks, 5 Days, 11 hours and 55 minutes of my life. My Quit Date: 02/04/2001 10:00 PM

If you need a meter for other operating systems, you can check the Ciggyfree Quit Smoking Meters Page. Happy quitting!

~robbster

There is no Freedom without Courage. I have been free for 2Y 8M 4W 12h 13m (1,001 days). I have saved $3,906.88 by not smoking 20,030 cigarettes. I have saved 4M 2W 4D 2h 20m of my life. I quit cold turkey on 2/1/2004 11:00 PM

At almost eight months into this quit, the nature of quitting is very much different than when I first started. And so am I.

The main change is now it feels normal to not smoke. At first, not smoking was something I did. It was an action I took. I had to stop myself from smoking, and that effort was constant. It was like a physical restraint that I had to maintain while I was awake.

Over time, it started to change ever so slowly. Day to day there was not much of a noticeable difference. But from week to week, and even more, month to month, the difference was very noticeable. The nature of craving a smoke changed, the amount of time I spent fantasizing about smoking changed, and the effort to not smoke grew less.

And over that same time, I changed. In the way I think and my attitudes. I know a lot more now about smoking and what it does, because I looked for the information. I never did that before. The more I knew the less I wanted to go back to smoking. And with my attitude, I changed from a smoker who has quit, to a non-smoker who used to smoke.

All of these changes are positive, and have helped me feel better, both physically and spiritually. I am a much stronger person now because I have exercised my power to quit, and to change.

Zzyzx

“About 80% of the patients whose legs or extremities I have to amputate are current smokers. If they are not current smokers, then they almost certainly used to smoke. If patients presenting with PAD have never smoked, I have cause to doubt whether they have the disease at all.” -Mr. Daryll Baker, Consultant vascular surgeon, Royal Free Hospital

The most common cause of peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is atherosclerosis. In atherosclerosis, fatty deposits (plaques) build up in your artery walls and reduce blood flow. PAD mimics a condition similar to coronary artery disease and carotid artery disease where fatty deposits build up in the inner linings of the artery walls. These blockages restrict blood circulation, mainly in arteries leading to the kidneys, stomach, arms, legs, and feet.

Robert S. Schwartz, MD states: “Atherosclerosis and PAD is pretty much the same thing. Atherosclerosis is the hardening of the arteries. It’s the plaque that builds up; it’s the calcium, the fats, the fibrous tissue, the scarring that grows into the arteries and stops the blood from flowing into the legs.”

In the UK, about 2.7 million people age 55 or older, have some degree of peripheral arterial disease and almost 8-12 million people in the United States who have this disease are unaware of having this condition.

PAD is often silent for a very long time before you will notice any symptoms. Some Symptoms of PAD may include:

1. Foot pain that does not go away when you stop exercising
2. Cold and numb feet or toes
3. Leg numbness or weakness
4. A change in the color of your legs
5. Decreased leg strength, function, and poor balance
6. Experiencing discomfort within the muscles of the calves or the thighs, or the buttocks may be indicative of claudication. (PAD leg pain occurs in the muscles, not the joints.)
7. Hair loss on your feet and legs
8. Changes in your nails
9. Foot pain at rest, which indicates that PAD is getting worse
10. Foot or toe wounds that will not heal or heal very slowly
11. Erectile dysfunction
12. Gangrene

*Symptoms of peripheral vascular disease depend on what artery is affected and how severely the blood flow is reduced.

One of the serious sub effects of peripheral vascular disease is Buerger’s disease (thromboangiitis obliterans). It is characterized by a combination of inflammation and clots in the arteries and veins that obstruct blood flow. Brandon Carmichael is a young man who has suffered this disease to an extreme, having had his left leg amputated below the knee from smoking.

The risk of peripheral vascular disease is dramatically increased in smokers. When a person stops smoking, regardless of how much he or she may have smoked in the past, their risk of peripheral vascular disease rapidly declines.

In a Health Briefing on Silent Epidemic, Peripheral Arterial Disease article Alan T. Hirsch, MD, Chair, P.A.D. Coalition states, “Peripheral arterial disease is the most dangerous disease that most Americans have never heard of”.

The same article continues with the following warning: “People with peripheral arterial disease - P.A.D. - have up to a six-fold increase in cardiovascular death. Without early detection and proper treatment, one in four people with P.A.D. will suffer a heart attack, stroke, amputation or die within the next five years.”

If you add a bad diet and a sedentary lifestyle into this equation, you probably have a prescription to die much younger. How many smokers with Peripheral Arterial Disease have died of a heart attack or stroke where the connection to smoking as a risk factor fell silent?

An absence of a pulse in your legs or arms should immediately alert your health care provider to seek further testing for Peripheral Arterial Disease. www.eMedicineHealth.com has an excellent article on Exams and Tests regarding Peripheral Arterial Disease. It is very important that you consult with your health care provider if you believe that you are at risk for this disease.

Are you a smoker? If you are a smoker the most important thing you can do for your health is to educate yourself about smoking-related diseases. If you are an ex-smoker, you also need to stay abreast of learning about smoking-related diseases. Knowledge is power!

~robbster

_____________________________
References:

Smoking Got Me, The Story of Brandon Carmichael http://www.smokinggotme.com/buergers_disease.html

Guidant Corporation: http://www.guidant.com/webapp/emarketing/compass/comp.jsp?lev1=pvd&lev2=risk

Health Briefing On Silent Epidemic, Peripheral Arterial Disease, September 11, 2006. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=51573

Smoking and Peripheral Arterial Disease, ASH ISBN 1 872428 69 X July 2005, http://www.ash.org.uk/html/health/pdfs/pad.pdf

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD), Mayo Clinic, Special to CNN May 2, 2006

American Heart Association http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4692

Healthology, Inc. http://www.heartauthority.com/webcast_transcript.asp?b=heartauthority&f=cardio&c=ha_understanding_pad&spg=SHO

In the past few years, I have met up with a few caustic online personalities. Some caustics will come right out and directly attack you, while others will play a more passive-aggressive game.

Do you remember your local school bully when you were a kid? In grade school, I had a rough few months when a kid by the name of Delores Fournier chased me home almost every day threatening to beat me up. I would run as hard as I could to get home, flop inside the mud room entrance shaking, and cringe in fear of going back to school the next day.

Then one day while I was running home with Delores hot on my heels, I felt a raging anger build up internally. Somehow, I managed to stop in my tracks, turn around, and raise my fist in front of her nose and shouted “Delores Fournier I will break your nose if you ever chase me home again!” She stopped in her tracks, looked at my fist, ruffled my hair, and said, “Its ok kid I was just teasing you!” Then she turned around and headed toward her house never to chase me again.

A few years back I attempted to quit smoking utilizing various online forums and newsgroups. You quickly learn that some of these groups have organized bully leagues. Though I did have direct attacks from some, most of the bullying went on behind the scenes in instant messenger dialogues, chat pm, and emails. I also found it very interesting that this group would accuse me of being a bully and ignore the fact that they also fit the bully profile. In a situation like this, it is best to ignore or refrain from participating in an abusive forum or newsgroup.

An excellent article at Cyberbullying states, “The objectives of bullies are Power, Control, Domination, and Subjugation. They get a kick out of seeing you react. It doesn’t matter how you react, the fact they’ve successfully provoked a reaction is, to the bully, a sign that their attempt at control have been successful. After that, it’s a question of wearing you down. The more your try to explain, negotiate, conciliate, etc the more gratification they obtain from your increasingly desperate attempts to communicate with them. Understand that it is not possible to communicate in a mature adult manner with a disordered individual who’s emotionally retarded.”

The article goes on to list the seven rules of dealing with bullies. The Number One rule for dealing with this type of behaviour is: don’t respond and don’t engage.

I found Rule five to be especially enlightening since I recently experienced this situation with a long term female bully on a quit smoking Usenet support group

Rule five states, “become alert to provocation. It could be called “The Baiting Game”. A provocative comment is made and those who respond spontaneously in irritation are then encouraged to engage in conflict with those who respond without irritation.”

“The provoker watches, waits and stirs the pot with the occasional additional provocation. What interests me is the sense of gratification that a provoker gains from watching others indulge in destructive interaction initiated by her. In this context, gratification is a perverse form of satisfaction akin to, but distinct from, pleasure.”

Remember that Knowledge is power, a good source for more information is:

Thames Valley Police Underzone

Take the Wired Safety Cyberbullying Poll~robbster

The thing to keep in mind is about quitting smoking is, it is not a game or a hobby. It is life or death. There is no way to change what is at stake in this endeavor. Your health and your very life are the whole point of quitting.

The effects of smoking are not relative. They do not depend on your opinion, your education, your economic status, or any other attribute. It is a straight-forward equation; when you smoke the damage is done in direct proportion. The more you smoke, the more the damage accumulates. It is inevitable that continued smoking will result in deteriorating life-support function in the body.

When someone you love faces the reality of cancer, or any other life-threatening disease, it is a woeful feeling, indeed. The cauldron of hopelessness, helplessness, and rage at something that is stealing a precious life is unbearable. Watching that loved one waste away to nothing is a terrible experience.

Why we do things that risk slow and painful death, while people who love us watch in despair, is so far beyond my understanding that I will never get it. I used to do things like that myself, and I can’t say why. I am just human.

Life is too precious to throw it away for no reason. I wish I had learned that lesson long ago. Better late than never.

Zzyzx

I have had some major issues going on over the last few weeks. But now things are starting to stabilize, even if they are so much different than they used to be. Well, change is the only constant, so we have to adapt.

During this upheaval, I have been sorely tempted at times to go back to smoking. I did not give in to the urges. I know it is a remnant of the old days, a mere memory of treating stress with nicotine. It will not make things easier or help me to cope. It will make me feel worse. So I don’t want to smoke.

Life will happen to us, sometimes at a real fast pace. There will be challenges to our ability to deal with emotions and new situations. I have done a lot of adapting lately, and I am very glad to have gotten through it all without lighting up.

I have had to draw on a source of strength that I never knew I had. It is not so obvious that I even knew it was there before I needed it. But it kept me from smoking when I needed it. That strength expanded to as I needed it to beat the addiction. As much as I needed, when i needed it, and never faltered. That’s certainly never happened before.

I wish i knew where it came from, I could probably make a lot of money selling that secret. I am glad it is there, that’s all I need to know about it. I do no want to smoke, no matter how much I feel like smoking. I am determined to beat this addiction.

Zzyzx

FYI: Due to circumstances beyond his control, zzyzx is going through some extremely demanding personal issues lately. His Posts may be sporadic or non-existent over the next few weeks.

Read Zzyzx’s featured blogs at About Smoking Cessation with Terry Martin

Real Power | Critical Thinking | It’s All About Attitude

~robbbster

After all the scores but one are in, I have a pretty good lead: 101.60 to 63.85. All that is left is my esteemed opponent’s defense, the broncos. So I am hoping that Baltimore scores a lot of points, but 37.75 would be a real big score for a defense. Since it could happen, I will not offend the woof gods by bragging at this point. Go Devils!

Today is a big day in the world of the Missouri Old School Fantasy Football League. Not only are the two division leaders playing head-to-head, but one of them (not me) is a …….girl.

My team, the Foreign Devils, is leading the Scum division. The Missouri Badgirls lead the Fungus division. It will be a clash of the Titans when they play this week. Our teams have identical 4 - 1 records, and we are three anf four in power ranking. It looks like it will be an exciting gamr.

I am starting; Bulger, S. Jackson and Cadillac Williams, Horn and Bruce, Clark at TE, Gould at PK, and chicago def.

She has Brees, L. Johnson and K. Jones, Cotchery and Harrison, Shockey, kasay, and broncos def.

It looks like I have her beat - on paper. But the stakes are high. This is not a money league, only bragging rights. How hard will it be to live down getting beat by a girl? Pretty hard. So I better get production out of my players.

Whatever happens, I will not be smoking. So Go Devils! If I win I will post results. If I lose I might just pout.

Zzyxx

Sometimes, change just feels strange.  In addition, radical change can feel strange.  I have used this quit smoking business as leverage to make other changes in how I live.  And at times, I just wonder how I did it.

As I write this, it is the last day of the seventh month since I last smoked.  In that time I have had my ups and downs, both with the quit itself and with my life as a whole.  There were a few times I was very close to giving up, but I did not cave in.  The success I have at quitting is a springboard for making other changes.  Some almost as hard as not smoking.

It is funny how some things, like habits or material objects, can get to the point of defining us.  I was as much a Pepsi drinker seven months ago as I was a smoker.  It was a rare thing indeed for people to see me without my soda pop.  However, I quit that too, when I quit smoking.  In fact, I quit many of my bad eating habits, and I even started exercising.  It was almost like becoming a different person.  I am certainly a smaller person then I used to be, having lost over eighty-five pounds.

A person at work yesterday asked me if I felt like a different person after having lost so much weight.  I told her that I did not really feel much different, because before my self-image did not match my actual appearance.  In my mind, I never saw myself as a fat guy.  As I look back now, this self-delusional thinking was the main obstacle to feeling better.

I got an email a while back from a lady that is involved in another quit-smoking site.  She made a statement that has stuck with me, that is; “to change your life you have to change your mind”.  For me that struck a chord that resonates to this day.  It is one of those obvious truths that we need to have pointed out to us, but then never forget.  Because changing my mind is exactly what I have done.

It is a different world now, than it was seven months ago.  And it is not the world that had changed so much, it is me.  Once in a while, I pause in the daily grind, and just kind of wonder what happened.  It also makes me wonder what will happen next.  It will be interesting to find out.

Zzyzx

For the last three weeks, I have had a lot of stress going on. Since this blog is about quitting smoking, and not about the rest of my so-called life, I will skip the details. Let’s just say that I have never been so stressed for so long, without the aid of my cigarettes. The surprising thing is, I have not caved in yet.

When I smoked, I had a certain pattern of dealing with stress. I would worry about something for a while, and decide to just smoke. Then the nicotine would medicate me so I felt better, even though I didn’t do anything about the problem. So I fooled myself into thinking I made progress, and then get back to worrying. I would repeat that process about every forty minutes or so.

Now that I don’t smoke, I still get the urge to go out and ‘relax’ and make myself feel better. The thing is, I know now that it is a false sense of relaxing and feeling better. I recognize that the excuse I used to use was not valid in any way.

When dealing with stress, there is a tendency to see situations as having no solution. That no matter which way you turn, it will come out badly. That starts the downward spiral of self-pity and depression that leads to things like smoking again. I have given in way to many times to the notion that ‘it doesn’t matter’ or that ‘no one cares’ if I smoke, because I would not be missed if I killed myself with cigarettes.

Recognizing the lies I used to tell myself is very revealing. Uncovering one lie leads to discovering other lies. And as the web of lies becomes unraveled, it frees the person I am to grow in mind and spirit. The truth will, indeed, set you free.

Seeing through the lies, I know that stress is not an excuse to smoke. There are no excuses to smoke. The very idea that smoking makes anything better is patently absurd. I realized early on in this quit that I have to deal with my feelings, and not cover them up with cigarettes. I have to take responsibility for my feelings, and hiding them does nothing to help.

So, I will not smoke during this difficult time. Even though sometimes I want to.

Zzyxx