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NICODEMON’S LIES Part Two
REPOST from ClearColors (Nancy) Date Unknown
This article helped me from WhyQuit.com… Some numbers may be off - outdated - but the info is spot on. Nancy
Nicodemon's Lies? (Continued) By John R. Polito, Nicotine Cessation Educator
Our Lie: My spouse, close friend or family member smokes. I'm waiting for them to quit with me.
The Truth: Procrastination recovery denial makes the next puff of toxins easier to suck down. Nicotine tells this junkie that they cannot quit until their friend or loved one quits too, as they're around their smoke, smells, cigarettes, breath and ashtrays, and quitting is thus impossible. It's pure denial, and often both friends, or loved ones, use the other as their excuse to remain enslaved.
How long will you continue to destroy your body while waiting for someone else to quit with you? A lifetime? If and when they do quit with you, what will you do if they relapse? Will "love" cause you to do the same? One of you needs to stand tall and lead the way. It's okay to have hope for a loved one, but you must quit for "you", or it's doomed from the very start. Why make your freedom, health or life dependent upon another person's decision?
As for being around smokers, it's unavoidable. Should we expect planet earth's 1.2 billion nicotine addicts to disappear once we commence recovery? Won't we still see them and smell their smoke at restaurants’ doors, as they stand around outside stores, or even hospitals, or as they puff away in the car beside us? Will all the stores pull down their cigarette displays or move them from arm's reach just because we're trying to reclaim our mind and life?
Why live the lie that "I smoke for love!” It reduces my stress and helps calm me down. This stress buster rationalization is false. The body's pH balance is delicate. Nicotine is an alkaloid and stress is an acid-producing event. The more stressful the event, the quicker the body's remaining nicotine reserves are neutralized (in the same manner as pouring a baking soda solution on an acid covered car battery terminal). The stressed smoker is thrown into early chemical withdrawal, adding additional anxiety to the underlying original stressful event. It's why the anxiety associated with a flat tire causes smokers to reach for a cigarette, while the non-smoker reaches for a jack. The anxieties build, until the doubly stressed smoker cries out, "I NEED A CIGARETTE!”
Within eight seconds of the first puff, the smoker's nicotine blood serum nicotine level rises, and their withdrawal anxieties subside. The addict is left with the false impression that smoking cured the underlying stressful event, when in fact the tire is still flat. All non-smokers experience stress too. The difference is that they don't add early nicotine withdrawal to it. In truth, stress nicotine depletion causes smokers to experience far more anxiety than non-smokers. In truth, it is much easier and calmer being the real "you", than it is living as a chemical slave.
Our Lie: My friends smoke, I'll lose them.
The Truth: The nicotine smoker's mind has been conditioned to believe, through association, that smoking is central to their entire life. Telephone calls, computer time, work, meals, driving, talking, walking, stress, joy, sorrow, and even romance, may have developed a subconscious association with smoking.
The truth is that none of these activities will be altered whatsoever by the absence of tobacco. The truth is that quitting smoking will not deprive you of even a single friend or loved one. The truth is that smoking is costing you new friends, and possible relationships, as fewer and fewer non-smokers are willing to tolerate being around the smell and the smoke. Can you blame them?
With the exception of quitting, your current life doesn't need to change at all, unless you want it to change. It might be nice to enlarge your circle of friends to include those who don't stand around the community ashtray, but that's totally up to you.
It wakes me up and keeps me alert. This dependency rationalization uses a basic truth (nicotine releases adrenaline and a host of other hormones) to hide the fact that nicotine deprives us of the ability to enjoy prolonged periods of deep conscious relaxation. If always at the peak of alertness, because we are addicted to and chemically dependent upon a central nervous system stimulant, then when do we truly relax?
This dependency rationalization also subverts and ignores a host of natural alertness techniques, ranging from a simple deep breath to brief periods of stretching, or moderately exhilarating activity. Instead of engaging life on life's terms, a powerful puff of nicotine starts a neurochemical chain-reaction that increases breathing rate, accelerates heart rate, constricts blood vessels, elevates blood pressure, causes the liver to release stored cholesterol into the blood stream, the adrenal gland to release glucocorticoids, the thyroid to release metabolism hormones, the hypothalamus to release corticotrophin-releasing hormones, a decrease of progesterone levels in females and testosterone in males, digestive tract shut-down, a glucose release into the bloodstream, followed by a boost in insulin to metabolize it, pupil dilation, and your blood to thicken.
Inside those highly constricted and over-pressurized blood vessels, carbon monoxide eats away at their Teflon like lining (endothelium), while nicotine amazingly vascularizes fat buildups, causing arteries to harden. More smokers die from circulatory disease each year than from lung cancer, yet denial kept almost all of them from wanting to know how or why.
What goes up must come down. Once the hormones wear off and that drained feeling begins to arrive, a new puff of nicotine again whips every central nervous system neuron, in a tired body, like some overworked horse never allowed to rest. Alert, yes, but somewhere in that endless cycle, between alert and exhausted, resides the "real" you.
My concentration is better. Vast quantities of carbon monoxide do NOT improve concentration. Although nicotine is a stimulant and does excite certain brain neurons, it also constricts all blood vessels. Feel how cold your fingers and toes get when deprived of blood flow while smoking. Imagine what's happening to the blood vessels in your brain. If nicotine results in a stroke, we probably won't need to worry much about concentration.
Fresh air and exercise are far healthier brain stimulants. When quitting it's important that you understand the role that nicotine played in regulating blood sugar, as its absence may cause the temporary impairment of concentration, and clear thinking. If you are experiencing any concentration problems, be sure and drink plenty of fruit juice the first three days, if your diet and health permit (cranberry is excellent), as it will help stabilize blood sugars. Also don't skip meals! Nicotine released stored fats into our blood and in a sense fed us with every puff, but not anymore. Don't eat more food each day; just spread your normal intake out more, over your entire day, so that you keep fuel in your stomach and your blood sugar level.