NICODEMON’S LIES Part Three
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This article helped me from WhyQuit.com… Some numbers may be off - outdated - but the info is spot on.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: It's something to do with my hands.
The Truth: So is playing with a loaded gun, and they both have the same potential for harm. This weak addiction rationalization ignores that doodling with a pen, playing with coins, squeezing a ball, or using strength grippers may be habit forming, but are non-addictive. You might get ink on yourself, rich or strong wrists, but your chances of serious injury or death are almost zero.
Our Lie: My coffee won't be the same.
The Truth: More junkie thinking! Your coffee's flavor will remain identical. In fact, it may even taste better once your taste buds heal after years of being numbed, coated and poisoned. Your sense of smell may become so refined that you'll smell fresh coffee brewing more than one hundred feet away. Although you don't need to give up your coffee or any thing else, except nicotine during recovery, be aware that nicotine somehow doubles the rate (203%) by which caffeine is metabolized by the body. As a new ex-smoker you may only need half as much caffeine, in order to obtain the same effect. If you are a heavy caffeine user and find yourself experiencing increased anxiety, during recovery, or encounter difficulty sleeping, try reducing your intake by roughly half.
Our Lie: There's lots of time left to quit.
The Truth: This year tobacco will kill 5,000,000 humans. Roughly 1 in 4 smokers die in middle age, each an average of 22.5 years early. In order for 22.5 to be the average, how many hundreds of thousands had to die even younger? Maybe you have plenty of time remaining and maybe not. Dying in your thirties or forties is a powerful price to pay for guessing wrong. The numbers above only reflect DEATH by tobacco. You may be lucky enough to be among the millions of nicotine smokers each year who survive and "only" have a heart attack, a stroke, a lung removed, go onto oxygen, or who receive news of permanent lung disease… as they have, for every breath.
Which puff, from which cigarette, in which pack, will pull the trigger that fires the gun? The odds of a male smoker dying from lung cancer are 22 times greater than for a non-smoker. His odds of dying from emphysema are ten times greater. How much longer will your luck hold?
Our Lie: It's one of my few pleasures in life.
The Truth: Does that mean that it's better than the pleasure of having a throat to deliver fresh air and great food, two lungs with which to laugh, a healthy heart to feel love, or an undamaged mind which dreams of wonderful tomorrows?
Pleasure from your addiction, or pleasure in committing slow suicide at the hands of a mind that thinks it can only live with the aid of a powerful stimulant? What do they call someone who derives pleasure from self-inflicted harm, or who slowly puts themselves to death? Pick your own label.
Which nicotine fix out of the last 5,000 was the one that brought you tremendous pleasure? Which cigarette out of the next 5,000 may be the one that sparks permanent damage or disease, or that carries death's eternal flame?
If bad news arrives tomorrow, will "pleasure" cross your mind? As for Newport type "pleasure," isn't the real pleasure in satisfying our brain's wanting for more? Now imagine the pleasure of going 72 hours without nicotine, the pride of once again residing inside a nicotine-free body and mind!
Our Lie: Dad just died, this isn't the time!
The Truth: Smoking won't bring dad back, nor cure any other ill in life. Success in quitting, during a period of high stress in life, insures that future high stress situations will never again serve as the mind's excuse, or justification, for relapse.
If you think about it, if we continue to live, we will all see someone we love die. Such is the cycle of life. Sadly, serious illness, injury, or the death of a loved one are some of the most convincing relapse justifications, the best yet sickest excuses of all, to get our drug back. I mean, who would dare question our drug use upon our mother's death?
There is no better time to quit than before your next mandatory feeding. In fact, two recent studies found that unplanned quitting attempts are twice as likely to succeed as planned ones (picture quitting day anticipation anxieties slowly eating away and destroying resolve before quitting day ever arrives).
Why allow finances, work, illness, education or relationships to serve as an excuse to remain an active addict? Once free, there is no legitimate justification for ever putting nicotine back into our body - none, zero, never!