Twitter Stars

I know that if I can quit, anyone can!

January 5th, 2009

Continuing on TwitterStars.com, I’m publishing a series of guest posts with stories authored by several of my Twitter followers on how they quit smoking. I quit smoking just about two months ago and thought featuring stories from other people about how they quit cigarettes would be a fun project for the blog.

cars4causes I know that if I can quit, anyone can!

Guest Blog Post by Virginia, @Cars4Causes

On December 3rd, I tweeted a comment of encouragement to @markdavidson on his efforts to stop smoking, and he responded with an invitation for me to write a guest post on how I quit. I agreed to write the post, but then I had to try to remember how I did it. I thought that first I should tell you about how I came to start before I say how I came to quit.

At one time in my life everyone I knew and almost everyone in my family were smokers. I come from several generations of addicts, and certainly am one myself. For me, cigarettes have been a long-term addiction, both in length of time and in quantities consumed. I believe I started stealing cigs from Mom and Dad around age 9 or 10. My sister was four years older, and I had already busted her doing it, and hiding out on the side of the house in the backyard smoking with friends. I swore under penalty of death that I wouldn’t tell, but I also wanted to try it.

By the time I was 14, I was a full-time smoker, it was easy to obtain them, from my parents or older friends. I was up to a pack-and-a-half by my twenties.

I quit immediately and cold-turkey upon learning I was pregnant, but started again in the “terrible two’s”, citing stress as the cause. I still had many friends who were smokers. I had another child four years later, and this time I quit for several years. When I started again, it was worse and I was topping 2 packs a day.

One day I woke up with my smoker’s cough and trouble breathing, and realized I had been smoking over half my life! They had just come out with the nicotine gum, but the patch had not yet hit the market. I couldn’t stand the gum, so I decided to trick myself into being able to quit. You know those “essential” cigarettes? The first one you need in the morning. The one you smoke after lunch, or dinner, or sex. Well, I started by cutting out 2 a week from the “other” category, and relishing the essential smokes. I skipped the one in the car on the way to the office. I skipped the one in the car on the way back from the office. I replaced my oral fixation by eating sugar free mints, and munching on rice crackers. Each week I reduced by 2 non-essential smokes until I had only three a day that I was still smoking. Once I had reduced from around 20 a day to 3, I came to the realization that I didn’t really need those 3, I only thought I did, I was hanging on to them for dear life, but it was all mental at that point. I gave up the last three, and would like to say that was the end. It wasn’t quite.

I continued to be what I called a “social smoker” who would bum one here and there from friends when we were hanging out. The last time that happened I became physically ill from it, and that really was the end. I haven’t smoked since, and am so glad!

My overall health has improved, and I can breathe easily now. I bike for exercise, and am able to exert myself physically without getting terribly winded as I used to. I was so addicted to cigarettes, looking back now, I can’t believe it. I know that if I can quit, anyone can! So keep at it, and don’t give up.

Guest post for Twitter Stars by Virginia, @Cars4Causes

Virginia is the real-life human being behind the Cars 4 Causes Twitter account. We are “The Charity That Gives to Charities”. Also on the web at http://www.cars4causes.net.

Tags: addiction, cigarette, Cold turkey, health, Nicotine gum, smoking cessation, substance abuse, The Nicotine Asylum, tobacco
Posted in Behind the Blurbs | 5 Comments »

The Walk in My Shoes

December 24th, 2008

This month on TwitterStars.com, I’m publishing a series of guest posts with stories authored by several of my Twitter followers on how they quit smoking. I quit smoking just about a month ago and thought featuring stories from other people about how they quit cigarettes would be a fun project for the blog.

estanczak The Walk in My Shoes

Guest Blog Post by @estanczak

I thought I was invincible. Certain actions had no consequences. Tragedy couldn’t happen to me. Well, up until 3 years ago, I used to think this way.

Yes, it’s an addiction. The nicotine causes adrenaline to be released in to your body each time you inhale, and, at the same time, it increases your blood pressure, respiration, heart rate and keeps your blood sugar levels constantly elevated. Wow, what great effects. And did you know that the calming effect you feel is actually a withdrawal symptom rather than a direct effect of the nicotine? Again. A withdrawal symptom.

I won’t go on spouting out additional statistics because we all know that cigarettes kill. Not to mention if you smoke around those who don’t smoke, they are drastically being harmed.

I quit 6 years ago in the early months of 2003. Even though I only smoked for 6 years, I never thought I could quit. But I did. My inspiration came from my Dad. He quit a few months before me, and had been smoking for 30+ years. So I thought, if he can do it, I can definitely do it.

He quit cold turkey, and I did the same. I kept telling myself the following: If I can go one minute, I can go one more. If I can go one hour, I can go one more. If I can go one day, I can go one more.

The thought process got me through.

Two years later, tragedy strikes.

On August 25, 2005, a doctor who I didn’t know from a hole in the wall came out of an operating room and told us that my Dad in fact had pancreatic cancer, and that there was a 5% chance that he, the man who was (and is) the light of our lives, would live beyond 5 years. Again, I thought we were invisible. This can’t be happening.

Less than a year later, at the age of 59, he passed away. MY DAD.

If you haven’t lost a parent, think of your worst nightmare turning in to reality and multiply it by an infinite number. ABSOLUTE ANGUISH.

The doctors verified that smoking was a cause of the cancer.

And I’ll never forget when I was younger; it was just another day when my Mom was trying to convince my Dad to quit, and she said to him, “You know, I don’t want to be a young widow.” And now look. IT happened.

Unfortunately, the alarming statistics and personal stories aren’t going to make someone quit.

You have to really want to do it.

So find motivation. Seek advice.

By thinking “there’s no way I can do this,” you’re setting yourself up for failure. You can do this.

Your family, your mom, your dad, your partner, your kids, your brother and your sister want you to be around in the next few years.

Nothing should have that much control over you.

Take each day, each minute as it comes. Don’t think what it will be like in a few days. Concentrate on that day, that minute.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, is that bad that you need to rely on cigarettes as a so-called stress reducer. I never knew that adding to your body’s demise was a stress-reducer.

As you research online to find solutions, statistics can bog you down. Don’t think of the odds. Think of how you’re going to quit and what you will gain.

Take this opportunity as the greatest challenge that you will ever embark upon; document it, blog about it, scream about it.

Employ the help of your doctors, your family, your friends; they want to see you kick this.

Keep busy, chew gum, eat more, join a gym, become a philanthropist with your new found savings.

And reach out to someone who has been there. They may not have walked in your shoes, but they can certainly guide you down the right path.

Guest post for Twitter Stars by @estanczak

Marketing Communications Consultant at Consulting, Chief Marketing Officer at Babyspot.com, and Marketing Communications Officer at Kidz-Med Inc.

Tags: addiction, cigarette, Cold turkey, health, Nicotine, smoking cessation, substance abuse, The Nicotine Asylum, tobacco
Posted in Behind the Blurbs | 1 Comment »

Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

December 18th, 2008

jonathan Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

Guest Blog Post by @JonathanGunson

December 7^th 1941 Pearl Harbor

Glorious sunny day. My Dad’s frigate swings calmly and slowly at anchor alongside the battleships USS West Virginia, and the USS Oklahoma.

They tilt and slow ride, creating gentle reflections in the vast blue ocean. Standing below the ship’s bridge he looks across the harbor. Fragments of Glen Miller jazz whisper faintly from somewhere on board. It’s a radio.

Peaceful…peace.

He goes ashore, sunglasses, Italian looking, he is beautiful. An officer too. No wonder my mother fell in love with him. He scratches a match on his Navy belt webbing. Bright red glow as he draws deeply on a Camel cigarette, part of his daily free rations, handed out to calm nerves.

Then from the corner of his eye he catches sight of a plane approaching, high up, and far off. Strange. The fleet aircraft are all on the airstrip. Then…30 more planes. My Dad starts to run. But, within seconds a vast explosion ruptures the hull of the Frigate. The concussion throws him off his feet and onto the dockside. His ship. Oh my God.

Flames and a vast cloud of black smoke. Acrid fragrance.

Screams. Explosions. More planes. All around the fire begins to fall. Unhurt. he watches as death rains down and sinks the USS Arizona, USS California, USS West Virginia…

USSArizona PearlHarbor 2 Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

USS California sinking Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

USS SHAW exploding Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

USS West Virginia Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

Three months later he is back in New Zealand, Captain of a mine sweeper. The tension is unbearable. If they catch a mine in the sweeper wire it could explode too close to the hull.

He now smokes two packets of Camels a day. Tension is eased.

No mines ever explode. The war ends. VE & VJ day. Marvelous.

Love is all.

I am born into a free world. We are poor, but happy. A picture of my handsome Dad in Navy Uniform and Cap graces the hallway wall. He is to die for.

In short, I turn 18, a callow, ignorant party boy and start work. I take up smoking because it is cool.

One day my dad stops smoking. He does not feel well. He calls for me and presses $5000 into my hand. I see tears in his eyes. “I will give you $5000 to give up cigarette smoking—please you must take it, please Jonathan.”

$5000?

This is a good deal. I accept. But I know vaguely that he does not have any money. How did he get it? He will not say. Later my mother tells me he sold antique books from the precious collection left to him by his father.

I give up smoking. It is not hard, because I had smoked only 4 or 5 a day.

My Dad dies of lung cancer.

ciggies Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

The world cries, the very stars weep. My mother is inconsolable. I cry and cry. He is gone forever. My sadness is deeper than the blue Pacific Ocean. Alone in my island home.

NO! Awake! Onwards I say, and so on I go. Now I am designing advertising in a Newspaper studio . Cool as cool. The artists are cool, the girls are cool, the office parties are cool, the cigarettes are cool. I take them up again. Dad will never know.

Then it happens.

One strange, glass-black night I suddenly awake to a crackling noise…distant lightning, thunder far off. No stars. A vast menacing shadow fills the sky, descends and floods into my room, looming around me. I am mortally afraid.

It is the shadow my conscience. I cry for my beautiful lost father again. I will stop smoking I promise him. I call out to him through the ether of the great and infinite universe. But I do not know if he can hear. The ancient cosmos continues to revolve silently without a sign. Is God asleep?

But now I am hopelessly addicted. 30 cigarettes a day. How do I stop? So I desperately invest the ENTIRE $5000 with a renowned hypnotherapist.

Amusingly, the first lunchtime session is classic, almost cartoon like. I have trouble taking it seriously “Lie on this couch and watch this pendulum. Your eyes are growing heavy, relax.”

But it gets better. “You want a cigarette? Sure. In fact, I bet you can think of 327 good reasons to have one, but only 2 or 3 to not have one, right?” I nod dreamily, because this is TRUE.

“Good. My task is to give your subconscious 327 reasons to NOT have one. This will defeat the addiction. Then you will never smoke again. Let us begin.”

A few minute later he snaps his fingers gently “Waking up now Jonathan, waking up, and…we are awake yes?” I sit up, blink, and smile. I feel very refreshed. I tell the hypnotherapist that lunch time must nearly be over and I must get back to the studio. Advertising designs are needed for the following day’s newspaper.

Heh! He grins. “I don’t think so. How long do think you have been lying there?”

I take a stab. “40 minutes?”

“SEVEN HOURS.” He intones it bell like, amusement wreathing his eyes.

What? It is 8 o’clock in the evening . It’s dark outside. I am shocked.

During the ensuing week, I smoke only 2 or 3 cigarettes a day. But, after two more 40 minute (SEVEN HOUR) hypnotherapy sessions I never smoke again.

I have done the right thing. My father will be smiling.

Rejoice. I have probably saved my life

EPILOGUE

30 years on, the darkly attractive, ghostly sensation of a cigarette poised elegantly between my fingers lingers still. But it does not tempt me.

Outside my window the South Pacific whispers. A huge azure sky sprawls overhead and an Albatross wheels about very high up.

Dreamy. Life is good again, and the world is still free.

Bora Bora Pearl Harbor…the last cigarette

Dedicated to the delightful Mr. Mark Davidson, who is a Mensch.

Guest post for Twitter Stars by @JonathanGunson

Author of The Merlin Mystery.

Can you solve Merlin’s mystery? If you can, you’ll be richly rewarded. The Merlin Mystery rekindles the fervor that swept readers of Masquerade in the 1980s by offering an intricately detailed, bejeweled wand and a substantial cash prize to the first person to solve the Alchemist’s Spell. Lavishly illustrated with elaborate paintings and symbols, The Merlin Mystery wraps its intricate, MENSA-certified puzzle in a story of the great wizard Merlin and his lover, the water sprite Nimue, who fight a dark sorcerer in magical settings.

I Sold 347,000 copies of my beautiful Alchemy book using Traffic Tactics. Now I teach money-making traffic tactics to small businesses all around the world.

Tags: health, Lung cancer, New Zealand, Pacific Ocean, The Nicotine Asylum, tobacco, Tobacco smoking, USS Arizona, USS West Virginia
Posted in Behind the Blurbs | No Comments »

It’s All in the Motivation

December 17th, 2008

terri camp Its All in the Motivation

Guest Blog Post by @tadahmom

When I was 13, I took my first puff of a cigarette. Within a few weeks, I was hooked. It wasn’t until I was about twenty that I wanted to quit. I figured all it would take was willpower. I would throw the pack of cigarettes away, crushing it for effect, only to dig it out of the garbage later, smoking the longest ones I could find. Every time I would try and fail, I felt more defeated.

Smoking affected so much of my life. I found myself lying to cover up that I was a smoker to my churchy friends. Each time I got pregnant I would quit, temporarily. I tried everything from going cold turkey, to attending classes, to chewing nicotine gum. Nothing had staying power with me. That was, until the real motivation occurred.

My fourth child became very sick at about four weeks of age. If I would lie him down in his bed, he would begin sounding like he was having trouble breathing. I would have to sit up with him in order for him to be able to breathe. It took quite awhile for me to get the smoking connection. In fact, ten weeks passed with many trips to the doctor to figure out what was wrong with my new baby. At night, I would sit holding him in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. Finally the doctor asked if I was a smoker. The light bulb went on and she told me that was why my son could not breathe. She gave him a prescription of Ventolin to clear out his lungs and told me to stop smoking. I began going into the garage to smoke instead of smoking in the house.

One night at a church meeting, I asked for prayer to quit smoking. They all gathered around me and prayed. I crumbled up my pack of cigarettes, feeling quite triumphant.

The next morning, feeling jittery and a bit out of control, I went to the store for another pack of cigarettes. Even God couldn’t help me, I thought. That afternoon I went out to the garage for a cigarette. I left my four little kids in the house, for just a couple of minutes. My oldest came into the garage and said, “Taffy got some medicine.” When I went into the house, there was Taffy, holding the empty bottle of Ventolin.

Within minutes I was rushing her to the hospital. I kept looking at her in my rear-view mirror, tears streaming down my face. Suddenly I was consumed with the thought that my smoking was harming my children in a way I never would have imagined. It was at that moment I said to myself, “I can never have another puff from a cigarette.”

I didn’t crumble the pack of cigarettes. I left them where they always were. And every time I was tempted to reach for one, I would say out loud, “I can never have another puff from a cigarette.” That was the day I quit. No one ever regret quitting—they only regret not quitting.

Guest post for Twitter Stars by @tadahmom

Terri Camp is an Inspirator, Author, Speaker, Realtor, CEO of Ta-Dah Mom, single homeschooling mom w/7 kids at home.

I’m Going to Be the Greatest Mom Ever

Get ready to laugh as Terri Camp takes you through the daily challenges and triumphs of motherhood. However, this is more than just another woman’s humor book. In addition to providing the laughs, she takes her readers on a profound journey to the heart.