Three Smoking Related Links (one in favor of!)

finally, a reason to keep smoking

the effects of quitting on various illnesses

why women will die and can't quit

The Effects of Quitting Smoking

As found here.

The effects of quitting smoking after:

20 minutes
Blood pressure drops to a level close to that before you had your last cigarette.

The temperature of your hands and feet increases to normal.

8 hours
Carbon monoxide level in the blood drops to normal.

Heart and lungs begin to repair the damage caused by cigarette smoke.

24 hours
Your chance of a heart attack decreases.

3-5 days
Sense of smell and taste improve.

Breathing is easier and "smoker's cough" begins to disappear.

Stench leaves your skin, most nicotine is gone from your body

2 weeks to 3 months
Circulation improves.

Your lung function increases up to 30%

1 to 9 months
Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease; cilia regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce infection.

1 year
Your chance of having a heart attack is cut in half.

5 years
Stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker's 5-15 years after quitting.

10 years
Your risk of dying from lung cancer is about half that of a continuing smoker's; risks of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decrease.

15 years
Your risk of coronary heart disease is that of a nonsmoker's.

25 years
You're still alive while you've just burried your last still-smoking friend.

Smoking News from National Public Radio

Ex-Smokers Remain at Higher Risk for Lung Cancer

Young Smokers Try 'Binging' Approach

Annexation from Society

Achtung! (That means Warning! but with different letters): This post contains somewhat bigotous, perhaps controversial topics. If you don't realize what I'm all about, then please GOSUB 500.

There was once a time when smokers were the creamiest of the crop. All of the coolest cats could be found with a pack of Luckies rolled up in their t-shirt, straddling a steel hog and with the thin yellowed fingers of their smoking mistresses wrapped around them, inhale nicotine all through the world.

Smoking was not only cool, it was healthy for you. Don't believe me? I don't care, it's true. It was previously legal to smoke in hospitals, colleges, even on airplanes. Can you imagine? I can.

But now we, as smokers, have been thrust into the shadows and corners and frigid outside climes of the American landscape. Even those once sacred smoking ground, the pubs, bars and dives of every seedy back alley establishment, have been over run. Who wants to live in a New York City that makes you stand outside to smoke? "Not I," I said.

And why are smokers hated so much? Because we exude a smell that clings to your hair and doesn't let go short of a shaving? Because we get sick and die in record numbers and everyone else has to pay for the health insurance premium hikes? Or is it because our dreaded second hand smoke means that we're not only killing ourselves, but anyone around us?

Bullshit. Big fucking time, bullshit.

In America, obesity is as big a problem or bigger than smoking. 60% of people in America are overweight. I have no idea what the percentage of people in America smoke, but I'm sure as hell it isn't 60%. So why don't we force obese people to eat outside, to sit in small sections away from the band, or to go huddle in a corner in the freezing middle of winter to enjoy their food?

"Because smoking is a disgusting, filthy habit." Well I disagree. And in turn, I find fingers dripping with salt and grease disgusting.

"Because obesity doesn't have an effect on my health insurance." Anything that puts people in the hospital or sends them to a doctor has an effect on your health insurance.

"Well, fine, but obesity doesn't have a 'second hand smoke.' No, not unless you consider that as long as Americans keep eating like maniacs, and supporting fast food and TV dinners, and not demanding that companies stop stuffing every box with transfats just so they can have a shelf life of 20 years, then food makers will have no incentive to make healthier foods. And sure, you can always go to Whole Foods or the like and buy healthy foods, but at a premium. If we as Americans said "Okay, I'm only buying healthy food." and stuck to that then the Nabiscos and Krafts would be forced to improve their everyday products, not just introduce Healthy brand alternatives. So in this way, there is a contribution to your health. Unless we all choose to be healthy, someone is always going to lose out.

"Well, you can quit smoking, you can't always lose weight." I wholeheartedly agree, and that's why I can distinguish between those people who have diabetes or some other disease that causes them to be overweight, which is the sad part about me writing this, that perhaps someone might confuse the issues here. However, it is no harder to lose weight than it is to quit smoking. Both are major oral fixations and both require a lifelong struggle to overcome.

I suppose it is a case of majority rules, however, and as long as smokers are in the minority and made to feel like criminals while the overweight population is a good majority and allowed to feel like victims, nothing can change.

Now it should be noted that I don't actually think that overweight people should be subjected to such heinous acts as shoving them outdoors or forcing them to be on a separate healthcare plan. It's just a fucked up double standard and you non-smokers should thank us yellow-teeths for enduring it so kindly for you.


GOSUB 500: if comment$=read then GOSUB comments else GOSUB Achtung!

Say it, "Spyyyyder."

Speaking of smoking, it often occurs in the basement.

A spider named Ray lives in our basement.

More about spiders.

My Plan

So every serious quit attempt needs a good plan. Here's mine:

Week 1

Eliminate all smoking before noon. This shouldn't be hard as I rarely smoke before noon anyway, save for the weekends. That'll be the real kicker.

Week 2

Eliminate all smoking before 5pm. Once again, this won't be that tough.

Week 3

Experiment with having a beer and not smoking in the evening. Then try two beers. Maybe 3 or 4 on Thursday. Let loose on the weekend though.

Week 4

Cut down to 2 smokes a day. Tops. Not including drinking.

Week 5

Go for gold. Get through a night of drinking with only 5 cigarettes. Try again the next day but without smoking at all.

Week 6

Laugh at yourself for ever thinking you could eliminate smoking while drinking. Discontinue all smoking except when drinking or for the occasional leafy green episode.

Week 7

Inevitably go on some roadtrip and throw all notions of quitting to the wind and remind your lungs just how soothing nicotine really can be.

Smoke as a substitute for foodstuffs

One of the many benefits (and there are many) of smoking is it's ability to replace your body's desire for food. It's true. Take me, for example. I'm completely out of money and have exhausted my foodstores, and both my wallet and cupboards will remain empty until Wednesday at midnight when I get paid, but I am not fearful.

The combination of good old fashioned H20 and the swirling sensation of cigarette smoke in my stomach will trick my body into thinking that I am completely satisfied. The only problem is that I am down to less than 7 cigarettes and with each hunger pang, well, the time between cigarettes grows much shorter.

Smoking is associated with many other food-related occurences as well. Quitting is hard as is, but after a big thick meal it can be excrutiating not lighting up a bone pony and riding that fag to freedom. Something about the lingering juices of a hearty meal that just need to be extinguished with the raw, sharp bite of nicotine flavored smoke.

Also, people tend to gain weight when quitting smoking. I'm not sure if nicotine actually increases your metabolism, which I've heard (I've also heard it makes you shit more, I believe this one) but I do know that when you stop stuffing a cigarette in your mouth, well, you get the urge to put other things in there. Namely chocolate, cheese, and various other types of enhanced dairy products...

The Old Way to Quit

I've often tried going the route of "quitting smoking, except when I'm drinking." This method, I thought, was fool proof, as you could put aside the thoughts that naturally crop up in a smoke-quitters mind "My God, I'll never have a cigarette again?!"

And I've successfully "quit" this way before. For two years, using this method, I was off the smoke.

Of course, I wasn't addicted back then. Nothing could addict me back then.

Now, however, I'm not so sure. I might even admit addiction soon...

Several Settings, Single Subject

The sun is lazy glazing over your driver side mirror, the window cracked full on open and your left foot propped, unshoed, out of the window. It's summertime, blown wide open, and the song on the radio is letting you know full and well that this is your time. You are youth, you are free, you are miles from unstoppable and nothing could compliment this cool blue sky day better than a few drags off of that flaming little fag between your fingers. Suck, smoke, blow, baby.

---

It's a rainy morning and waiting for the bus at 6:30 am in the rain is just about as low down as a man wants to ever see himself. No one for miles, no headlights promising your ride's approach and only you and the numbing-silent rhythm of the beating precipitation to witness these events. Luckily, however, you've got a back up plan. You reach into your pocket and procure the following two items: one cigarette and one lighter, for the purpose of initiating cigarettes. You find yourself content to wait now, with an old friend only the lift of a hand away.

---

It's 2:47 in the pm, you're a working stiff, and you'd sure like a break. Unfortunately, you don't smoke, and so as you watch all of your pals head outside to huddle around the Smoker's Outpost, you're left at your workstation to toil away. The bossman walks by and sees your co-workers mingling on a scheduled break hour, smoking and generally showing valid teamwork potential, and who does he notice is gone? That uptight little priss from accounting who's too good to go out with the boys and have a puff. (in this story, you're the uptight priss from accounting)

---

Hospital beds have a particular smell which you never particularly liked. That's all fine and well, however, as you haven't been able to smell for the past 20 years. Here you are, though, laying in a hospital, a tube stuck in your throat and your cock so limp you could pour it down a drain. Though no one but God can know the exact time and death of a mortal soul, it's apparent that you'll be finding out when yours would be within the next couple of hours or so. A nurse hasn't checked on you in 7 hours, as you're just another bed waiting to be emptied. And your family quit coming around after you threw a fit and called them all gold digging slugs when they wouldn't give you a final cigarette on your death bed. Goodnight, and for Christ sake's you old fucker, die already.

The Motto

Thank you for choosing the genuine taste of Camel. For more than 80 years our unique blend of three premium tobaccos has made Camel the one cigarette with genuine taste.