Panic Disorder 411
Smoking Cessation
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The Start
I joined an online smoking cessation forum and took a 5 week
smoking cessation class, but I really didn't think that I could
quit. The following are some of the posts I wrote on the forum,
which really helped me in the process of quitting. In the 3rd
week, I started cutting down using nicotine lozenges. I cut down
to 7 cigarettes a day, then 6, 5, 4, 2. Two days after I reached
2, the day of the Great American Smokeout was promoted, so I
thought I'd give quitting a try. This is the first post I wrote
on the forum:
I'm currently on my 6th day without a smoke—a moment, a
morning, a day at a time. I studied the structure of the heart
recently and don't want to do any more damage to my body. When I
figured out how many cigarettes I've smoked in my life, I was
astounded. One month without smoking 15 cigarettes a day
translates to abstaining from 450 cigarettes—5,500
cigarettes in a year. So I'm hanging in today, and will face
tomorrow when it comes! I feel better physically already and
really want to be free from shackles of cigarette addiction." I
read that only 7% of first time quitters succeed. It's a lot
better odds than playing the lottery. I want to be a member of
the 7% club!
It's Hard To Quit, but Not Impossible
Part of the reason that it takes us so long to quit smoking is
because society tells us that it is all but impossible to quit.
They tell us that cigarettes are more addictive than heroin and
cocaine (They're not, they're just easier to obtain.). A Goggle
search will produce tens of thousands of pages outlining the
horrors of withdrawal. They tell us that it takes many attempts
to quit.
It's no wonder that it took me so long to even try to quit. I
knew for sure that I couldn't stop because I learned that I
couldn't, so why even try? But wait... I stopped drinking and
went through hell. I quit my addiction to Xanax and had
hallucinations and a grand mal seizure. I broke the chains of
agoraphobia and panic disorder. But I was convinced, somehow,
that quitting smoking would be worse.
So I quit listening to negative chatter and started finding ways
to make my quit more effective. The teacher in my smoking
cessation class told me not to make it harder than it is. I
decided not to be the elephant on the rope.
The Elephant Rope
As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused
by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a
small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was
obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from
their bonds but for some reason, they did not.
He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood
there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” the
trainer said, “When they are very young and much smaller we
use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s
enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to
believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still
hold them, so they never try to break free.”
"If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're
right—Henry Ford."
Ignorance Is Not Bliss
I could have had the Surgeon General's Warning tattooed on my arm
and still would not have read it; or if I read it, I wouldn't
have believed it was true; or if I believed it was true, I would
have hoped that it wasn't true for me.
Denial is an almost impenetrable defense mechanism that fuels
addiction. It blinds you to the truth. It tells you that even if
you believe the truth that it's impossible to quit smoking or to
stay stopped. So you gloss-over the truth and hope you'll beat
the odds.
But then you get a glimmer of hope and decide that maybe it's not
impossible, that maybe it's just hard, and that you're stronger
than your addiction. Once you really understand the pathology of
smoking, you make a huge adjustment in attitude and in
perception. You make a commitment to not smoke one day at a time.
You begin to believe that if you can hold on a little longer,
maybe it will get better.
And day by day, it does get a little better. Yes, there are some
bad days, but you tough it out; you hang on because you know the
reward is freedom, and you want that no matter how long it
takes.
You know, at last, that ignorance is not bliss. Once you know how
truly destructive smoking is, you keep that knowledge in the
front of your mind as you breathe through cravings that in time
become less frequent and less intense until they finally
disappear.
My First Cigarette, and My Last by Kirk
Douglas
Cravings
The one thing you definitely have to accept is that you're gonna
have cravings for a while. You can tense up and think they're the
worst thing that could ever happen to a human being,
Or
You can view them dispassionately for what they
are—conditioned responses to a long standing addiction. You
can relax your body and take several deep breaths, like the deep
breaths you took while you were smoking, only without the smoke.
If you want to know how this works, read this article in
Psychology Today: Diaphragmatic Breathing Exercises and Your Vagus
Nerve
Sometimes, that empty feeling in your gut isn't a craving,
anyway, it's hunger or anxiety or despair.
The other thing is that when you give cravings power, they're
gonna be powerful. You become what you think. Don't let your mind
fool you into picking up. If you're headed out to bum or buy a
smoke, watch a medical video on lung cancer first. That will
dampen your craving. How many people with terminal lung cancer
would give anything if they could go back in time and quit
smoking? Having cravings, that will eventually stop, is a small
price to pay for regaining your health.
Attitude
One definition of attitude is the orientation of an aircraft or
spacecraft, relative to the direction of travel.
If you don't have the right attitude, you won't reach your
destination whether you're flying or recovering from an
addiction.
A positive attitude is everything. You can learn how to overcome
negative thinking.
You can soar.
Really Knowing
Visualize, for a moment, that you're a lung. You see a fog of
smoke entering your delicate chambers, and you feel the pain of
thousands of chemicals and tar engulfing you. You do your best to
oxygenate blood flowing through your network to the heart. On its
journey, blood carries the poison from the smoke through blood
vessels to the left chambers of the heart and then to every part
of the body...
Knowing, really knowing, how smoking affects the body is key to
staying smoke free as well as the commitment to not smoke one day
at a time.
Chemicals In Cigarette Smoke
An important part of my quit is to research the pathology of
smoking. I've kept many cravings at bay by thinking about what
cigarette smoke does to the body.
Of the more than 7,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 250
are known to be harmful, including hydrogen cyanide, carbon
monoxide, and ammonia.
Among the 250 known harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least
69 can cause cancer. These cancer-causing chemicals include the
following:
Acetaldehyde
Aromatic amines
Arsenic
Benzene
Beryllium (a toxic metal)
1,3–Butadiene (a hazardous gas)
Cadmium (a toxic metal)
Chromium (a metallic element)
Cumene
Ethylene oxide
Formaldehyde
Nickel (a metallic element)
Polonium-210 (a radioactive chemical element)
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
Tobacco-specific nitrosamines
Vinyl chloride
You'll notice that this list doesn't include tar. Tar in
cigarette smoke paralyzes the cilia in the lungs and contributes
to lung diseases such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and lung
cancer. An average smoker inhales about an ounce of tar per year
into his/her lungs.
These are sobering facts. Quitting is a life altering/saving
process. Give it the time it takes to recover, and the day will
come when you're free.
Story written by Michael Jackson Smith - 2018
For more information about smoking, visit: NIH:
National Cancer Institute
THE ROAD TO FORT WORTH by Michael Jackson Smith: Very little was known about panic disorder when I had my first panic attack. There was no help available to teach me how to assuage the attacks, but I discovered that alcohol would dissolve my fear instantly. My website contains the kind of information that would have been a tremendous help to me in the early days of my illness as I searched for solutions for the panic disorder, agoraphobia, and alcoholism that incapacitated me. My book is the story of my journey into recovery. Read Chapter 8 | Top of Page↑
