Posted on 12/19/2008 9:48:13 PM PST by melt
It's important to understand that stopping is not simply about willpower or determination (qualities that Obama personifies). Smoking is an addictive behaviour and to quit you need to overcome the addiction and learn new behaviour. On the addiction front, Obama uses Nicorette gum. He even handed some out to someone in the crowd who said they were trying to quit. But many quitters use it only when they have a craving. That isn't going to work. You need to chew the gum of the right strength as directed, using up to 15 pieces a day. There are dozens of randomised controlled trials showing that if nicotine replacement is used properly, you double your chances of quitting successfully.
Obama also seems to have got it right when he says “you need to eliminate connections”. In other words, if you always smoke after a meal, while on the phone or with a cup of coffee, you need to find something to distract yourself at these times. Exercise - Obama spends an hour a day in the gym - helps, as does the support of those around you. Hopefully, the non-smoking Michelle Obama will be firm but fair. He will just have to make sure that he doesn't hang out too much with secret-service men who smoke.
Whether Obama's efforts are successful or not may ultimately depend on his motivation for giving up. If he is just quitting to save himself from embarrassing photos having a crafty one behind the White House bike shed, he might not succeed. He needs to really want to give up: for financial reasons (unlikely), for the sake of those around him, or for his health.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
The point, for me at least, is this. He will dictate what behavior is proper for you and me while ignoring it for himself. Frankly I don't care if he smokes himself to death. That's his choice.
No real American does. That weirdly paranoid -- yet very influential -- sect of super-thin liberal women and the men who love them -- or else! -- are the ones who have made huffing a Marlboro somehow a capital offense.
I won't ask how you know that. But thanks for the info.
They say there’s no smoking in the White House, yet Laura Bush smokes. Does she have to go outside to light up?
FITFLOL that is post of the day
Same here.
On another note, I have worked at the Harry S Truman Building - The State Department, which is visited by dignitaries from all over the world. There are plenty of offices upstairs where smoking is still tolerated (Noticed I did not say allowed) because it is done in the visitor's home country.
It’s often characterized as tinfoil helmet stuff, but there is no doubt in my mind at all that the “Surgeon General’s Report” in 1964 was the beginning of a major social experiment — with LOTS of grant money, kinda like “Global Warming.” If the Central Government could impact an addictive behavior practiced by most adult Americans through sheer propaganda (Public Service Announcements) and, eventually, legislation, then the Central Government could do ANYTHING.
It appears to have worked.
My husband quit a 3 pack a day habit when he had 50 pages of term papers to write in a week doing research in a library that did not allow smoking. After two days he had written 5 pages and was going outside for a smoke every 20 minutes, so he quit. After the first day as the little hair cells inside began to revive, he felt like he wanted to scratch the inside of his lungs all the time. After 4 days the little cells started sweaping nasty black gunk out of his lungs and he was astonished. After the first week, the craving was not so strong but he was coughing and spitting up black nasties several times a day. After two weeks the cravings and lung clearing subsided. Six months later he had a big coughing fit, and large chunks of black for deep in his lungs came up. He never smoked again for the 45 years before he died. On the other hand, 3 years later he began his drinking toward 20 years of alcoholism. The addictive personality will out.
My father had a one pack a day habit. He quit at age 87 and died at 90 of a stroke. His father who never smoked lived to be 98. I read somewhere that you loose 11 minutes of life for every cigarette you smoke. If you smoke, do the math, it might convince you to stop. Good luck all.
Yikes! Thank God I married a Conservative Woman.
I’m 25 years old and I smoke between the ages of 16 and 24 and thank God I don’t smoke anymore now.
It’s very difficult to quit smoking but it’s possible.
He ain’t giving up those doobies either.
Its only a tranquilizer to those who are addicted and need a smoke bad.
Luckily, I live in Nevada. We're decades behind the prohibitionist curve. And we like being "backward."
This guy has never demoonstrated any character — where does all this hype come from?
I’d like to wrap you up in some paper and smoke you. I’m addicted to beating people like you up and down the sidewalk for amusement.
Where’s the patch for that?
you’re correct — it is habit and can be stopped if you really want to quit.
That is the bottom line - you have to want to quit!!
And if his little girls are not motive enough, shame on him.
I think the patch or whatever only hurts the effort to quit, you have to get the nicotine out of your body - and 3 days does it!
Say what?
Before “smoking cessation treatments” became part of every corporate health insurance plan, virtually 100% of ex-smokers used willpower and determination.
How did that work out?
Well, in 1995 America had more ex-smokers than smokers!
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