This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

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marc108
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by marc108 »

8 days is excellent. good work my friend.
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
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Ben
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by Ben »

well done!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

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in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

retrofuturist wrote:Soon, aspiration or not, you won't want to harm yourself with cigarettes... and that wisdom will outweigh and overcome biological urges. Aim to cross that threshhold and sail off into the sunset...

Keep at it, manas!

Metta,
Retro. :)
I appreciate your kind words of encouragement. I do intend that any trace of temptation to engage in smoking will be totally gone someday, it is only a question of when. I will see how the coming days unfold.

:anjali:
Last edited by manas on Sun Mar 24, 2013 6:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

marc108 wrote:8 days is excellent. good work my friend.
Actually I recently completed the full ten days - I did not announce it cos I thought everyone must be sick to death of this topic by now.
Ben wrote:well done!
Marc, and Ben, once again thank you for your kind support.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************

I have decided that if I feel I need it, I will bore everyone just one more time with another stint. But this one, if I do it, will be quite substantial. At least two weeks. I will see how I go 'on my own' first, though. Possibly the saga can indeed end here.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED ME, IN BOTH THE 7 DAY AND THE 10 DAY STINTS. From the first page to the last. I couldn't have done it without you.

Metta :anjali:
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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cooran
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by cooran »

Hello Manas,

No, not sick of hearing about it. Glad to hear - it inclines me towards looking at things in my own life which could be improved. :smile:

With metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

cooran wrote:Hello Manas,

No, not sick of hearing about it. Glad to hear - it inclines me towards looking at things in my own life which could be improved. :smile:

With metta
Chris
Thanks Chris. :anjali:

There is a design flaw with this body if it can end up craving something toxic to it. What possible benefit to survival does this serve? Or is this an evolutionary error of some kind? Any thoughts?

What a heap of trouble it has been, and might possibly still be, to totally free myself from something that is ultimately a toxin - that when I first imbibed as a young man, just about made me throw up. How ironic.

Metta.
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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cooran
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by cooran »

Hello Manas,

Do a Google search on the relationship between "nicotine" and "dopamine".
It's very interesting.

With metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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Assaji
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by Assaji »

manas wrote:Actually I recently completed the full ten days - I did not announce it cos I thought everyone must be sick to death of this topic by now.
Congratulations, Manas!
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

Dmytro wrote:
manas wrote:Actually I recently completed the full ten days - I did not announce it cos I thought everyone must be sick to death of this topic by now.
Congratulations, Manas!
Thank you. I will see how things go from here. If I still can't manage to be abstinent on my own, then the next stint will be longer still. I will simply keep increasing the lengths of time until the task is done. Two weeks, to three weeks, to an entire month...hope I don't have to take all this quite that far, but if that's what it takes, then so be it.

:anjali:
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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purple planet
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by purple planet »

I did not announce it cos I thought everyone must be sick to death of this topic by now.
actually i think its nice - so long as you dont expect any comments than thats great

Congratulations on the ten days :juggling: :woohoo: :juggling: i started doing stuff in a check list kind of way i think its working - smaller measurable goals

will you take a challenge to do a 20 day period ? and make a new thread for it ?
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Ron-The-Elder
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by Ron-The-Elder »

Excellent! Manas!!!

Some suggestions, which I found useful back in 1984 @ 17:00 E.S.T. when I had my last cigarette:

1. Keep a little notebook in your pocket and write down every time you think about smoking, but don't. This will reinforce "not smoking" behavior. The smoke ending course I took suggested writing down every time I smoked, but this just used to make me feel like a failure, and made me feel guilty for being a failure. So, I decided to reinforce my success, rather than my failure, and that seemed to work well for me. In other words "reinforce" desired behavior, which is "not smoking".

2. Write down where you were, who you were with, what you were doing, and/or what you were eating or drinking when you had the desire to smoke. All of these conditions are what is known as "triggers", knowing them will help you to avoid them in the future. For example, I found that every time I drank a cup of coffee, my right hand automatically started reaching for a cigarette in my left top pocket. This allowed me to do two things: a. stop carrying cigarettes around in my pocket. b. Stop drinking coffee.

The next most important thing I learned from this method was that there was a certain gas station that I used to pass every day where I bought cigarettes from their vending machine. When I saw the gas station my car would swerve automatically into their parking lot, and before I even realized it coins were out of my pocket, into the machine, and my right hand was pulling the handle to dispense my favorite brand of cigarettes.

When writing this down in my little book I realized that I had to not go down that road anymore and to buy my gasoline at another station. That solved that problem.

At work, I used to sit at my desk and smoke one cigarette after another. Whenever the phone would ring, I would reach for and light-up another one. Sometimes I would be lighting up a cigarette talking on the phone and realize that there was a cigarette burning in my ashtray, and another one in my other hand. Can you imagine that? Smoking three cigarettes at once?....Really crazy stuff.

So, when I wrote that down, I decided to give my cigarettes to one of the secretaries, who was a friend and told her not to give me one unless I submitted the request in writing, which included a list of each cigarette I smoked that day, what time I smoked it, and what I was feeling and thinking about, while I smoked it.

One last smoke ending technique, which I was taught, which really helped me more than anything else.

The people who taught the course recommended getting a clear glass jar ( back in those days, they had glass milk bottles) with a screw on lid, and to use it as an ash tray. A large empty mayonaise jar might work if you can still find them. Fill it about one quarter of the way with water, When you finish smoking a cigarette, put the butt inside the bottle and into the water. Take the bottle with you wherever you go: shopping, at work, to meetings with customers, when you take your kids to ball games, to the movies, and etc. "Everywhere!" It is the most disgusting mess you will ever see in your life. And when you open the lid it will really smell disgusting and will act as a personal reminder to you that, while you are free to smoke whenever you want, when you choose to smoke that is exactly what you are putting into your mouth, throat, lungs, stomach, on your clothes, into your hair, and on everyone around you. It is what all your loved ones, friends, and neighbors smell, whenever you come into the room, stand next to them, or when you open your mouth to talk to them.

So, in conclusion, I am with you and totally understand how difficult it is for you to do what you are doing. Keep up the good fight! It is the best possible thing you can do for your health, and for those you love that must breathe the same air your are exhaling, As I said previously: "Excellent!" "Keep up the great work!"

Hope these suggestions are helpful.

_/\_Ron
What Makes an Elder? :
A head of gray hairs doesn't mean one's an elder. Advanced in years, one's called an old fool.
But one in whom there is truth, restraint, rectitude, gentleness,self-control, he's called an elder, his impurities disgorged, enlightened.
-Dhammpada, 19, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
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