This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

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Alobha
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Re: ten days with zero tobacco

Post by Alobha »

manas wrote:
So, I have decided to do another stint, but I will begin counting from tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a new 'Day One'. This time I will do TEN days with no smoking. I hereby make this publicly known.
Go for it! May you move on with energy and determination! :smile:
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

An elder for the Cour d'Alene Indians recently told me that before the natives encountered European industrialization, the average Indian man smoked about six cigarette's worth of tobacco a year.
So, maybe the idea that they were choofing away 'till the cows came home was possibly planted by...someone connected with the Tobacco Industry.
Go for it! May you move on with energy and determination!
If someone like myself could actually get a taste for renunciation, it would be a miracle. But, miracles are known to happen sometimes.

Thanks for your continuing supportiveness, dear members.

Ok, craving will be extinguished, beginning with: craving for tobacco! :jedi: It's days are numbered...

metta
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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Modus.Ponens
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Re: seven days with zero tobacco

Post by Modus.Ponens »

manas wrote:I do have a question for anyone who knows about this. In my travels on the Internet, I have heard apologists for tobacco say things like, "the Native Americans smoked tobacco, and because it was natural and not processed with chemicals as ours is today, they didn't get the same dire health problems from it, that we now do". That was one of the reasons I thought that, so long as I used organic or chemical free, that it wouldn't be quite so bad. Have any other members heard of such arguments? Don't worry, I'm still aiming to give up regardless, but I'm just curious if anyone else has read such things.

metta
That is a quite ridiculous claim by the tobacco apologists, because native americans didn't have apropriate medicine, so, in average, they wouldn't live enough to have cancer. Even if they lived long enough, they wouldn't know that it was caused by tobacco.
'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' - Jhana Sutta
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

Day One

It's a lot easier this time around. I know the territory better, plus, I think most of the toxins were discharged with the seven-day stint already. Now it's just the mind that is tempted sometimes.

It's funny how perspective changes. I'm now a little irritated with myself, that I still am dependent on doing this in a public forum, where I would be too embarrassed to break the abstinence. "I ought to be able to do this alone!" runs a thought in my mind. But this system is working so well. Because, I know that someone will read these posts, sooner or later. And, I promised publicly to be honest about whether I stick with this or not. And, I won't lie about such a thing, especially not to a (virtual) room full of Buddhists!

I recall that, once a month, the monks in a monastery would 'confess' any transgressions they had made in the preceding month. I imagine that the thought of having to fess up to things, would give even more of an incentive to not transgress in the first place, ie, to be spotless in one's conduct. And so, living alone, who can one turn to, to be accountable to (if one so voluntarily chooses)? 'The Virtual Sangha'. For ten days, in the matter of tobacco use, I voluntarily choose to be accountable to the members here. I wish to recommend this, if anyone else has a particular goal that pushes them beyond what is comfortable, and needs some spurring on to accomplish. It works.

: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 »

Keep at it, Manas - we're barracking for you!! :clap:

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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Aloka
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by Aloka »

When I stopped smoking years ago, I chewed a piece of chewing gum instead of having a smoke.

Later I needed to give up the chewing gum habit too. :mrgreen:

Good luck manas, you can do it !

.
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Assaji
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by Assaji »

It's awesome, Manas!

Perhaps a friendly tip will be of help - noticing the precise feeling of craving, with accompanying emotion, and encompassing it with equanimous loving-kindness, helped me to deal with old addiction.

:namaste:
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marc108
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Re: seven days with zero tobacco

Post by marc108 »

manas wrote:I do have a question for anyone who knows about this. In my travels on the Internet, I have heard apologists for tobacco say things like, "the Native Americans smoked tobacco, and because it was natural and not processed with chemicals as ours is today, they didn't get the same dire health problems from it, that we now do". That was one of the reasons I thought that, so long as I used organic or chemical free, that it wouldn't be quite so bad. Have any other members heard of such arguments? Don't worry, I'm still aiming to give up regardless, but I'm just curious if anyone else has read such things.

metta
I've done quite a bit of research on disease levels in Native Americans for school and I can tell you that is outright not true. Firstly, there is little-no research data on Native Americans prior to 1940-50's so to say they didn't get health problems is not true. Now, Native Americans have disease rates that are drastically higher than average. Their rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease & cancer are generally 2-3x higher than average.

The primary carcinogens in tobacco exist naturally in the tobacco plant and are not additives or processing chemicals.

Anyone who tells you smoking tobacco in any way, shape, or form is not harmful or less harmful is deluded.
"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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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

Day 2 :woohoo:

In my case, I was using either organic or 'processed chemical-free' and while it did leave me much less nauseated than ordinary tobacco, I can recall a few times when i would draw the smoke in and would actually feel a sort of constriction happening all through my body. My heart rate would go up, too. I looked this up, and it said that the nicotene causes the blood vessels to constrict, and the heart has to word harder as a result. These sensations, and the knowledge of why they were happening, were the impetus behind my first resolve to stop. I thought, "this is harming you, and sometimes even causes headaches in the mornings, etc, yet you crave it?" It is messed up to crave that which harms you. So addiction is like getting yourself in to a hole, you decide one day that you want out, but it's not so easy. it takes time. You are not out as soon as you make that first sincere volition to quit.

Again, my advice to anyone considering quitting: the sooner you quit, the easier it will be. Delaying the process will mean more pain, from what I have observed in persons who smoked more heavily than I.

I'm going outside. It is 4.30 am here, I'm up earlier than usual. The air is fresh, cool and fragrant (there are forests not too far from where I live). I'm going to deeply inhale the air, and notice the effect that clean, more highly oxygenated air has on my system...

Thanks all

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

Post by Assaji »

Lots of fresh and clean air to you :smile:
makarasilapin
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by makarasilapin »

hey manas, just seeing this thread for the first time. i smoked for 12 years before giving it up, so i understand the struggle!

best of luck to you! :jedi:
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

makarasilapin wrote:hey manas, just seeing this thread for the first time. i smoked for 12 years before giving it up, so i understand the struggle!

best of luck to you! :jedi:
Thank you

Today is DAY 3. I craved a smoke yesterday for a few hours, and I was annoyed with myself for having made the new 10-day pact. Haha! I just could not bring myself to break this pact...so once again, this topic's existence 'saved' my abstinence. Thanks to everyone who has replied (and there have been so many), I am closer to being fully detoxified from the smokes than I have been in, about six months, I think.

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

Post by makarasilapin »

lol awesome. i love how you're doing this and that the forum is such a strong support. only 7 days to go!!
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manas
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Re: This time: TEN days, zero tobacco

Post by manas »

makarasilapin wrote:lol awesome. i love how you're doing this and that the forum is such a strong support. only 7 days to go!!
Thank you.

DAY 4

Thought for the day. If this craving was really 'mine' in the sense of 'smoking is something I want, something I need' then it would not come and go like this. It would always be present. But it isn't like that. It is here one day, and gone the next. Sometimes, if I experience some calm or sweetness in meditation, I arise from it with the notion, "I don't want tobacco anymore. The pleasure of meditation is superior to gross sensual pleasures such as tobacco". In that moment, convinced. Then, a couple of hours later, the mind-body craves gross sensual pleasures again! Therefore: the craving is not mine. It arises and passes away according to conditions. It ought to be dealt with skilfully, but I don't have to give in and listen to it, because it's not actually 'mine' even though, when it arises, there is that perception. But that perception must be a false one.

I have to tolerate a mild burning sometimes. The feeling of craving something but not indulging in it. But this feeling of burning is a walk in the park, as compared with the pain of losing one's mobility due to a stroke, or coughing up bits of one's lung, or dying from a heart attack. I can handle a bit of temporary burning, so that I can avoid these much worse things.

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 »

Proud of you manas! keep at it! :group:

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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