--When Sir Walter Raleigh brought Tobacco from N.America, there were at that time some seventeen common garden herbs that the country folk smoked. No one rolled cigars or cigarettes but used a small clay pipe. It is probably impossible now to say when smoking began, but one might suppose the where to have been around the shaman's fire as many substances have been used to either fill a room that everybody partakes or in smoking hookahs that participants might draw on for part of the ceremonies.
--When I discovered how much the tobacco I picked in the fields was treated between our drying barns and retail I stopped using commercial product and reduced my hand-rolled to half a dozen per day. Later when all the farms were shut down and Gov't had stepped in to stop the smoking, and when they didn't stop the adulteration but increased cost on consumer and reduced his ability to receive health insurance, then I was running unadulterated tobacco in a black market. But when Gov't had closed all avenues to get unadulterated tobacco then it became time to quit, unless I went into farming my own. I looked at several techniques to quit smoking but all were insufficient in success, so I stopped. With no aid to remind me of sticking to a program, I just stopped lighting cigarettes. When I felt the need for a cigarette I had a half a shotgun glass full of orange juice. I repeated the inner dialogue I explained in Hints on Subconscious Commands, and after two weeks lit a cigarette and reminded myself how very nauseating and disgusting is the smell and taste of cigarettes.
--''There are about 50 tobacco-related deaths' a day (18,000 a year) in Australia.
--Women are 10 times more likely to suffer heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases if they both smoke and use an oral contraceptive.
--Women who smoke take longer to conceive and are more likely to miscarriage.
--Within a few hours of stopping, all nicotine and carbon monoxide is out of your system. In about two days, all the nicotine by-products have gone.
--Within two days of quitting, your taste buds revive and your sense of smell improves. Your breath, hair, fingers, teeth and clothes are cleaner.
--Quitting reduces your risk of chronic bronchitis. After three weeks without smoking, exercising will be easier because your body needs less oxygen and more air is getting in to your lungs.
--Within two months of quitting, the blood flow to your hands and feet improves.
--Recovery symptoms such as nausea, coughing, cravings, occasional headaches, upset digestion, constipation, diarrhoea, sore throat and changed sleeping patterns are a good sign. They show that the body is getting rid of the chemicals in your system.
--Within three months of quitting, the cilla (hair-like cleaning system in your lungs) begin to recover and loosen the mucus in your lungs so that you can cough it up. Your lungs start to work better, and activities such as climbing stairs and running for the bus become easier.
--Quitting reduces your risk of lung cancer. After 10 years, the risk is halved.
--After 12 months of not smoking, your risk of heart disease is down to almost half that of a smoker's. Once you have stopped for 15 years, this risk is almost the same as for a non-smoker.
--Most smokers want to quit. Research shows that about 80% of smokers have made at least one serious attempt to quit.
< Excert from The Australian Women's Weekly, February 1998. Compiled by Nicole Silverman. >
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--My personal experience with addiction, being an induced stupor of morphine for 4hourly doses for 3weeks, then returned by cold turkey whilst strapped in to a bed, are not a recommended method for quitting. By practicing a complete change of inner dialogue and an outer regime that includes increase in vitamin C, there is every reason to believe that anyone who really wishes to, can and will change their smoking habit for a more healthy one. May the blessings be.
--Keep on keeping on.
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''A Willing Heart Lightens Work.''