The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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Quoting Merle:

Where do I sign up?

I was wondering where you were, Morning_after. Now where is DuncanBass?

Now that's hardcore lushitude.

thank you, nannarob.

For some reason I quit getting notified when people replied to this thread.

Anyhow, has anyone here ever seen "Bringing Down the House"? A friend of mine wants to get together and maybe watch it.

lurking.

Once I realized that if I never physically picked up another cigarette again I would not smoke. All the angst and craving and beating my self against my withdrawal was not going to change that fact. Years of cocaine addiction had taught me cold turkey was the the only way I was gonna remember the pain and not pick it up again. I came off of alcohol cold turkey and have been off 23 years. I came off of Celexa cold turkey and I don't recommend that for anyone. I came off tobacco in 1997 the last time, I always smoked the Clove (and no self respecting smoker will associate with a Clove smoker) but I used the nicotine patch and had some wonderfully vivid dreams, reminding me of why I liked the effects of smoking nicotine in the first place.
so I used the patches for about a year, on and off, because I thought to myself, it's the SMOKE that is the problem, right? the gasses? the lung issues? so the gum and the patch helped me ween myself off of the ceremony and ritual of smoking.

Merle

Smoking behaviour is a combination of culture, social cues, physical addiction and psychological addiction.

Australia has one of the world's lowest rates of smoking. Queensland, Australia has the probably the toughest anti-smoking legislation in the world. You cannot smoke in pubs, clubs, restaurants, shopping centres, offices (restaurants can provide a smoking area outside only). You can't smoke on any public transport. I work at a major public hospital and you cannot smoke anywhere on the campus.

Smoking rates in the 1940's for men in Australia was approximately 72%. Now it hovers around the 20% rate.

With advertising/ health promotion the rate of smoking has dropped.

We classify smokers into 2 subgroups: Recreational smokers and addicts.

Recreational smokers can quit easily. They have few or no withdrawl symptoms. These are also the ex-smokers that are incredibly critical of those who continue to smoke.

Addicts have different brain chemistry. Receptors in the primitive areas of the brain have been found in addicts. For an addict to give up cold turkey is incredibly difficult.

In Australia, we have few smokers left compared to other nations. The recreational smokers have mostly quit. Those who continue to smoke are addicts.

I work only with the addicts. These are people that have tried everything to smoke and feel an ongoing sense of failure and depression about their inability to quit.

To help them quit smoking we need to address different areas: physical addiction, anxiety management, environmental factos, cues etc etc

For a good article about smoking from a reputable scientific journal read this:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/328/7434/277?ecoll&eaf

I'm not going to clog up the Dino-Cafe with any more talk of smoking!

If anyone is having difficulty and wants more information about quitting, please PM me.

Helen

I saw 'The Black Balloon' today - an Australian film with an autistic teenager (non-verbal) as one of the main characters.

Toni Collette starred as the Mum. It was a low budget film so I'm guessing she took a pay cut.

It was an amazing film. Very funny in parts.

It was very real. The women who wrote the script has 2 autistic brothers so it was written with love and acceptance.

I highly recommend it.

Sinsboldly wrote:

I think I need one for the boys!

Helen

Ok, I will then, Smelena.

I was having a really really tough go with a med, not terribly long ago, as in, it had me on the edge of suicide. I knew it was med induced and that helped but it was still rough. I went in to talk about an adjustment, the last words the doc had to say were, you really should give up smoking. I found it hilarious and thanked him for the joke.

I stopped smoking at the same time I stopped drinking alcoholically.....Nothing like a bad case of shakes and D.T.s
to take your mind off of nicotine cravings....

Did you not ever wonder why it isn't just out and out banned, as in illegal? There are easy ways to keep those that are addicted calm, no open revolution and no further damage caused by smoke, not even any second hand smoke. It's money. Prove me wrong, I dare anyone.

Governments are just beginning to screw up the courage to wean themselves off tobacco tax money. ( between 0.5 and 0.6 % of total govt revenues, which is, as my son would put it, "not nothing"!)They've become massively dependent on it, and are still trying to work out the best way to deal with the withdrawal symptoms when they quit/ban it.

It also creates/maintains a huge demand for hundreds/thousands of pharmaceutical products, because of the various illnesses/diseases it causes. So, yes, I agree, money.

Last edited by ouinon on 06 Apr 2008, 7:43 am, edited 2 times in total.

Just one more post - on the smoking legislation thing... Smelena posted her list, but here in the UK, I think we cover all of those, plus I like this extra, rather obscure one...

Outside my window, the road through town is served by a bus. There are shelters both sides of the road. The one on my side is a rather nice one, built into a newish wall, with a couple of small seats. The one across the road is older, a little larger, and free-standing.

As well as its roof, the shelter this side of the road, being built INto the wall, technically has three walls (the back and two sides, even though they are tiny - only a foot/30cm).

The one across the road is just a single "wall" supporting a roof.

Legislation here now says that you may not smoke in public in any structure that has three (or four) walls.

I could smoke in the shelter across the road. I may not do so in the one this side.

Luckily, at present, I really don't care!

I just clocked the User Stats. WP is closing in on 18K members. ¡Ay caramba!

lau wrote:

[/quote]I suppose I am one of the 3%-5% of people who were able to quit cold turkey. I have a very strange personality (as some of you may have noticed) and I felt like stopping. I had no problems during withdrawal (which is ongoing). There were patches, Zyban, nicotine gum - I ignored them. I've tried other methods before. I hate expense. So this is why I quit cold turkey. After two years I feel little different (and still look for my pack of cigarettes, most days). The previous two long periods I gave up were to do Kung Fu and to sing in a choir. This time I had no specific reason to stop. My weight never changes much. I didn't change my diet at all. I vaguely sought out anyone who smoked (to avoid it becoming a problem if I came back into such a milieu). I don't expect ever to celebrate "giving up", because I don't know I will never restart. The saved money is not a huge consideration, as I have never had any respect for money. (I have given up alcohol as well. That is, other than a social pint of beer, once a month, or so. I had a pint on Wednesday, and I can't remember when I had any prior to that... some time in January/February, I think.)

But all in all, it is a trivial thing to do. Even with my strange personality! [/quote]

Para-graphilalia topic

Good luck with smoking cessation, lau et al.

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