Don't Let Debi Austin Die In Vain

Debi Austin Anti Smoking Advocate Passes Away At 62

This is Deborah "Debi" Austin.  She was the lady who smoked through a hole in her throat and talked about smoking being addictive.  Remember her?  I know I do!

"They say nicotine isn't addictive." She says right before taking a drag!

Here's the best part of her thought process prior to agreeing to do the commercial which I found on laist.com:

"Do I want to stand up in front of the entire state and tell them that I lost my voice because I couldn't control my addiction? I don't think so."

When I read that, I knew it had to part of my blog.  That's the whole purpose of my book, How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone.  It's to get control of your addiction.  I hated being under the influence of a controlled substance and that I literally had to schedule my day, my week, my LIFE around cigarettes.  Fuh-get-about-it!

I took back control and believe or not, so did Debi.  She died in the non-smoking section.  Below is a video where you can see her warrior spirit and her valor.  She was a 2-3 pack a day smoker who started when she was 13.  While living with cancer for 20 years, Debi became a person who, in her cut short life, courageously and selflessly saved countless lives and inspired a multitude to take back control of their addiction.  Make sure you watch the whole thing because the end is the most powerful part.

...Over Your Dead Body...(Death Express Continued)

...Over Your Dead Body...(Death Express Continued) 

Well, it looks like my friend on HubPages went and did it again!  Go take a look at this Hub for a painting with words.  Look at it.  See if you can see your reflection in this mirror.  Even if you don't smoke, you may have a monkey on your back that may very well be looking you straight in the eye?

Let's say you used to smoke...  or drink...  or...  you fill in that blank.  Here's the deal.  In my book, How To Smoking Without Killing Anyone, I challenge you to be a smoker who doesn't smoke.  This smoking thing has become a part of who you are.  It's a piece of your identity now.  Like it or not and this part of your life, that journey and experience of being a smoker made you who you are now.

You can't hide from that and you will never escape it.  What you do now is just that.  Stay in this now and leave the past where it belongs.  In the past.  The choice is yours.

Stay tuned for more...

...Till Death Do Us Part/Death Express...(All Aboard the Quit Smoking Train cont.

The Next Chapter in the Carole Anzolletti series of fictional free verse expressionistic Gothic jive is called appropriately, "...Till Death Do Us Part/Death Express...(All Aboard The Quit Smoking Train Cont.)"

Here we pick up on the tragedy of the previous evening.  Still fresh in the ash of all things avoidable, we encounter a soul struggling to stay out of Death's gaze and pull.  In fact in this segment, we meet many souls.

For most, we never know when Death will come knocking, the question Carol raises here and that I also ask in my book, How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone, is why speed up the inevitable here?  I mean, let's not send this cat Death a friggin invitation and meet him half way to the door...  can you dig on that?

Because, really...  and I've said it before and I'll said it again, smoking really is a passive aggressive form of suicide.  I mean c'mon, it's almost 2012, you know this will kill you and you do it any way?  What is that all about?  Do you have some sort of Death Wish?

It's time to rise up, like a Phoenix, from your own ashes and live!

Think about it...  and stay tuned for more!

All Aboard The Quit Smoking Express!

Go Read This!  All Aboard The Quit Smoking Express! 

Yes, I'm aware there's a slight "conflict of interest in the fact that "quit" is a key word here and I, as you know I am in the "just stop" camp. 

This narrative will capture your imagination and has a nice little twist at the end!

Written by Carole Anzolletti, a regular contributor to HubPages, she weaves a wonderful yarn that will most definitely aid you in your quest to quit or stop, whatever works for you!

Look, if you're looking to get off cigarettes, or stop any bad habit for that matter, then by all means, do so in a creative matter.  The urge to do what you're stopping will generate a tremendous amount of energy.  So, by all means, filter that energy into something positive and release it.  Carole wrote a series on HubPages, I wrote a book, "How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone."

So, dear readers, follow the link above and enjoy!  Then stay tuned here because, I'll be linking up more of these narratives along the way...

How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone Testimonial

When I decided to write and publish a book on How to Stop Smoking, I did it with the intention of empowering people who wanted to stop but couldn't quite get their head around it.  Stopping smoking is a mental game of chess.  Winning that game will not be easy.  It is completely possible and simple as a mater of fact, it's just not easy.  The following testimonial is another success story!  I want you to use this success to know that the only thing holding you back from becoming a non-smoker is you!  You can stop.  If Karen can do it, you can too...

David I wanted you to see what I wrote at Amazon for your book review. I am not a writer.. I would like to think you might approve... here it is...

In 6 years of working on the no smoking game that I have been playing, I have quiet 4 times.... My daughter in law said I need help from a professional, We didn't find one, (only for drugs and alcohol) Then I heard about this book and watched David's video and I was hooked. Couldn't wait to get the book. My parents, husband and I drove to Ga. (book in hand) when I was on week two, You see I can quit, I just can't stay that way, This time was different for me. This was it.. I read the book and it made such sense to me. I would bring the book out and my mother would say "what are you going to write now" or I would read different parts to her and we would discuss it. I can't tell you enough about the book except that I am now on about day 60 and have never made it past 14 days without a puff,even for 6 months. With the help of David's book I have decided that I don't need a cigarette or puff or anything, I am stronger than it is... I thought I loved the love of smoking and David made me realize it was just the brain making me think that. it's not true. No one can love something that is going to kill you... I have read the book three times and get something new from it each time to make me stronger than before. My husband crossed out the word ANYONE and put HUSBAND. it was cute.. I can't even remember what it's like to live a smoke free life, I have had to learn it all new, Like a rebirth if that's what you want to call it. I am 53 years old and have been buying cigarettes since i was 14 years old, my first one at age 12. Nothing to be proud of. But it's a part of my life and I can't take it back or erase it, I can however change my tomorrow and todays. Today I tell myself that I Choose not to SMOKE.. Thank you David for all my years of living you have given to me so I can enjoy my beautiful grand babies.... Karen

What Are You Waiting For?

"Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

For an achiever, perhaps the most dangerous, most destructive habit of all is procrastination, for it robs you of your initiative. When you put things off once, it's easier to put them off again, until the habit is so firmly ingrained that it cannot be easily broken. Sadly, the effects of the habit of procrastination are also cumulative. Its cure is obvious -- action. You'll be surprised how quickly you begin to feel better about yourself and your situation when you get going on something-anything. As British prime minister and author Benjamin Disraeli said, "Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action."  

Once again, Napoleon Hill tells it like it is...

 

How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone Gets A Video Review!

In this video, Jerad Spencer talks about what he got from my book, How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone.

This is huge for me and deeply appreciated! 








Copies are available on my website http://www.stopdontquit.com/, here on the blog or at Amazon. 

What Kind of Smoker Are You: The Reply

 As you know this blog is the spin off/continuation of my book, How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone.  The other day, I get an email with an opening paragraph that said this:

Hey... so I wrote a reply to your article but apparently it's too long LOL... The system won't post it because I have too many characters. I figured instead of rewriting it or scratching it altogether I'd just send it to you direct, do with it what you will.  :-)

The article/blog was called What Kind of Smoker Are You?  In it is an examination of smoker types.  I sent this one out to a few friends who I know to be smokers and non-smokers, looking for additional insight.  One reply that followed was worthy of a blog of it's own...  and apparently too long to be just a "comment."  So without further to-do, allow me to present the "comment" in it's entirety.



In the spirit of this article I decided to make a list of typical smoking times/places to see if I could find my own patterns.

-Doing homework
-Reading
-After a movie
-After a TV show
-With coffee
-With alcohol
-While on the phone
-During lunch- in fact, my lunch break became an hour long smoke break where I could usually get between 3-4 of them in and I’d just run through Del Taco on my way home in the evening instead of actually eating lunch on my break.
-The drive into work
-The drive home from work
-Watching the sunset/rise
-While at the beach- I was deeply offended by the no smoking laws on the beach that were enforced recently…
-If I was sad, if I was angry, if I was happy…

I was never afraid to quit but the honest truth of it is I like to smoke. I like the feeling of it, the heat, the fire of it, the draw and the weight deep in the hidden corners of my lungs being filled with a long drawn breath, the resistance of it and the essential quiet that comes with it- taking that moment to breathe deeply, exhale deeply… there’s nothing like it.

I didn't really have a pattern and I don't think I'm really a 'type'. I found all sorts of excuses in positive situations and negative. Mostly negative, though because smoking veiled all the bad things, glorified them in a fog, turned horrible situations into romantic ones. A break up- once a bitter angry moment suddenly becomes a scene right out of a movie. The death of a loved one- horrible and shocking, becomes a quiet moment of reflection where once again, you can cut and paste it directly into any number of films. Smoking becomes an extension of the personality, it becomes a gesture, a facial expression, it’s own words and sentences. Sometimes smokers don’t even need to speak, it’s all in the way you hold it, the way you take the drag, the way you exhale is a conversation and only those in your private world can understand you.

As far as the list goes, I was a recreational smoker, an emotional smoker, a coffee and cigarettes diet smoker, a situational smoker and well, the alcoholic smoker was omnipresent throughout all those others. I was also a spiritual smoker- after tarot readings, using it instead of food to “come down” afterward, hell I have even been known to use the smoke from my clove instead of sage to cleanse a space for readings from time to time. 

Because I only smoked cloves, I felt sort of… above the influence. I didn’t smoke “regular” cigarettes so I felt that I was immune to the issues of smokers. I didn’t think I was addicted. Yeah, I know how that sounds. I really didn’t. I thought, I smoke because I like to, not because I have to. I thought that until I decided to “quit.” Only then did I learn how much of a smoker I actually was.

I am a smoker. About 10 years before I started smoking, someone once told me I was destined to smoke because I was a pyro. So yeah, I had a thing for the flame, candles, incense, and firelight on an open hearth, a camp fire with burning coals shining like priceless jewels in some lost Arabian treasure. The idea that something so gentle and brilliant could also in the same instant be painfully destructive and deadly was fascinating to me. So yeah, I love the romanticism of firelight in any form, the historical, time travelling, deliciously romantic feeling of it in any form. It only made sense to want to consume it, to become it and smoking is as close as anyone can get to fire without it burning.
Such a romantic, aren’t I? Except it does burn. That was sort of what I liked about it. When I was depressed, the burn of the smoke in my body felt like a cleansing veil, consuming the pain, consuming me… then you add Mr Daniels to that little party and its self-destruction on cloud nine, all the time, baby.

A clove and a mocha, sunset and a book and it’s a picture worthy of recording. Or with a glass of red wine, with a Jack and coke or just the Jack… there are a thousand ways to pair it I could write a book on ways to make your cigarette more tasty! LOL… 

The point is, I didn’t quit. 

I came to terms with the fact that I am a smoker. Through a long history of falling for smokers and drinkers, those damn romantic boys with the silver tongues, scotch in one hand and a smoke in the other… heh… yeah, I’m always gonna be a smoker and a special place in my heart will always exist for the persona that just as you said, lives and glorifies the romanticism of the act. 

I stopped smoking because I wanted kids. I wanted them to be healthy and live in a home that was healthy. I won’t hide the fact that I used to smoke to them, in fact I’m sure I’ll be blatantly honest with them about it in hopes that they can learn from it. I can’t call it a mistake, but I can call it a lesson.
It’s been almost a year now- January 8th, in fact… And yeah, there are moments I want it, oooh man do I want it… I still have two sealed cartons of smuggled in cloves (after they were banned from the US I ordered them online) in my freezer. Will I ever take them out? Heh, I have no idea.

I completely agree with the chemical aspect, the psychology is hands down irrefutable. I read an article during my studies in psychology about children with ADHD growing up to become smokers and how this correlation is highly understated. Nicotine calms the brain, even as it stimulates it. We are self medicating even when we don’t realize it. The basic idea was backed up in my bio-psych class where it stated the part of the brain affected by nicotine is the same part that is stimulated while with loved ones. If we’re depressed or otherwise psychologically damaged, we are replacing real love with cigarettes. It’s a pretty easy concept but you’d be surprised how many people think I’m nuts when I tell them… 

Anyway, a lot of truth exists in the concept of these many types of smoker, but ultimately if we don’t deal with our demons, we will never allow ourselves to move away from smoking. Also, on the subject of demons… people try to give the cigarette a personality. It’s a demon, pressing on our will power. It’s got a grip on us. No, silly.. you have a grip on your will power and you’re not ready to make the move. When we can admit that, we’re one step closer to putting them down.

Ok that’s all I have to say. LOL… sorry for the rant and thanks for the article!

And thank you for the reply!  If you enjoyed this comment/rant and would like more, please check out Ishtar's Web.  And if you too have a comment that is too long for posting, please email it to me at thepuravidacompany@gmail.com and I will see to it that your thoughts are made known.  As always, this blog is also a forum for you the reader and smoker to clear the air (so to speak) and over come addictions, fight compulsion, and eliminate the bad habits that keep us from our dreams and goals.