The Beer Problem

I am still a smoker despite my profound efforts to change this. While I am still indulging in this deadly habit, I have made alot of progress since I last posted in September. It has become clear to me that quitting cigarettes, at least for me personally, is going to have to be a gradual process. I simply don't possess the personal willpower to go cold turkey. It is unfortunate, but I have been forced to realize that this is simply the way it is, and I am going to have to take a gradual approach to quitting.

As I said, I have made alot of progress over the course of my effort. Primarily, I no longer purchase packs of cigarettes. Anyone who has ever smoked knows what a big step it is. When you are a smoker and you buy packs regularly, you are smoking all the time, because they are always only as far away as your pocket. And when you run out, you go to the nearest gas station or convenience store to re-up. This becomes habitual, and this is how daily cigarette routines come into play. The regular and constant avaliability of cigarettes is obviously what fuels the habit. So I stopped. For anyone not familar with cigarette prices these days, it is brutal on anyones wallet. The cheapest pack of cigarettes in Rhode Island today is a little over seven dollars. For anyone smoking a pack a day (given they elect to smoke the cheapest, lowest quality brand of cigarettes offered), they are spending $50 a week > $200 a month > $2,400 a year. $2,400 a year spent on something that significantly contributes to an earlier death. Wow. These statistics alone were enough to make me realize that I had to stop spending money on packs of cigarettes, both for my health and my finances.

This has done alot for me. By no longer purchasing packs of cigarettes, I have gone from smoking probably an average of 60 cigarettes a week, to somewhere between 5-20, depending on how much beer I drink in that given week.

And this brings me to what I like to call the Beer problem. I am twenty years old, almost of legal drinking age in the United States, and I am not ashamed to say that I love to drink beer. I do not have a drinking problem, I am im complete control of my drinking, but come weekends when all school work assignments are finished, by 8 o'clock you will find me with a cold Keystone Light in hand, ready to embark for an epic, wild night of recreational drinking within the college utopia that is the Eastward Look neighborhood of Narragansett Rhode Island. And that is a pattern of behaviour that is not going to change during my remaining two years of true youth here at URI.

But this is when I smoke, alot. Anyone who has regularly smoked cigarettes and drank beer in their life know that nicotine and cold beer go together like peanut butter and jelly. With a stomach full of beer there is nothing more I want than a tasty Marlboro, and it is an urge I rarely, if ever maintain the willpower to resist in my less than sober state of mind. As I said, I have made alot of progress in controlling my urges over the course of the past month. When I'm sober, I have noticed a marked decrease in my urges and need for a cigarette at any given time during the day. I am even able to go a full day, even two, without having one, wheras a month ago I rarely went 2 hours without having a cigarette. But when beer comes into the picture, all bets are off. It is truly a curse how much I like beer and cigarettes together. I find this to be the main problem between me and completely stopping quitting cigarettes, and I am at a juncture. A juncture that I call the Beer problem.

Updates on Quitting/Hypnosis Technique

Well, it has been well over a month since I have posted about my battle to quit smoking cigarettes, and I am not happy to say that it was not a good month. At this time, I am still a smoker. In my most recent post I discussed my next approach would be attending the free hypnosis methods offered by URI health services as an aid to quitting smoking. The fact that this was free was extremely intriguing to me, and I also thought it would be an interesting experience. It was; but in the end it did not kick my habit. For anyone wondering exactly what hypnosis is, here is a good definition I found online:

"Hypnosis is concentrated relaxation. In other words, hypnotism allows a person to relax, while focusing on a particular problem or desired result. It's not just relaxing or falling asleep. During hypnotherapy, you relax your mind and body, moving past the guard of your conscious mind, to the subconscious mind. Your conscious mind constantly edits and grades and judges your thoughts and inputs. Your subconscious mind is a sponge waiting to absorb whatever you give it. Your subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between reality and imagination. Therefore, if you can get past the locked gates of your conscious mind to your subconscious mind, you can feed the subconscious "imagined reality." So if you can imagine yourself as a non-smoker, your subconscious mind will accept that as reality.
By reprogramming your subconscious mind you can change your actual behavior. Hypnosis is the key to removing the barrier your conscious mind places in front of you, and reaching the subconscious." (Quote from http://www.quitsmoking.com/hypnosis/index.htm)

I visited the clinic and there were about 8-10 other students in the room. There was a woman in the room who started us with some simple, breathing excercises and soothing words. We were all seated on comfortable floors and eventually lied down. After about 10 minutes, I found myself in an extremely relaxed state, but unfortunantley felt I was about to fall asleep. I won't lie, during the half hour session, I believe I may have fallen asleep for about 10-15 minutes, because I don't really remember hearing or thinking about anything for a solid chunk of the time. I'm not sure if this was me in a hypnotized state, or me in an asleep state. After about 7-10 minutes of lulling us into this weird, relaxed, sedated state, the woman in the room put on an audio CD, which featured calm, relaxing music. Soon a voice came on and spoke in half minute intervals about how cigarettes were not necessary to deal with stress. After this point I don't really remember anything that was said on the CD, and I believe this is around the time in the session where I either fell asleep or fell into a deeply hypnotized state. The next thing Iremember is slowly coming to, with the lights slowly being turned on, and the woman from the beginning telling us to slowly wake up as the session had come to a close.

Upon completion of the session, I was fascinated to see if what had just happened would actually help me quit smoking. I was skeptical coming into the session about the power of hypnosis but was truly impressed at the sedated state of deep and profound relaxation I was lulled into so quickly during this session, and was curious to see if it had any impact upon my subconcious.

Concerning quitting smoking, the hypnosis did not really help me. It helped for a short period of time, I believe after the session I did not have a cigarette for 2 or 3 days, but I still had the intense cravings for them, and relapsed once again. I do believe however that for a person with stronger willpower than myself, hypnosis could be a significant aid in quitting smoking, as I can now personally attest to the power it holds in alleviating stress and putting a person into a state of create relaxation. But if you are, like I was, seeking a cure-all approach to kicking the nasty habit of cigarette smoking, hypnosis is not the answer.