This Day's Retroactively Posted Smoking Log:
1^st @ 11:45 AM
2^nd @ 1:20 pm
3^RD @ 3:00 PM
4^th @ 4:30 pm
5^th @ 6:00 pm
6^th @ 7:00 PM
7^th @ 8:00 PM
8^th @ 8:25 PM (fuck it – I was hanging around outside with my dad…)
9^th @ 10:00 pm
10^th @ 11:30 PM
11^th @ 2:00 am who knows – maybe it’ll somehow help me sleep… fuguck…

An Average Time-Interval of 85.5 minutes... You win some, you lose some...

1^st @ 11:15 AM
2^nd @ 1:20 PM
3^rd @ 3:15 PM
4^th @ 5:15 PM
5^th @ 7:15 PM
6^th @ 8:40 PM
7^th @ 9:55 PM
8^th @ 11:30 PM
9^th @ 1:50 AM Average Interval of 109 minutes! WOW!

The Day's Smoking-Log:

1^st @ 11:30 AM
2^nd @ 12:30 PM
3^rd @ 2:20 PM
4^th @ 4:00 PM
5^th @ 5:15 PM
6^th @ 6:20 PM
7^th @ 7:35 PM
8^th @ 8:45 PM
9^th @ 11:15 PM
10^th @ 1:00 AM Average time-interval 90 minutes!

Smoking Reduces Resistance to the Bacteria that Cause Stomach Ulcers

This is one of those affirmations that isn’t quite so obvious, or as threatening, as some of the others. The bacterium Helicobacter pylori is believed to be present in the upper gastrointestinal tract of more than 50% of the world’s population, yet 80% of those so infected show no symptoms as a result.

While it is speculated that Helicobacter pylori may play an important role in the ecology of the stomach (as so many other bacteria certainly do) it has also been linked to gastric ulcers, chronic gastritis (inflammation of the stomach-lining), and stomach cancer. It is believed that the helical-shape of the bacterium has evolved in order to penetrate the mucous lining in the stomach.

Nasty – and smoking, apparently, makes it harder for the body to resist the penetrative activities of these potentially harmful bacteria. (Before I began writing this post, I was out on the balcony having a cigarette with my Father, and asked him if he’d ever had an ulcer. He said no. I’ve never had one either. It’s entirely possible that we are actually reducing our bodies’ resistance to Helicobacter pylori, but that our natural resistance is strong enough for it not to be a concern… One of the genetic inheritances that run in my Family is incredible hardiness…)

Helicobacter pylori in the lumen of a gastric foveola
Photo courtesy of euthman

Anyway, as promised, here’s the log of yesterday’s cigarette-consumption:

1^st cigarette of the day @ 11:15 AM (unfortunately, I’d only just gotten up at 11:00)
2^nd @ 12:20 PM
3^rd @ 1:30 PM – which I stopped wanting after two or three puffs, and threw away half-finished!
4^th @ 2:50 PM
5^th @ 3:50
6^th @ 5:40 PM
7^th @ 7:10 PM
8^th @ 8:55 PM
9^th @ 10:30 PM
10^th @ 10:50 PM – (by this time in the evening, I’ve had a few beers or more…)
11^th @ 12:15 AM
12^th and final cigarette @ 1:20, just shortly before finally getting to bed…

I’d like to add that the average-spacing between cigarettes of 71 minutes is not the result of any exertion of will-power, I smoked whenever I felt like it. This amount of cigarettes is not unlike the frequency at which I smoked when I was a 15-year-old high-school student, but it is a great deal different from the pack or so a day I’ve gotten used to smoking in recent years. 12 cigarettes in a day was actually pretty disappointing, but Walter’s Special Technique isn’t intended to have instantaneous results. This third time around applying the technique, I’d resolved to consistently stick with it for as long as it took, not only for the urge to smoke to disappear, but to keep it gone by continuing to use these cards even after the quit-date (something I didn’t do either time before…)

So far today, I’ve had one cigarette, and that was an hour ago. I’ll keep tracking them, and we’ll compare them again sometime on the weekend.

RETROACTIVE UPDATE: Smoking Log for the Day:

1^st cigarette of the day @ 11:20 AM (I wake up late these days - this was maybe 20 minutes or so after waking...)
2^nd @ 12:35 PM
3^rd @ 2:05 PM
4^th @ 3:05 PM
5^th @ 4:45 PM
6^th @ 6:15 PM
7^th @ 7:50 PM
8^th @ 8:35 PM
9^th @ 10:20 PM
10^th @ 11:45 PM
11^th @ 12:55 AM
12^th @ 1:35 AM

Average time-interval 77 minutes…

Smoking Dramatically Disturbs Emotional Well-Being

Once, years ago, I was talking with a man who followed the 12-Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous and hadn’t had a drop in many years. We were talking about the emotion-stuffing effects of alcoholism and drug use in general. Now this was back in 2001, when you could even still find those closed-in ‘smoking rooms’ in coffee shops. We were actually sitting in a café which was technically a ‘club’ and they had ceramic ashtrays on the tables – not those disposable foil things they used to use in the food-courts of shopping malls…

Anyway, this guy grabbed one of my cigarettes from the open pack on the table and held it up, looking me in the eye and saying “these are the most powerful emotion-stuffers of them all…” And I simply couldn’t fail to believe him. I’d been a pothead and a drunk, had experimented with other drugs before (and since) and the only drug that absolutely made my skin crawl from withdrawal was tobacco. (Now, mind you, I’ve never been a heroin-addict or anything – I gather that’s a withdrawal process you don’t want to meet…) One full weekend of Ritalin-induced sleeplessness in a coffee shop had me uncontrollably leaking at the eyes as the “reuptake inhibition” of my brain’s “monoamine transporters” wore off, resulting in my brain reabsorbing all the excess dopamine and norepinephrine floating around and causing just about the worst chemically-caused feeling of depression I’ve ever experienced. But it wasn’t exactly difficult to avoid abusing that horrible drug again…

Smokers who try giving up the habit “cold-turkey” experience a pretty wide range of sensations and moods in their first two weeks or so, and the people close to them often experience it too! That’s not to say that quitting smoking inevitably results in outbursts of irritability, but there is almost always irritability going on inside, among other things. It’s simply part of the inescapable physiological withdrawal process, and some deal with it better than others.

I’ve said before, ‘Walter’s Special Technique’ cannot circumvent withdrawal from cigarette-smoking, but it does put the smoker into a lasting frame of mind in which those symptoms do not cause an urge to smoke cigarettes. The two times I quit before, I spent my first few weeks as a non-smoker interestedly witnessing the gradually changing physical sensations in my chest and nerves, and was most interested to find that I didn’t suffer from an unpleasant attitude or any excessive irritability whatsoever.

Indeed, the power of subliminal suggestion has far-reaching effects. There’ve been plenty of other times that my level of irritability was a fairly constant problem, given what was going on in my life and with the people around me – and those were times when I couldn’t possibly attribute the fact to tobacco-withdrawal.

Hence today’s affirmation: Smoking Dramatically Disturbs Emotional Well-Being. The simple fact of it is that, (among so many other effects), routinely inhaling tobacco-smoke interferes with the run of our emotions. It’s not only when a smoker abruptly stops smoking that his emotions are thrown out of whack – in fact, the experience is more an awareness of the process of his emotional systems returning to normal working order. This is why, on the two occasions I found myself suddenly smoking no more without any further temptation, I was able to observe the many processes of healing without being upset or irritated by them. I recognized the sensations as ongoing feedback as to my body’s progress, and was constantly encouraged by them.

oedipusphinx — — — —theJWDban

Anyway, yesterday I said I’d begin a daily log of how many cigarettes I smoke and at what times… Since I’ve been getting into the habit of starting each day by composing a post discussing the affirmation of the day, I thought it would be best to publish the post earlier in the day, instead of including the cigarette-consumption log and posting right before going to bed. So I’ll post the number of cigarettes I smoked today on tomorrow’s post, and so on. I’m pretty excited – as I said before, I’ve cut down significantly without really thinking about it, so it’ll be good to have a precise, daily comparison to track my gradual progress… I hope it’ll at least provide some healthy encouragement for any of you who are starting out using this technique!