I gave up the weed 12months ago and went the 'cold turkey' route. Previous attempts to quit over the years had involved patches, hypnosis etc and had not been successful.
After about six months without cigs, I developed a very bad cough and was short of breath...........this continued for about two months. Doctor said this was normal and that it was just my body clearing out all the smoking muck from my lungs.
What benifits:
More cash in my pocket
No morning cough
Food tastes great
I'm not running from one smoking area to the next
No smoking hangover
Wife approves
I dont stink of gigs
I smoked since 11 years of age, the usual behind the bike sheds at school.
Around early 40s started to get Claudication in calf muscles due to blockages in arteries etc. Several ops to open them up, which all hurt like hell.
I knew it was the fags, plus diet doing it so I tried all sorts to give it up.
No patches, or Nicotene gum in those days, so acupuncture, hypnosis, I tried them all. Still could not quit.
Then had a bad MI (heart attack) in 2000 rushed to Major heart hospital 75 miles away by ambulance (air ambulance was on another job) as clot buster drugs did not work for me.
My little Thai wife in the front, looking petrified, doctor and para medic, trying to keep me alive, all the usual.
The damage was done, and now heart function much reduced and on loads of pills everyday, plus had 2 more heart Stents fitted, since original MI. Also Morphine for bone problems.
2 years ago started to hear my heartbeat in my right ear at night when laying down. So had a doppler scan and sure enough, my right Carotid artery was 90% blocked, urgent op required, as high probability of major stroke.
One consultant wanted to operate, but I'm on Clopidogrel plus other blood thinning drugs, and my Cardiologist would not allow me to stop taking these drugs long enough, for the other consultant to safely operate.
Also due to my weak heart, no anesthesiologist would give me general anesthetic, as high risk of death on the table.
So big decision time, I needed the op, the surgeon wanted to do it, so I opted for having it done under local anesthetic.
Problem was, local anesthetics have little or no effect on me, so it was going to hurt.
Six litres of matching blood found, together with a cardio thoracic team on standby in the theatre, in case in their words "we have to crack you open and fool around with your heart".
Sixteen big injections in jaw line and neck, classical music of my choosing on the speakers, and in he went.
That song "the first cut is the deepest" is wrong, each cut hurt like hell, the diathermy thing, that burns and seals the tissue in one go, hurt even more.
Guys, think of having your throat cut, in very, very, slow motion.
Get the picture?
They set up a drip of local anesthetic, straight into the open wound as they cut, to try to reduce pain, but it did no good.
Two and a half hours later and God knows how much blood pumped in, I'm in recovery, with a team still trying to stem the flow of blood from the wound. Ten hours later bleeding stopped.
I now have a 7 inch scar that runs from the back of my ear to the level of my collarbone.
It took this event, to make me see the real damage smoking was doing to me, and the pain my wife had to go through, with all the trips to the hospital etc, for me to finally give it up.
So with the help of nicorett gum and things like carrot sticks to chew on and other things to keep me busy I finally kicked it.
I don't consider myself an ex smoker, but rather a smoker, who chooses not to smoke.
To all you guys trying to give it up, good luck, and to all you guys who don't want to, good luck to you as well.
I've lost my mind and I am making no effort to find it.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The jury that decided a 40-year chain-smoker was helplessly addicted to nicotine must now decide whether tobacco giant Philip Morris owes his family potentially millions of dollars for his death from lung cancer.
The next phase of the closely-watched lawsuit filed by the man's widow, Elaine Hess, starts Friday in Broward County Circuit Court. Hess' lawyers plan to argue that Stuart Hess became hooked on cigarettes because of deceptive practices by Philip Morris that hid the dangers of smoking.
"The jury's going to hear a lot more about what the tobacco industry has been doing for the last several decades," said Adam Trop, one of Hess' attorneys.
The lawsuit is the first of about 8,000 such cases to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion jury award in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of smokers and their families.
The state's high court upheld the conclusion that tobacco companies knowingly sold dangerous products and concealed smoking's health risks, but ruled each case must be proven individually. The jury's decision Thursday that Hess did not continue smoking by his own choice was crucial.
"It is highly likely that the tobacco companies will be forced to account for their decades-long, reprehensible history of corporate wrongdoing," said Edward L. Sweda Jr., attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University law school.
Hess' attorneys have not revealed how much they will seek, but it would likely be in the millions of dollars. Elaine Hess broke down in tears when the verdict was announced after almost three hours of deliberations, but declined to comment.
In a news release, Philip Morris warned it was not giving up.
"The Hess trial is not over," said the Richmond, Va.-based company, a unit of Altria Group.
In closing arguments, Hess attorneys Gary Paige and Alex Alvarez said Stuart Hess tried for 40 years to quit his heavy smoking, even trying hypnosis. But they said the powerful nicotine forced Hess to continue smoking even as he underwent chemotherapy before he died in 1997 at age 55.
"People smoke because they're addicted, not because they choose to," Paige said. "Nobody wants to be addicted to cigarettes. It's as addictive as cocaine and heroin."
Philip Morris attorney Kenneth Reilly said Hess' medical records show that he quit from time to time but decided each time to resume smoking despite doctors' advice to stop. Reilly said thousands of smokers successfully quit each year.
The trial is being closely watched by the tobacco industry and by thousands of other Florida smokers and survivors who have filed similar lawsuits. Although it does not have a direct legal effect on those other lawsuits, the Hess case could signal how they may turn out.
Much of Hess' evidence concerned the tobacco industry's well-documented efforts to hide and downplay the dangers of smoking, but Reilly said Hess was well aware by the mid-1960s of government warnings about health risks.
The $145 billion damage award by a Miami jury — in 2000 the largest such punitive award in U.S. history — was thrown out as excessive by the state Supreme Court. It involved a class of smokers estimated at about 700,000 as part of a 1994 lawsuit filed by Miami Beach Dr. Howard Engle, a pediatrician who had smoked for decades and couldn't quit.
At the time, the Engle case was the first class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies to make it to trial in the U.S.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Source
Very very good post. That should get a few people thinking.
Hi norm
Thanks for that, I was lucky, many more don't make it.
I worked for a multi national conglomerate from around 1985 - 1999 and one of their companies was part of "big tobacco" just looking at the yearly company accounts, you can see why they make so much profit.
You can bet that these companies factor in the costs of these class action lawsuits, into the price of each pack sold. A "war chest", comes in very handy in cases such as the one in prcscct's post.
So in effect, smokers in these cases, are only getting back money they have paid these companies.
Please don't get me wrong, this is in no way a rant against adult smokers. We know the risks, kids don't.
My anger is against the lies and tricks they use, to snare kids who will be their next source of easy profits.
Walk into a village or small town in Africa, India and other like countries. you will see shops painted in exactly the same colours as the packets of cigarettes they sell, this is paid for by the tobacco companies, as their way of getting around the advertising laws.
Go inside and see little kids buying a single cigarette from the pots on the counter.
These pots contain a pack of fags that the shop owner has split and are sold 1 at a time to kids who don't have shoes on their feet, yet scrimp and save and in some cases steal, in order that they can have a fag.
And guess who supply the pots (in corporate colours) yes you guessed it, Big Tobacco.
The Big Tobacco companies promised to stop this practise in the mid 90s but new paint and pots appear even now, over 13 years later.
These kids are are already hooked, but unlike those who have access to good layers, will never benefit from a class action lawsuit and Big Tobacco know it.
I've lost my mind and I am making no effort to find it.
