Here's what I found interesting about quitting smoking:
For us modern Westerners, morality has evolved from an authoritarian, rule-based system to a consequentialist one based on individual judgment of specific cases. An example of the former would be Jewish law: don't eat certain foods; don't wear certain clothes; don't perform certain activities on certain days. Why? Because that's what G-d and the rabbi tell you to do. Or for Catholics: x is a mortal sin, y is a venal sin, tell the priest about it and he'll tell you how many Our Fathers to say to atone. Nowadays most of us think of this stuff as superstition, even the religious among us. We decide for ourselves what's the right thing to do, and we evaluate potential actions largely on their consequences. It's OK to lie to your friend to spare her feelings. It's OK to kill someone in self-defense, or in defense of others. It's OK to steal money to buy medicine for your dying wife. Most of us accept this way of looking at the world, with all its gray areas. Personally, I think this is progress.
When you're quitting smoking, you have to decide -- constantly, every day -- which is more important: your need for a cigarette right this instant, or the damage that will be done to you by that one cigarette. And if you keep thinking about it that way, eventually your craving will grow so powerful that you'll say fuck it and choose the cigarette.
So the only way to stay quit is to adopt a rule: I will not smoke cigarettes because I am not allowed to smoke cigarettes. It feels odd, to decide that certain questions about what you'll do are settled in advance, because we're not used to it. But it worked for me. Good luck.
This works for other things, too. If you're constantly evaluating whether breaking the rules is likely to pay off this time, you're probably going to break the rules too much, or spend too much time processing about it. Deciding on a set of morals you will not break (except in extremis) frees your time and energy to do things that will pay off, at very little opportunity cost. Further, if you communicate that you've done this, either explicitly by discussion or implicitly by refusing to do things "just this once" that are wrong according to the rules you chose, you'll lower the transaction costs of others interacting with you, and thereby people will trust you and interact with you more. This is called "rep", I think. :)
I find both what ardit and you have said interesting. While I was reading your post I expected you to come to the conclusion that tho only way to stop is to look at things broadly. Within the consequential morality a single cigarette isn't such a bad thing, but that is narrow perspective. So, the better reason is one that reminds you of your negative ideation of smoking, why you want to stop. The shortened life, the wheezing caugh and voice, the need for an air tank and medications for your heart, the cost of it all, including the cigarettes.
It took me a very long time to learn how to hack without smoking after I got used to it. For those that have never done it, there is a real measurable performance increase for smoking while programming. It comes at the cost of killing you years earlier, and making you chronically unhealthy, but it does make you hack faster.
I eventually found that when I took wellbutrin to stop smoking it had the exact same mental effect for hacking. You may want to see your doctor and give it a try.
That said, don't start smoking, ever, for any reason. It's a terrible habit that takes forever to quit, costs thousands of dollars a year, and can easily start with just one smoke.
there is a real measurable performance increase for smoking while programming.
I used to smoke and found this also to be true. HOWEVER, when actually working with a team at an office I realized it was actually decreasing performance because I had to constantly dodge out back for a smoke break, completely disrupting my flow. Even most places where I've lived the past 5 years weren't really smoke friendly, so smoking just became a huge distraction rather than a concentration aid.
In addition to the obvious health and financial reasons, this was a big reason that I quit. Thus, even though I'm all for less government, I fully support smoking bans.
I wonder if the same technique would work for harder drugs. I.e. legalize cocaine and heroin, but make it so that the only place people can legally do them is in a cold alleyway 30 yards behind the pub, next to a garbage dumpster. This way you'd get rid of the drug-dealing related crime but make it seem like a pretty lame habit to pick up.
I find that taking that break to smoke actually increases performance.
Coding is a miracle for the smoker, and vice-versa.
When working on a specific task within my code, I refuse to go smoke, wanting to stay in the zone and get all of my thoughts in there and working - thus, savings my lungs.
After a task has been completed, especially the difficult ones, I find the 5-7 minute break before moving on to the next task to be extremely beneficial. It gives me a few minutes to unwind, gather my thoughts, and anticipate/plan what my next steps will be.
On the plus side, smoking is good for creating a social interaction situation - smokers meet each other and chat. And it creates some semi-forced breaks in the day, which is good.
On the down side, there are health risks (obviously). And to some non-smokers, the smell is really repulsive. (I've had people try and convince me that this is bullshit. Um. No, trust me, not everyone is physically wired the same way, to some people smokers are unpleasant to be around just after they've had a cigarette. We're not lying.) And it wastes time and a non-trivial amount of money.
Good luck if you decide to quit - it's very hard, but people manage it.
Good luck quiting! I don't smoke, but I'm close people who have quit and or are trying to. Don't get too discouraged from not successfully quitting. From what I have seen, it seems like most people have to try several times before successfully quitting. So it's completely normal. And just you fail a few times, it doesn't mean you don't have the ability to quit.You should let us know sometime later how you are doing quitting smoking. I'd be interested.
I've had excellent results from using smoking as a quick test to disqualify applicants for programming positions--on the theory that anyone who smokes can't really be smart enough to be a good hire. This test might occasionally make a mistake, but it seems overwhelmingly accurate.
That's right! Obviously, this test is used to reject applicants who otherwise seem extremely plausible when they present themselves. We'll know in a couple of years whether the test was right or wrong about our new hire Obama.
That's just ridiculous. Some of the smartest hackers I know are heavy smokers - and I'm not even counting myself in.
What about fat people, they can't be really smart either, right?
Oh and people wearing glasses can't be too smart either. If they were smart they'd know that getting rid of the glasses through lasic would get them into a better position on the job market.
Enthusiastic tobacco bashing is entertaining coming as it often does from from dough boys and girls.
Controlled tobacco use is not really dangerous. A few cigarettes a week are not going to kill you. A coke and a candy bar every day just might. Why the disparity in self-righteous outrage?
A few years ago, I saw a news article about a small Canadian study (out of Alberta, I think; maybe the University at Edmonton) that found nicotine to be as effective as prescription medications in mediating AD(H)D symptoms. I've seen other items online emphasizing its effect on concentration.
I'm having trouble googling up a reference, but I did find this:
Or like radiation cures cancer. Radiation treatment is basically just controlled radiation poisoning. A lot of the side effects are the same. Nothing is totally beneficial, or totally detrimental.
I'm not saying that it's not horribly detrimental. I'm just saying that it has some small benefits. Nicotine can cause weight loss, act as a stimulant, and reduce stress. Though all of those benefits can be gotten a lot safer ways.
Nature ran an article about how a patent was keeping an arsenic based cancer drug out of reach of patients.
As you pointed out, nicotine is a stimulant; I doubt it's the nicotine that reduces stress. What's probably happening is that when a smoker lights up, their brain releases dopamine because they're finally getting what they're addicted to.
In the same manner, a cup of coffee can relax someone if they're a caffeine addict.
That is a good point. When addicts use drugs their stress is reduced. But nicotine is unique in that its profile depends on the dose.
When smokers want to have more concentration, they take short and quick puffs. This gets a low level of nicotine in the blood. At a low dose, nicotine increases norepinephrine and dopamine. So it acts like a stimulant.
When smokers want to relax, they take long and deep puffs. This increases the dose of nicotine. And at high doses, it affects serotonin and opiate levels in the brain and acts like a sedative.
I was responding specifically to nikblack's comment about finding it more effective than caffeine when hacking. I didn't mean to imply it's all puppies and daisies.
Amongst other things, nicotine's a vasoconstrictor. Long term exposure may not be the best thing for one's cardiovascular system, even leaving out the tar, volatiles, and plutonium that come with tobacco smoke.
Then there's the whole dance it performs with neurotransmitters and multiple addictive centers in the brain. I recall some researchers speculating that it may be so addictive at least in part because it activates multiple centers associated with addiction, whereas most drugs only activate one or another of those centers.
I smoke both pipes and cigars, but not those nasty ciagrettes. It seems like you are referring to either marijuana or cigarettes, neither of which I smoke!
I used to smoke between 20 and 30 cigs a day. This was something like
fifteen years ago. Over the years, I've been cutting down
gradually. Five years ago I smoked maybe ten ciggies a day. Generally
I feel that the first 10 cigs were rather easy to skip. The next 5
were difficult. And as the ciggies/day crept closer and closer to zero
the more difficult it got.
The last three months I've managed to smoke a total of seven
cigarettes.
Its a major pain. In reality my ambition was to quit completely
but... when the craving hits me I find myself using my entire mind-
all the logical skills I've learned over the years- completely
focused on convicing myself why I should take that ciggie. That its
ok. That its not _that_ bad for my health. etc.
And its almost impossible to resist.
At least for me, its this last cigarette I find the most difficult.
I've had the opposite experience. Whenever I was down to one or two cigarettes per day, I'd find myself using almost 100% of all my brainpower trying to convince myself to not give in to the craving. In the end, I decided that it would be more productive to smoke a few sticks a day and not have the craving run as a * * * * * /bin/trytosmoke cron job the whole day.
I've been able to keep it down to about 5 per day for a couple of years now.
Nobody I know quit smoking by "reducing" it. It's always either you do smoke, or you don't.
I am 28 and have been smoking since I was 16, have "quit" two times counting something close to three years combined, but have obviously returned to it later. Both times I quit I simply:
1. Threw the cigarette box I had with me.
2. Did not lit a cigarette, no matter what strange ways my brain took in order to seduce me back to it.
Well e-cigs are a good alternative to regular cigarettes. If I am smoking e-cigs then I don't need regular ones - try www.smokingeverywhere.com for ordering e-cigs.
I can't advise smoking everywhere. They sell their kits and parts for 3 times the price of other onine stores and the generic models that they re-brand are not even very good to begin with.
Ask yourself if you really think its reasonable to pay $150 for 2 x 3.7v batteries that connect to a hot wire and an LED because there really is nothing amazing or expensive about the technology that make these work though due to the newness of the product, Smoking Everywhere and other heavily marketed brands have been able to tempt consumers to part with big money at mall outlets and elsewhere.
The kits go for $10 - $15 wholesale from China and fierce competition online has sellers giving them away for as low as $35 sometimes or for an average price of around $50. There is also a far wider range of devices online as suppliers are having Chinese manufacturers create more advanced modifications to best compete. The best e-cig out there right now would you believe is one you can make on your own from a cheap flashlight!
I've become very taken with e-cigs and have quit tobacco effortlessly for almost a year now using them. The FDA though is very confused about them. They are stopping some imports but allowing others...some say it's do to with the packaging (don't market them as cessation devices!- nearly all the chinglish manuals do). Hong Kong recently outlawed them even for export so this has hindered supply in recent days. I set up a slinkset site to follow the news at http://www.e-cignews.com you can also find a list of all the stores there. I swear I add at least 1 new one a day.
For us modern Westerners, morality has evolved from an authoritarian, rule-based system to a consequentialist one based on individual judgment of specific cases. An example of the former would be Jewish law: don't eat certain foods; don't wear certain clothes; don't perform certain activities on certain days. Why? Because that's what G-d and the rabbi tell you to do. Or for Catholics: x is a mortal sin, y is a venal sin, tell the priest about it and he'll tell you how many Our Fathers to say to atone. Nowadays most of us think of this stuff as superstition, even the religious among us. We decide for ourselves what's the right thing to do, and we evaluate potential actions largely on their consequences. It's OK to lie to your friend to spare her feelings. It's OK to kill someone in self-defense, or in defense of others. It's OK to steal money to buy medicine for your dying wife. Most of us accept this way of looking at the world, with all its gray areas. Personally, I think this is progress.
When you're quitting smoking, you have to decide -- constantly, every day -- which is more important: your need for a cigarette right this instant, or the damage that will be done to you by that one cigarette. And if you keep thinking about it that way, eventually your craving will grow so powerful that you'll say fuck it and choose the cigarette.
So the only way to stay quit is to adopt a rule: I will not smoke cigarettes because I am not allowed to smoke cigarettes. It feels odd, to decide that certain questions about what you'll do are settled in advance, because we're not used to it. But it worked for me. Good luck.