In The Navy ~

Captains Log: Day 515!

Over the past year and half I've relayed a numbers of stories on journey through my new smoke free life.

I've discussed cost savings, health benefits, stress, desires and triggers, the repulsiveness of stale cigarette smoke in clothes and other issues related to having finally 'kicked the habit' after nearly thirty years of smoking.

Did you know major life changes are the main reason for divorce and interruption of new healthy habits such as quitting smoking. Well, I'm already divorced, so no problem there but I'm still a relatively new non smoker. So my new life changes could pose a challenge for a delicate situation. I do not feel threatened just yet however.

In the past few months I've become a total empty nester .... I've gone from having three of my four kids around all the time to having everyone scattered across the globe. I know, this is what you raise them for, to leave home .... after all, the real problem is if they don't leave home! Still there when they're 30.

My oldest, the world traveler is now in Asia teaching English ... The youngest went to NY in the fall for his freshman year of college. NOW ... the two in the middle have just left for The Navy.

They will be in bootcamp for two months and then they both get to go to FLA for at least four months. Then ........ Who knows. My daughter wills stay in Pensacola for 10 months and my son will head to California, I think.

Anyway .......... if you're a smoker or an ex-smoker, you know it's times like these that normally your cigarette consumption would spike. The desire to relieve my anxiety with nicotine is not present yet, but I remain on guard.

Study: 2nd-Hand Smoke Kills 600,000 Each Year

Happy Thanksgiving ~

The Magic of Mondays ~

Staying Quit after the Great American Smokeout ~

"Monday is the January of the week,"
says Monday Campaigns President, Peggy Neu. "Our research shows that people see Monday as the day for a fresh start and are more likely to start diets, exercise regimens and quit smoking on Monday than any other day. It's a natural restart day to change old bad habits into positive new ones, or to get back on the wagon if you've fallen off."

I wish I had this idea during the maytimes I had tried to quit in the past but failed. Falling off the wagon, as it were, sometime during my success and not getting back on .... Procrastinating unil I just quit quitting!

Donald Distasio, Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society, Eastern Division says, "We hope many more smokers will use the Great American Smokeout as an important first step towards living a smoke-free life. Stay Quit Monday is a good tool for smokers to use in reinforcing their commitment to quitting."

If you quit last Thursday during the GASO or know someone who did and are struggling to stay quit ... Keep The Magic of Mondays in mind. Recommit to quitting tomorrow and every Monday to come.

Good Luck -- FJW :o)

The Great American Smokeout 2010

Is it Thursday November 18th already?

The third Thursday of November that has for the past 30+ years dedicated to encouraging smokers to 'kick the habit'.

So many GASO days I either totally ignored or gave a half hearted attempt at quitting smoking ... Now, on this third Thursday of November, I am totally smoke free for the second year in a row!

It does feel like an accomplishment for me. So much so, I don't even think about me as a smoker anymore. There are times I wish I could have 'just one' but I know where that'll eventually lead!

Just this morning I was 'invited' into the boss's office, a place I've affectionately nicknamed 'The Wood Shed' .... Just like cracking open a 'cold one' a cigarette just seems to follow a good ass-chewing just as it does a Thanksgiving meal!

A rare time I miss the good ol' days. :))

500 Days Smoke Free ... Holy Smokes!!!

Who would've guessed 500 days ago that I could finally make it this far?

In some ways 500 days doesn't sound that long ... in other ways, it's a short lifetime ago.

Near thirty years of smoking about a pack and half a day and now I'm smoke free for good this time.

That's Fifteen Thousand single cigarettes at an approximate estimated savings of $4,000.00! That's a lotta lettuce in my little world.

My first goal was just to get through the first day. Next it was three days, three weeks, then three months. Make it to the New Year and beyond .... and then reach the coveted one year smoke free mark. Done!

Now, I'm nearing in on 2010 being an entire cheat free, smoke free, nicotine free year ... Before you know it I will be at One Thousand Days .... But first ....

I need to complete 501! --- One day at a time, Right??!!

~ FJW ~

PS: Only 2 days until the Great American Smoke Out ... Why doesn't someone from say ... Maryland or California ... write a post for me dealing with going smoke free for the first day of the GASO? My little blog could use some fresh blood. :0)

Viva Las Vegas ~

Las Vegas is now replacing New Orleans as the most smoke friendly town I've been too in the last year and half ...

Here I am, just days away from my 500 day mile stone and I'm now at a point where I can't believe I used to be a pack and half a day smoker.

The smoke in every casino, hotel lobby and night club was nearly overwhelming to me. It was in no way enticing -- that's not to say I'm never tempted or never crave a cigarette -- it just says a room full of smoke is extraordinarily bothersome to me.

Things are way different than they were just 20 years ago when it comes to the acceptance and tolerance of cigarette smoke. And what seems to be the worst for me, something I used to hear non smokers complain about but never completely understood until the last year, is the smoke that permeates inside every article of clothing you wear out to clubs at night.

FDA proposes graphic warnings for cigarette packs

From USA TODAY, today:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing that all cigarette packs and advertisements include highly graphic images like corpses and diseased lungs to underscore the negative health consequences of smoking.

"Today, FDA takes a crucial step toward reducing the tremendous toll of illness and death caused by tobacco use by proposing to dramatically change how cigarette packages and advertising look in this country," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg says in a news release. "The health consequences of smoking will be obvious every time someone picks up a pack of cigarettes."

The proposed graphics include a diseased lung, a graveyard, a corpse in a casket, discolored and disfigured teeth as well as such textual warnings as: Cigarettes Can Cause Fatal Lung Disease and Smoking Can Kill You.

The FDA is seeking public comment on the proposed graphics and warnings through Jan. 9. 2011.

The agency will select the final labels in June after reviews of scientific literature, public comments, and results from an 18,000-person study.

Cigarette makers will then have 15 months to start using the new labels.

Smoking chimp rescued in Lebanon, sent to Brazil

BEIRUT (AP) — A 12-year-old chimpanzee is heading to a sanctuary in Brazil on Monday after animal rights workers discovered him smoking cigarettes to entertain visitors at a Lebanese zoo.

Omega, who weighs around 132 pounds (60 kilograms), has never climbed a tree or seen other chimpanzees and has a troubling smoking habit he maintained from picking up cigarettes that visitors threw into his cage.

"The chimp still regularly smokes ... if someone will throw him a cigarette he'd pick it up and go for it straight away," said Jason Meier, executive director for animal rights group Animals Lebanon.

Organizers of Omega's evacuation say it marks the first time a chimpanzee has been rescued in Lebanon, a country with virtually no animal rights protection laws.

In his younger years, Omega was used in one of the local restaurants to entertain people and was made to smoke cigarettes and serve water pipe to customers. After he grew stronger, he was locked up and taken to a zoo where for the past 10 years he has lived in a cage measuring 430 square feet (40 square meters).

Animals Lebanon has been pushing for Lebanon to join the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and adopt laws that regulate the importation of primates. Lebanon, Iraq and Bahrain are the only Arab countries yet to sign the convention.

Chimpanzees and other highly endangered wildlife are regularly smuggled to the Middle East to be displayed in private zoos, hotels and for the pet trade.

Animals Lebanon heard about the zoo in Ansar, near the market town of Nabatiyeh, about six months ago. They have since successfully worked with the owner to close the zoo and find homes for the animals.

For Omega, home will be a sanctuary in Sao Paolo, Brazil where he is to be flown later Monday aboard an Emirates airlines flight.

Other animals found at the zoo, including seven baboons, a hyena and various bird species, are to be sent to new homes within Lebanon.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Feds Want Corpses, Rotting Teeth on Cigarette Packages

(Nov. 10) -- From AOL HEALTH -- Images of corpses, rotting teeth and diseased lungs will take up half the space on a pack of cigarettes, under federal proposals unveiled today.

The graphic new labels are designed to scare smokers into quitting by showing what can happen to them. The warnings are required under a law passed last year that gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products.

The proposed warnings can be seen on the FDA website. Among the most brutal: a corpse with a toe tag; stained, rotten teeth in a mouth with a gaping sore; babies surrounded by cigarette smoke; and a set of diseased, blackened lungs shown next to a pair of healthy, pink ones.

"Today marks an important milestone in protecting our children and the health of the American public," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The FDA will seek public input on the proposed labels. Cigarettes cannot be sold in the U.S. after Oct. 22, 2012, without the labels, The New York Times reported.
"This is the most important change in cigarette health warnings in the history of the United States," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, according to the Times.

The new warnings cover 50 percent of the front and back of each pack, and 20 percent of the top of each cigarette advertisement, The Washington Post said.

Smoking rates have dropped significantly in the United States, but about 20 percent of adults and high school students smoke, and tobacco is the leading cause of premature and preventable death, the Post reported.

Coming Soon:

The Great American Smoke-out Day:

Two weeks from today is the third Thursday in November, 11/18, the next Great American Smoke-out Day sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

This special day is so named with the aim that people will not smoke or use any other tobacco products for just one day, and then try to quit all the tobacco products for good. It is also hoped that the quitters will be successful their whole live in abstaining from Tobacco products.

According to the American Cancer Society people who stop smoking before age 50 can cut their risk of death in the next 15 years in half compared with those who still continue to smoke.

Smokers who quit also reduce their risk of lung cancer – ten years after quitting, the lung cancer death rate is about half that of a continuing smoker’s. Some of the health effects of quitting are almost instant, too like heart rate and blood pressure drop immediately 20 minutes after quitting smoking and using tobacco products.

This is going to be my third GASOD that I will be smoke free!