Steph, that's huge news about your brother. How staggering, that it came so quickly on the heels of your big convo with him. Wow.

ita !, it is GOOD to see you back.

I will soon be secluding myself in copyediting purdah for much of the week, so I may just come in for occasional gasps of air. Two deadlines on Friday, I have 2 houseguests Wednesday night, and organizing a shindig for out out-of-town friends Friday night. I will not have a lot of time to breathe this week.

As soon as I get this...something sticky off my touch pad. WTF? THAT wouldn't be conducive to smooth editing. (Secret Confession: I think it's Heath Toffee Ice Cream. Oops.)

Electronic cigarettes - [link]

Basically flavored vapor, with or without nicotine, in a wee battery-powered cigarette look alike. I've tried one. It wasn't an acceptable substitute. One with clove flavoring might help, but I don't know. They can also be very expensive, the reusable ones anyway.

good for you brother -- strenght to him , your sil, you and anyone else involved in the process.

and good for you smonster -- quitting is difficult - and it can be done even if the cravings hang for a long time. When my dad quit - it was quite awhile for the cravings to go , but no more bad flu and pneumonia were major rewards.

go Erin -- we support your ability to get through this work.

and I'm sorry Sean , but demons ten to be stupid and only notice bad things. They are wrong. you might not be perfect , but you are an intelligent hard working and attractive person( in all ways )

I took today off and plan on getting a few things done including the possibility of too much tv.

smonster, I have a friend who made her own flavored vapors, I think she liked them better than some of the ones she could get and I think they were cheaper.

I have one of those. Not a substitute, definitely. But I can see how it could help ward off the panic or the bad ass cravings if you were quitting.

I know quitting is a bitch, smonster, but good for you for quitting. My cousin quit smoking about 20 years ago, but he had easily been smoking for 20 years before he quit. He says he had cravings, but he says he can't remember the last time he wanted a smoke.

Steph, that's HUGE news. Much strength to you and your family.

Electronic cigarettes

I have idly considered getting a clove-flavored one of them, because there are times when I CRAVE a clove cigarette. Like, for all of last year.

Teppy, best of luck to your brother. I'm glad to hear he decided to get help.

Sean, you're one of the good guys. Don't let anybody beat you up, even your own doubt.

Steph, that's awesome news about and for your brother. May rehab be relatively easy and recovery be good for him.

JZ, I'm sorry. I'm looking at more than a couple of decades as a smoker, and possible land mines ahead. We live in hope, though.

smonster, H quit about fifteen years before I did, and did it cold turkey and never looked back. He didn't even complain about my smoking in the house for a long time, until he got flu one winter and the smoke and the smell made him sicker. So I smoked outside for years more.

I have psoriasis, and at that time, it was really, really bad. I'd read of a woman who stopped smoking and her skin symptoms cleared up. So when I had bronchial flu that winter, I went to bed for a week and didn't smoke again when I got up. My skin cleared up--a miracle! I did not change my eating habits at all, in fact, I scaled back on what and when I ate, and still, my metabolism plummeted and I gained 60 pounds in three months. Still didn't smoke, though I snuck a drag off a friend's cigarette now and then. No more, though. I know if I smoked a whole cigaratte I'd be gone again. An emergency pack in the house? Would last two days.

I hate smoke in an enclosed space. I hate smelling it on my neighbor, and I can't stand more than a few minutes in her house, I feel like I'm choking.

But when I'm stuck for the next line, I hate that I can't jump up, go outside, light up and pace up and down--usually within two or three drags, I'd have the words and be fired up and back on track. No more. Now I go outside, breathe deep, swing my arms, run in place. And sometimes it helps. It's not the same, though.

And when I watch an old b/w movie with the heroine at a cafe, cup of coffee before her and smoke curling romantically around her, I want a cigarette. Every once in a while I'll catch a whiff of fresh-lit cigarette and a surge of wannit! comes over me. I watch a James Dean movie and the cigarette in the corner of his mouth while he does things, so damned sexy.

H looks at me like I've lost my mind when I occasionally voice the "I could really use a drag off a cigarette right now." He never has had that urge. But I do. I still do.

But I don't do anything about it. I like being able to walk into places and not worry about carrying smokes and lighter in my hands or a pocket. I like walking into a unfamiliar place, and not automatically scoping out the exits (though I still do this, nearly ten years post-quitting) for a quick dodge and smoke. I like not having to stand out in the rain looking like a loser to get my fix. But I still want a cigarette, now and then.

Aw, Bev. I think my mom was something of the same kind of smoker - she hasn't had a physical craving in almost twenty years, but she loved having a grown-up prop, having something to do with her hands when she was thinking or waiting or choosing just the right word. She loved the ritual of it more than anything else, and, as for you, for her it was very deeply tied to the act of writing.