Here's something that's good to know

Not cheating on the very first day of nicotine-replacement use increases the chance of quitting permanently by tenfold.

Well, that makes me feel motivated to work really hard to get through the first day. If I focus on just making it through that one day, I think I can do it. That's much less overwhelming than thinking about quitting forever -- and if that alone is enough to increase my chances tenfold (!), it's certainly worth doing.

-- The info is from a page put up by the University of Maryland Medical System. They also have other tips and good info on the success rates of different types of treatments. (The one I'm doing, which is nicotine replacement plus Zyban plus counseling is the most effective so far -- yay!)

Ack

My quit date is in two weeks. I am SO not looking forward to this.

To try and psych myself up, I started rereading the ten day "e-course" at quitsmokingonline, something I first read a few months ago. The (anonymous?) author believes, contrary to conventional wisdom, that you shouldn't rely on willpower to quit, that forcing yourself to quit through sheer willpower alone will only make you miserable, and thus more likely to start smoking again. Instead, she says that you should accept your cravings, and that it's the fighting the cravings, not the cravings themselves, that causes the experience of quitting to be so difficult. This is an approach similar to that taken by Allen Carr, except the tone of the q.s.o. site isn't quite as eccentric as Carr's. Well, the site does tend towards overstatement -- surely, the q.s.o. author's contention that "giving up smoking CAN be EASY and ENJOYABLE" can't literally be true, and the caps and boldface are a bit much -- but one thing I like very much at q.s.o. is the idea of dispassionately observing the cravings. Although the author doesn't say so, there's something very Zen-like about that approach, and I know from experience that observing one's own thoughts and feelings, calmly and with curiosity, can go a long way toward dissipating negative emotional states like anxiety. But are cigarette cravings really as responsive to that approach as transient emotions are? Cravings seem stronger to me, more solid and tenacious than emotions. Still, this approach intrigues me.

So what are my chances?

One study showed that for people treated for nine weeks with both Zyban and the patch (which is what I'm going to be getting during the initial phase of my guinea pig experience), the percentage who were not smoking a year later was 35.5%. This is a lot better, I think, than the results from most types of stop-smoking treatments. On the other hand, the odds are still two-to-one against me. So I don't want to get too excited.

Mutant mice and other scientific oddities

This looks good for the future (too bad I have to stop now)

Genetically altered mice that are unusually sensitive to nicotine may help scientists nail down exactly how people become addicted to smoking, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Specific doorways into brain cells, called receptors, in the newly created mice could hold the key to nicotine addiction, they said.

Studying the mice may help in the development of better drugs to help people quit smoking, the researchers wrote in Friday's issue of the journal Science...

If a way can be found to stop nicotine from latching on to brain cells, tobacco addiction might be curable.

"It's a complicated pathway that still must be broken down into individual steps before we can understand it fully, but I personally believe that nicotine addiction will be among the first addictions to be solved, because we already have so many tools to study it," he said.

Study shows anti-depressant plus patch may help smokers quit (though it didn't work for three-quarters of them). This is similar to the combo I'm going to be using -- they just used a different kind of antidepressant in this study. The percentage of people using the drug who stayed quit after six months was 23%, as compared to 10% for the placebo group who used the patch alone.

New drug helps people stop smoking, lose weight, and improve their cholesterol. On the other hand, it doubles the chances of depression. There's always something.

News round-up -- here a ban, there a ban, everywhere a ban ban

The British government is about to unveil a proposal to ban smoking in all restaurants, cafes, and most pubs.

Scotland, too.

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has gone even further, banning the sale of tobacco altogether. The fine for selling tobacco will be $225, which is more than the average annual income of $192.

My life as a guinea pig

In a few weeks, I'm going to be a participant in a stop-smoking research project. They will be loading us up with Zyban and patches, and we'll have group sessions, where I guess they'll strap us down so we won't climb the walls. Afer three months we'll be randomly split into groups -- getting either no more treatment or various permutations of Zyban/placebo/counseling/no counseling for nine more months, the object of the study being to see whether long-term treatment is more effective than standard-length 12-week programs. I'm actually feeling kind of hopeful about this. Though I've never been able to stop smoking for more than a few hours at a time, I think getting all these goodies will help, especially if I end up in one of the extended treatment groups. I think all the attention will help also, particularly because it's neutral attention, not the "OMIGOD YOU BETTER QUIT SMOKING HOW CAN YOU DO THAT TO YOURSELF" kind of attention that makes me want to smoke even more.

But it will be hard. I like smoking, a lot, and wouldn't even consider quitting if my body weren't starting to fall apart on me.

About this blog: I'm planning on posting all things smoking related, especially news round-ups. Lots of interesting things going on now, with new smoking bans being implemented somewhere in the world almost every day, and also new medical research into the nature of nictotine addiction. Maybe I will also write some reviews of the various stop-smoking books and tapes (well, make that tape, singular) that I've tried.