Originally Posted by methusaleh
I had an odd social situation once. I know a young lady who is a perfect catch as they say, absolutely gorgeous, well-educated, and hard-working...except (in my opinion) she smokes like a chimney. One honestly can smell her from about 20 feet away. Her family was oh so very proud of her "working on quitting smoking" when she went from some ridiculously high amount to a lower amount that, to me, still seemed crazy. I believe it was four packs a day down to two packs a day. To hear what she and her family said, she was now a glowing example of perfect health and sanity. To me she still reeked of smoke and seemed to love to smoke almost constantly as she always had. She didn't even do it for health reasons, it was because it was interfering with a new job she had as well as costing a fortune, but she played it off like it was going to make her tremendously more healthy. I didn't know quite how to respond to all of this so I just told her "keep up the good work" and left it at that.
Positive reinforcement is never a bad thing. If she ends up living instead of dying, will it matter what the motivation was?
Quitting is rough. Positive reinforcement for halving her intake can lead to greater reductions and elimination. Those who have social support tend to do better.
Quitting is also a mind game you play against yourself. If she has to tell herself things (even if dubious in accuracy) to get off the smokes, then so be it. That's how quitting works. If you find out that calling yourself The Great Swami, tapping the floor three times, and then hugging a Teddy Bear helps you quit, you just do it.
Compared to dropping dead of cancer, pretty much everything seems significantly less stupid.
I had an odd social situation once. I know a young lady who is a perfect catch as they say, absolutely gorgeous, well-educated, and hard-working...except (in my opinion) she smokes like a chimney. One honestly can smell her from about 20 feet away. Her family was oh so very proud of her "working on quitting smoking" when she went from some ridiculously high amount to a lower amount that, to me, still seemed crazy. I believe it was four packs a day down to two packs a day. To hear what she and her family said, she was now a glowing example of perfect health and sanity. To me she still reeked of smoke and seemed to love to smoke almost constantly as she always had. She didn't even do it for health reasons, it was because it was interfering with a new job she had as well as costing a fortune, but she played it off like it was going to make her tremendously more healthy. I didn't know quite how to respond to all of this so I just told her "keep up the good work" and left it at that.
Positive reinforcement is never a bad thing. If she ends up living instead of dying, will it matter what the motivation was?
Quitting is rough. Positive reinforcement for halving her intake can lead to greater reductions and elimination. Those who have social support tend to do better.
Quitting is also a mind game you play against yourself. If she has to tell herself things (even if dubious in accuracy) to get off the smokes, then so be it. That's how quitting works. If you find out that calling yourself The Great Swami, tapping the floor three times, and then hugging a Teddy Bear helps you quit, you just do it.
Compared to dropping dead of cancer, pretty much everything seems significantly less stupid.
