Others Bug Me With This in the Backcountry!

Can't help with the stop smoking tips as I'm one of those that just happened to have awesome willpower and stopped cold turkey. But I do know the chances of quitting succesfully increase a lot with support and nicotine replacement (or buproprion) therapy. It's like 5% versus 23% success (in the short term). Again, it's just a statistic, and you may be in the 5% who can just plain stop.

WRT smoking and lung cancer risk and addiction, there have been some very interesting recent developments in this field. It started with a study that showed a strong association of a cluster of genes involved in nicotine signalling and the risk of nicotine dependence. Other groups quickly jumped on the band wagon (including our own) to try and replicate the study, and were successful for sure, but some other interesting stuff started popping up. For instance, to recruit enough heavy smokers for follow-up studies, some groups went to lung cancer clinics, and found sure enough that the gene cluster also associated with nicotine dependence, but also independently associated with lung cancer. In other words, folks who were non-smokers at the clinics also had an increased prevalence in this gene variation. Further studies definitely indicated that the gene was associated with both lung cancer AND risk of nicotine addiction. This is possibly explained by the fact that these nicotine receptors are found in high density in both the brain areas involved in addiction as well as in the surface of the lung. Kinda a double whammy because you are at increased risk of taking up smoking and also lung cancer.

I personally still think it possible that the genetic variation is a risk factor for schizophrenia (no one has looked at it yet), as the previous studies all point to a gene ‘dose effect’. In other words, the gene is even more common in people who smoke the highest number of cigarettes per day (30 or more!!), and for the most part really heavy smokers tend to be schizophrenic (90% of schizophrenics are heavy smokers). Time will tell…

ok, here's one:
quitting smoking is easier than starting.

living a long life as a smoker still sucks. you feel like sheit every day and you have nothing to compare it to until you quit smoking. the first step in quitting smoking is quitting the excuses. i will never wish you luck, a wish is the opposite of a goal, and luck just doesnt exist. so good luck with that! haha

> " because there is not one single piece of evidence proving that smoking is bad for you."

Taken literally, true.
There is not ONE single piece of evidence; there is a monstrously huge wave of evidence.

Cheers

Roger, shame on you. I would expect more from a staffer. We just established that smoking is a big bad booboo in the post right before this one. The quesion at hand was tips on quitting. Let's all try and read and comprehend a post before going off on moot tangents. Ali

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I totally agree with Dave. When I posted in this thread, I thought it was about what you don't like people doing when you are trying to enjoy the great outdoors.

I can understand why you wouldn't like poeple smoking, but THIS IS NOT A QUIT SMOKING forum!

-Evan

Yes, we seem to agree that this thread has degenerated into what looks like chaff. I will probably never understand why that irritates some people so much-that a legitimate thread suddenly now belongs in a different category. I never was good at putting things in boxes, and in my work that's turned out to be a good thing. Obviously some members find this thread of help or entertainment, and my attempts to re-direct it to chaff have failed. So why divert a serious discussion that some may not follow or benefit from in chaff??

Anyway, the moderators will move or delete as they see fit. Probably better that the info is retained somewhere on the website for future reference.

There's no reaason to expect Roger to give anyone advice on smoking cessation, but he is good for the bottom line on harm from smoking.

Ali: One more piece of advise. Nicotine withdrawal may take several days, but you've also got to face several decades of 'habit' to deal with. The old saying that it takes 3 weeks to form a new habit are a good guideline. After all, you are developing a new habit…the habit of NOT smoking. You might want to plan what you are going to do when, for instance, you would normally light up while dinner is cooking, or while you're waiting for a bus, or when you just are in the habit of doing something wiht your hands in a social situation, or when people around you are smoking and having a good time. These are all habits, and having a game-plan to deal with them will go a long way towards helping you quit. In other words, hang in there and work on your the reasons and alternatives to your habitual use of cigarettes.

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> Anyway, the moderators will move or delete as they see fit.

I'm slack. I only move things when I really have to.
Otherwise I am all for self-policing …

Cheers
PS: seems an awful popular thread though…

or any other special breeds for that matter – too many perfectly good cats getting PTS in shelters every year (millions in the usa alone each year)

seems like it's a lot easier to quit a cat than to quit smoking, which baffles me

all of our cats are "rescued" on way or another & most we are merely fostering

if anyone is in the market for a good kitty, we have plenty ;)

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"if anyone is in the market for a good kitty, we have plenty ;)"

Seems like this posting belongs in the Gear Swap forum, wouldn't ya think?

JRS

I was a detective for Miami Vice for 4 seasons till we got cancelled and I can tell you for a fact selling pussycats on-line will get you thrown in the slammer. Ali

I really have a hard time understanding how anyone can get so worked up about a thread straying off topic. It's not hurting anyone, and you can just neglect to read it if you wish.

As far as your list of what the forum should be able to discuss and not be able to discuss, let me say Dave T., that I'm glad you aren't the moderator here or this place would probably dry up pretty quickly.

Cheers I love the posts you guys make and find the general level intelligence and wit outstanding. Lizzie and I read these posts together and laugh till it hurts. Keep it real. Ali

I think any hikers on these forums we can get to stop smoking will make the OP that mush less irritated. So it's not totally OT, and it is a pretty popular thread. Most of these forums (including this one) don't get much traffic, so it's not really cluttering it up like it would in the Gear forum. I wonder if BPL will eventually get rid of these slower forums in favour of focusing on the stuff that's most interesting to most people? In the mean time, it's nice to have a community of like-minded folks to share and bounce ideas off.

Right now as I sit in my second floor office with my window open, I am getting really annoyed with someone smoking on the ground below. The whole property is supposed to be off limits to smoking, but no one polices it, so I have to go close my window now.

Lynn, two words: squirt gun

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"I'm just curious after that horrible experience did it make you give up your car and move out into the country where you wont be exposed to an ultra toxic society?"

Nope. Life is full of compromises, Ali. My work required me to be near/in urban areas, but I always managed to spend a lot of time outdoors, both in those urban areas and in the mountains, detoxing myself on the installment plan I guess. Like yourself, I pay a lot of attention to what I eat. I grew quite a bit of it organically for about 18 years, but now find that I don't have the energy to run a full bore garden and do mountain stuff. So, I've cut the garden back to concentrate on the mountains while I still have my legs. Like yourself I have not always treated my body well, smoked for 5 years and blew my share of weed, and I seem to have come out unscathed so far. But the numbers are pretty clear, reinforced by my Dad's example, so I just thought I'd pass it along for what it's worth to someone a bit younger than me. Living out in the country is no panacea, BTW. I grew up "out in the country" in northern Michigan. Poor soil, so we ended up eating the same polluted fruits and veggies our urban compatriots were stuck with. The fish and game were, however, organic if you don't count the sprayed corn the deer ate whenever they could. And we put away a LOT of wild berries, definitely organic. And I appreciate your empathy.

"I totally agree with Dave. When I posted in this thread, I thought it was about what you don't like people doing when you are trying to enjoy the great outdoors."

Since these forum are where we all gather to vicariously enjoy the backcountry when we're not actually out there, I think this discussion is totally appropriate. I mean, it's bugging the livin' sh#%t out of a whole lot of people. ;}

It's been said before yet people are still complaining. Think bigger! If you're bothered by people smoking than its you that has the problem not them. Complaining about people smoking is like complaining about the bad smell of poo or the fact that some people are poor while others are rich. Any problems with the world are really problems with you the way you see it. When you find yourself in the woods don't be startled by the trees…buy hey, i'm not complaining.

Tom, great hearing back and again thanks for the reply. I think too much for a stupid person but was and am genuinely interested in why and how people change for the better. I almost didn't reply for fear of being lynched but quitting smoking definitely lightens the load so This does have something to do with BPL and if it doesn't I just found a product new to me at least its called a foon I think its a spork in disguise but who am I to judge I still use a plastic spoon and would switch to chopstick's if I had any. GO UL ALL THE WAY UL UL UL GO UL. Ali

"I think too much for a stupid person but was and am genuinely interested in why and how people change for the better."

We're all born stupid, Ali. Thinking is part of getting un-stupid, and that's where the trouble starts. And the fun. Keep up the good work! We're all in the same boat anyway and, in the end, nobody gets outta here alive. BTW, I just thought of another way to quit smoking: Set yourself a goal of running a sub 3 hour marathon and start training accordingly. You'll either give up smoking or give up running sub 3. I'm betting the cigs will go. Then make the running part of your way of life, trail running at a high level or whatever. It just doesn't coexist with smoking and it's a superior way to condition yourself for any mountain activity.

Hey, smoking hasn't always been with humans, so your poo analogy doesn't make sense to me. More recently, lots of states have outlawed smoking in restaurants and even bars, so it's not true that it always have to be with us. Think about it…I can go to a bar and have it smell better than a shelter on the AT.

Oh please, let us not watch our beloved forums be used to lob the "noob" bomb at the first sign of disagreement….That is exactly why I pay to be a member here, to avoid this kind of tit-for-tat bickering.

If there is going to be a fight, please determine the outcome with broadswords or pistols at 20 paces.