I started to smoke cigarettes when I was 11 years old, the first ones I stole from my dad. Most of my earliest cigarettes were smoked behind our barn, in the woods on the train tracks, at school, anywhere I could sneak them really. Surprisingly, it was rather easy for me to get them. This one store in the village I went to school in sold them to me during my middle school years. The dependency set in very quickly probably due to the young age at which I started, and the many additives that cigarettes contain used to manipulate and increase their addictiveness.

Smoking for me was a great escape, a small shelter from the problems that I had during my developing years. Before leaving middle school the physical addiction was strong enough for me to make great risks in sneaking out of the building while my classmates ate lunch to have a cigarette. I got busted and wasn’t allowed to go to Washington DC for the class trip. My mom got me nicotine replacement but I wasn’t really serious about quitting. I told myself that I needed the cigarettes to get through high school. If I could just make it through high school my life would be easier and I would be able to stop.

High school came and went but the cigarettes stayed in my life. By the time I graduated, I had been at the pack a day mark for a couple of years. I regret having smoked; I really wish that I never ever picked up one of those damned things. I hate cigarettes, I really do. I hate what kind of destruction they have done in my life, in the lives of so many other people and to our environment. Since I can’t change the past I have to accept and to live from this moment on. Cigarettes are not an option in my life anymore and I haven’t touched one in four years. Even though it’s true, I don’t believe it because it doesn’t seem real. I think to myself I must have smoked between now and then and that I must have forgotten but it is really true, I have not smoked in four years.

It was a combination of strategies that really made me successful in quitting, that and that I had realized that cigarettes were the cause of my unhappiness. I chanted a lot, I prayed to never ever smoke a cigarette again in my life. I didn’t just pray, I took action. I used nicotine lozenges to calm physical withdrawal, exercise to release endorphins that made me feel good, lots of water, lots of sleep and I avoided alcohol in the early stages.

I had tried lots of things over my lifetime to quit; patches, gum, Wellbutrin, self hypnosis, acupuncture and “cold turkey”. Wellbutrin gave me such bad insomnia that I was an absolute wreck of a person going through a very intense physical withdrawal. I was literally jumping at anything that moved or made a sound. Acupuncture was just as bad as it didn’t do anything at all to a make it easier and then I had to suffer through another torturous round of the awful “cold turkey” withdrawals. When I went through withdrawal of nicotine I would go into an immediate depression that was nearly debilitating. I would sleep all day or just sit in bed crying, it was really bad. Withdrawals really often do make people sick because of the extreme stress it puts on the body. I really don’t think I could have gotten through it without the nicotine replacement.

I also read Alan Carr's "The Easy Way to Quit". Well this book had some good points it failed miserably in saying that nicotine replacements are counterproductive but in fact is shown in multiple studies to double successful quitting rates.

It has been difficult but well worth it. I am so proud that I quit and enjoy the numerous benefits of being a non smoker. Sometimes I miss it; I miss my escape, my being bad, I miss sneaking out! Despite this, despite the fact that I still yearn for the punch of nicotine and other drugs hitting my lungs, the immediate relief I feel as I inhale and exhale the smoke; I am so afraid that I will relapse. So many people can stop for as long as I have and go back to it in an instant. I know that if I have “just” one that I won’t be able to control it, I will immediately be a smoker again. I can’t afford to let that happen again.

So, If you want to encourage someone to quit (e:tinypliny), you need to have true compassion. You really have to understand and acknowledge the person’s suffering and to acknowledge that the challenge that lies ahead is a difficult one. Discussing the evils of smoking might cause fear but fear isn’t enough. They need help, they need information, strategies to cope and they need to be supported and encouraged. Sadly, this type of support is rarely truly achieved in smoking cessation.

For free help with quitting smoking you can call the National Quitline 1-800-Quit-NOW. It will take you to the State's Quitline for the number you are calling from.

hehehee, I just found this on my desk top and I don't think I have posted it before.

I'm visiting my mom in Florida and found out the gift I got her and and her husband for Christmas have faded in the dishwasher.



They wouldn't replace them because it has been longer than 3 months. They were for xmas 09. I never get my Mom good gifts.

Today was the Buffalo Niagara River Clean Up. I volunteered again at Squaw Island. This really awesome woman picked me up since it was raining and not a good bike riding day. She has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail and is part of the Women's League of Voters. She said she was in her early 70's but seemed ages younger. After she dropped me back at home she went on to volunteer at Tifft Nature Preserve.

We got one of those metal water bottles as a gift. it reads, "Drink Local. The Great Lakes provides drinking water to over 40 million people daily." I think that statement is so powerful. It really just screams look at what you are doing to our drinking water!!

I picked up a lot of plastic bottles and a lot of stuff from people fishing. So much of it was plastic bags that are for hooks and fishing line. So much Styrofoam from containers for night crawlers. I picked up probably 50 or so plastic tampon applicators. I got this huge long cable that took me and this woman to carry to shore.

There is still so much trash out there but for now the Island looks better. Last spring within days there was trash all over from the fisher people. It's a very daunting task, very discouraging really, but it feels so good at the same time to volunteer and to actually do something about it. Doing this today and meeting that wonderful woman makes me want to do more. I met other nice people too, it's like you know everyone is awesome and share a special bond almost.

When I got home I spent the rest of my day cleaning my apartment. After all this work nothing is perfect but my environment is a little bit nicer and I feel really good.

As Earth Day Approaches, Cleanups Abound

Rachel Kingston Reporting rkingston@entercom.com

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) -- Earth Day may not be until Friday, but that didn't keep literally thousands of volunteers across Western New York and across the state from heading out over the weekend and doing a little "cleaning and greening" of area parks and waterways.

Groups picked up trash and debris, planted new seedlings, trimmed back overgrowth, removed graffiti, the works - tending to messes both man- and nature-made.

Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper is one of the local groups that organized cleanups. It recruited a record-setting 1,600 volunteers to focus on 40 sites, including the Buffalo River at the Ohio Street Boat Launch and the Scajacquada Creek trail this past weekend.

"Twice a year, we send volunteers out at 40 sites, along our Western New York waterways. If you added the shoreline up, it would total 77,000 linear feet," explains Kerri Li, the director of Citizen Action Programs for Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper. "So we have legions of volunteers going out twice a year, and they basically are out there - like this weekend - they picked up tons and tons of trash. It could be anywhere from 30 to 50 tons of trash. And we find all sorts of things. Bottles, heavy things like pieces of scrap metal, propane tanks, shopping carts... all sorts of debris."

"We're down along the shoreline, removing this debris, for about three hours on a Saturday morning. We work up a sweat, we make a few friends, we make a difference. We do something good for Western New York water."

But Riverkeeper does more than just pick up trash, and it doesn't confine its debris-removal efforts to only the water.

"What's important to understand is, evne though you might see trash on the streets... when it rains, those streets are connected to our waterways through storm drains. So even though you may not see the connection, because the storm drain goes underneath the street, ultimately that trash and debris ends up going out into our rivers and our streams," says Li.

Over the weekend, while Riverkeeper's volunteers were at work, volunteers with other groups were doing similar work along the length of the Erie Canal, in the Niagara Gorge, and on the Lake Ontario and Erie shorelines.

The "Friends of Times Beach" got to work at the site from which they take their name beginning Friday.

They cleaned up debris from the trails at Times Beach, and this year, are getting some assistance from county workers, who are helping to rebuild boardwalks that were damaged during a 2008 storm.

"Earth Day just kind of focuses us on the fact that we've got these wonderful areas that need to be preserved, need to be taken care of," Erie County Environment and Planning Commissioner Kathy Konst remarks. "Various groups get together... Friends of Times Beach, our Environmental Management Council, Buffalo Riverkeeper... a lot of them 'adopt' [an area] and go out there on a regular basis, so that they kind of manage and take care of a property all year long."

Their work doesn't stop on the 364 days of the year that aren't Earth Day.

"It's being a steward to the environment, and taking care of it. You know, the birds that come out to Times Beach - there are over 243 species of birds that migrate there on an annual basis - they don't just come out for Earth Day," Konst says. "It's one of the most significant bird areas in the Great Lakes. We want to make sure that that ecosystem is protected."

Interested?

You can find literally dozens of cleanup groups in Western New York on Google. You can also start your search with Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper or the Friends of Times Beach.

We moved to the country in the early 90's and we had to take a school bus for about a half hour each way. When I say it was a bus ride to Hell it was more like the ride and my life itself were Hell, not a destination. Besides being taunted for our Long Island accents I had to come to terms with a radio station called 98PXY, the only approved station the bus driver could play.

So here is a sampler of my bus ride. If your really want to relive my life, repeat 2x's daily for 6 years.

Arrested Development - Mr Wendal



Donna Lewis - I Love You Always Forever



Macarena - Los del Rio



Chumbawamba - Tubthumping



Haddaway - What Is Love



La Bouche Be my Lover



Culture Beat: Mr. Vain



Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's



Goo Goo Dolls - Slide



Seal - Crazy (Video)



Goo Goo Dolls - Iris



Spin Doctors - Little Miss Can't Be Wrong



Ace of Base - The Sign



Joan Osborne - One of us



Oasis - Champagne Supernova



Natalie Imbruglia - Torn



Savage Garden - Truly Madly Deeply



Paula Cole- I Don't Want To Wait



Rhythm is a dancer



Robin S - Show Me Love



Ace Of Base - All That She Wants



WHIGFIELD - SATURDAY NIGHT



No Mercy - Where Do You Go?



OMC - How Bizarre