------------------------------------------------------------------------ * G * O * A * N * E * T **** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out
Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Farewell, Lady Nicotine! By Valmiki Faleiro September it shall be to stop smoking. When three cigarette cartons -- of the brand I smoked most in 30-odd years -- gifted by visiting overseas friends, are stubbed. Why publicise a personal decision? For three good reasons. In ascending order of importance: to build pressure to stay on course and resist relapse; to fore-caution readers that withdrawal symptoms might show here (it'll be cold turkey ... words like reduction, moderation are not in my vocab -- I never do things in half measure!); but foremost, to tell smokers how easy it now is to quit, unlike before. All good things in life must end someday, like life itself. A law of nature. But nicotine, a "good thing?" Yes! Romanticized as a 'Lady,' she's a rare thingy. Does diametrically opposite things, as situation demands. She lifts you when you're down, and cools you down when excited. A stimulant and a relaxant, simultaneously! Most smokers will not have realized they take short, rapid puffs when tired or relaxed (low blood nicotine stimulates nerve transmission), and longer, deeper drags when tensed or excited (high nicotine levels depress nerve impulses and sedate.) Nicotine works on the body's principal transmitters, adrenaline and dopamine. Charge up or feel good. It's a powerful, positive psychological tool. Helps concentrate and relax (an "attention thermostat"), produces mild euphoria, helps deal with stress, with tension and lethargy, keeps one awake -- and one's body weight in check. I learnt that from experience and my smoking bible, "The Smoker's Book of Health" by Dr. Tom Ferguson, MD (1987, G.P. Putnam's Sons, ISBN: 0-399-13193- 0.) It presents facts about smoking -- without moralizing, a must for every health conscious smoker. (I'm yet to lay hands on friend, Mario Sequeira's 'Killing me Softly.') While paeans can be sung to the 'Lady,' she does have, like most things in life, her flip side. Nicotine creates the addiction. And the only way of pumping nicotine to your brains is by chewing, sniffing or smoking tobacco -- and taking in hundreds of other toxins and poisons in the bargain, several of them known carcinogens. (I hope any young readers, toying with the elation of taming fire between one's fingers, as I did when I was sixteen, have reached reading this far.) Smoking is not glamorous. It's cancerous. Amongst a host of other undesirables. Tobacco, perhaps only next to dope, is the worst vice one can acquire. A sure cut of one's lifespan, if not misery to the user and to the immediate family. We sure must die someday -- but why choose months or years of agony before the final farewell? The best motivation to quit is to visit the oral and lung wards of Tata Memorial at Parel, Mumbai (the best gift, among others, our minuscule Parsi guests gave India, courtesy Sir Jamshedjee Tata.) I have been lucky, thus far. Decided to quit, purely for health reasons, while opportunity exists. Quitting is not difficult as it once was. Google Alerts and web searches led to a variety of quitting aids. There are the pharmacological, that either mimic what nicotine does to brain chemicals or block the receptors that sense them. Glaxo's 'Zyban' has been around for some time, Pfizer's 'Chantix' has come in lately and posts better results in the U.S. I've opted for the all natural. Made from herbs and stuff. Have lined up four. A bit expensive, but a whisper from what I'd spend in the event of cancer. I've quit before (not as Mark Twain once wrote, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times," but seriously.) Overcoming mental craving is easier than the physical habit. I'm going to try smokeless 'cigarettes' (menthol, cinnamon flavoured) from D-day. Creams and sniffers from before that -- they promise to cut craving drastically, in about a week. There's this magnetic product -- two tiny magnets, attached to some part of the ear -- that claims to produce dopamine, without your carcinogens! I'm yet to receive it, from a company called 'Smettere.' A reformed man is the greatest advocate against his former vice. St. Augustine, the Church's greatest advocate, demonstrated that. Here is a humble near-former smoker willing to assist any smoker seriously committed to kick the habit. Mail me privately: valmikif at gmail.com. I'll be glad to assist. (Start with typing 'Quit Smoking' in the Google search window and go to easily identifiable reliable sites like http://www.cancer.org or http://www.lungusa.org) If this Sunday swivels the mind of even one smoker, I will consider today more than rewarded. Adieu Lady, 'bye sweetheart! (ENDS) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the September 3, 2006 edition of the Herald, Goa _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org