Out From Under: Treating Your Own Addictions, Appendix 13

Try this: Smoke an imaginary cigarette. Fill your lungs with each puff. Do it again, this time with a very deep inhale. All while you do this, count down from 10 to 1 into your deepest self. When at your deepest, keep saying to yourself: "The urge is only temporary. It will go away in five minutes." Keep doing this until the urge goes away.

Do it all again every time an urge for a cigarette comes up.

Even if you smoke again, do this exercise between each cigarette.

Read the info about the chemicals in cigarettes.

(Contributed by a successful quitter.)

* Drug addicts who were given doses of various drugs as part of a scientific study rated nicotine highly euphoric and often mistook it for cocaine.
* Tobacco smoke contains an addicting sedative, acetaldehyde, which is also the first by-product created when the body breaks down alcohol.
* 30 to 60 percent of chemical dependence treatment staff are smokers.
* Smoking-induced illnesses are the leading cause of death among persons recovering from other addictions. The co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous died as a result of nicotine addiction. The Founder of the National Council on Alcoholism, died as a result of nicotine addiction.

Nicotine: Constricts blood vessels, cutting down the flow of blood and oxygen and making the heart beat faster. Extremely poisonous.

Pyridine: Related to nicotine. Produced by the burning of the cigarette. Some effects on heart action. Used as a dog repellent.

Tar: This is black matter made up of dozens of compounds. Some are toxic, some are completely harmless, some are cancer-causing agents. Tar cools inside the lungs, forming a sticky mass and damaging delicate lung tissue.

Carbon Monoxide: Drives oxygen from the red blood cells. Carbon monoxide stays in the blood hemoglobin for up to six hours after exposure to cigarette smoke has stopped. Affects passive smokers.

Cadmium: A metal that accumulates in the lungs and stays there. Has an adverse effect on the protective immune devices of the body.

Nitrogen Dioxide: Produced by reaction of the temperature of the burning cigarette and surrounding nitrogen in the air. Dissolves in water in lung tissue to form nitrous acid, which the body can handle fairly well. Also reacts with amines in the body to form nitrosamine, which is a carcinogen. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards indicate 5 parts per million are safe. Cigarettes produce 250 parts per million.

Hydrogen Cyanide: Same as gas as used in the gas chamber. Not as poisonous as hydrogen sulfide, but less noticed as it does not have an unpleasant odor. EPA standards indicate 10 parts per million as safe. Cigarette smoke produces an average of 1,600 parts per million.

Benzene: A poison that interferes with cellular metabolism. Prohibited by law in paint thinners.