Quit smoking leads to alcoholism?

Because so many ex-smokers she knows become heavy drinkers or alcoholics after quitting, Benet fears that if tobacco is banned then she will become dependent on alcohol, too, and that worries her because her body cannot tolerate alcohol.

"I can't help it if I can't tolerate alcohol," says Benet. "If I could, I'd be a lot better off in many, many ways than I am now. For starters, I had to give up the love of my life because he drank and kept on at me to take it up again, not believing how alcohol seriously affected my health.”

“I've spent most of my life being an ex-drinking smoker in a drinker's world, and while the sight and smell of alcohol certainly does trigger old desires I'm sane enough to handle it – as long as I can smoke,” explains Benet. “I remember how ill alcohol made me, and that does it for me."

"It seems that ex-smokers who gave up smoking for health reasons -- and then took up drinking -- are not only getting a better deal than I am but are also calling the shots, as alcoholics,” says Benet, “and this is so unfair because smoking calms my nerves – it’s my legal drug of choice.”

"Smoking never affected my health like alcohol did, so I never had reason to quit and still don't, but my nerves are getting so bad with all the non-smoking nonsense that if I did try to quit I'd need some pretty heavy tranquillizers to get there and stay there," sighs Benet. “It's definitely not something I care to try while I am still employed."

"Unlike smokers, drinkers just can't seem to enjoy their habit alone," sighs Benet. "They always want to force their habit upon you and get offended if you politely refuse. I get along fine with drinkers who also smoke, but if I have to socialize with non-smoking drinkers -- especially ex-smokers -- it doesn't take long for them to start abusing my smoking habit. Funny about that, isn't it?"

"Ex-drinking smokers don't abuse drinkers or preach to them," says Benet, "and I can't understand why ex-smokers can't bear being around us, whether we drink or not.”

"Maybe the abusive ex-smoking drinkers gave up cigarettes for the wrong reasons," muses Benet, "and that's why they go crazy when they see and smell cigarette smoke?"

"If I can't drink for health reasons, and I'm soon going to be prevented from smoking anywhere -- even in my own home -- then where does that leave me when I take early retirement (to avoid smoking hassles at work) and have umpteen years ahead of me to fill?"

"Do I go with the flow and become an alcoholic, or do I experiment with other drugs -- legal or otherwise?" asks Benet. "And don't give me any crap about not needing a drug.”

“I can't undo all those years and pretend I'm an innocent young girl again,” says Benet, “and besides which I don't know anybody who doesn't take something, legal or illegal, to make life less painful or more pleasant."

“Do you?”

Read more by Benet on this issue:

tobacco vs. alcohol
Toxic workplace drinking culture

Anti-smoking vaccine?

Didi had quit smoking hundreds of times before she moved back home to become her mother’s caregiver, and because her father still smokes she has taken up the habit again and wonders about whether it is as bad for her as the health authorities say it as, and whether an anti-smoking vaccine is going to be any good.

"Novartis has acquired global rights to an anti-smoking vaccine, developed by Swiss company Cytos Biotechnology," says Didi. "This sounds too good to be true and it probably is.”

“The vaccine acts by inducing the body to develop antibodies that bind to nicotine molecules in the bloodstream and make them too large to get through the blood-brain barrier."

"By reducing the uptake of nicotine, the smoker gets no buzz from smoking and theoretically has no reason to smoke any more," says Didi. "But every smoker I know enjoys the smoking experience itself -- you know, blowing smoke circles in the air -- and buzz or no buzz this vaccine may not be the wonder drug to help smokers stop smoking."

"Why is there no anti-alcohol vaccine?" asks Didi. "Silly question, I know, because even if it could be done why would any biotechnologist in his or her right mind develop a vaccine to deprive people from enjoying what they, themselves, enjoy?”

“Alcohol causes more disease, death and misery than any other substance I know but raging against it went out of fashion in the 1930s when my dad was a youth,” says Didi, “and he tells me that it’s all a fad, people need something and someone to hate, and this time around it’s smokers.”

"The anti-smoking industry – including pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines for smoking - is becoming as lucrative as the tobacco industry and this really worries me," sighs Didi. "When two powerful lobbies stand to make squillions of dollars out of smokers whether they continue to smoke or quit, you get to understand what it's all about."

"I fear that they really don't care about smokers, they just want our money."

Read more by Didi on this issue:

mental health self-medicators?

dealing with elderly parents and doctors

War vet victimized for smoking

risking health insurance

As New Year's Eve approached, Regine, 29, faced a massive credit debt, along with mortgage interest rate increases and rising oil prices. Stressed, she resolved that the time had come when she had to cut all non-essential spending -- or lose her apartment -- and like millions of other people around the world she put quitting cigarettes on the top of her list of New Year resolutions.

"I couldn't bear to lose my apartment, not after I'd worked so hard to raise a deposit and keep up the monthly repayments," says Regine, "and if push came to shove I would rather starve than find myself back in a rented room."

"I'd tried to quit smoking many times before, what smoker hasn't?" sighs Regine, "and because it was so important for me to get out of debt I really needed to succeed this time -- there was absolutely no way I could justify wasting any more money on cigarettes, especially since my smoking habit yellows the ceiling of my living room so quickly that I have to pay to get a professional cleaner in every year."

"Having tried nicotine patches and gum before without any luck -- and having no willpower whatsoever -- I resolved to see my doctor and get fixed up with the latest quit smoking drug," says Regine, "but before I got that far I came across an article warning smokers about the suicidal side effects of the most popular new drug, Champix, and I freaked out."

"Apparently, there were 5,157 complaints about Champix in just one week in the USA where it is taken by four million people), and seven deaths and more than 1,300 complaints in the UK (where it is taken by a quarter of a million people)."

"I suppose if you divide the number of people taking the drug with the reported deaths and complaints the figure doesn't look too bad," says Regine, "but the thought of the slightest risk of ending up with a psychiatric problem and slashing my wrists was just too much for me to deal with."

"Even if the side effect was headaches, nausea and vomiting I still didn't think it was a good trade-off," says Regine. "If the whole purpose of taking the drug is to prevent withdrawal symptoms then why on earth would I take something that may cause equal if not worse problems?"

"If the drug cannot guarantee to make me feel good while relieving cravings and withdrawal symptoms, then it is utterly useless."

"Also, if the drug cannot guarantee to stop you smoking for at least a year it is also utterly useless," adds Regine, "and that seems to be the case with Champix, too. Only 22.5% of smokers on the drug had successfully quit in the trials. That is not a huge number and it probably consisted of strong will-power people who would have quit successfully with or without the drug."

"Pfizer, the drug company associated with Champix, has now been forced to add a suicidal warning on the product, but why was the drug allowed on the market in the first place if it is so dangerous?" asks Regine. "For God's sake, seven people have already died on this drug. It looks like the drug company, with a nod from the government, is just experimenting on us."

"We're just smokers, aren't we?" sighs Regine. "We're expendable human scum as far as the drug companies, the government and our health care systems are concerned. They don't care. It's as simple as that."

"Well, that put an end to my New Year resolution to quit smoking," says Regine. "If there are no guarantees to stop me smoking safely, then I'm doomed to remain a smoker. And, that being the case, the government is also a thief and a thug for increasing tobacco tax to the point where some people may have to lose their home."

"Crossing cigarettes off my list, that left health insurance, my automobile and my beauty salon expenses."

"Like cigarettes, driving and receiving beauty therapy make me feel good -- health insurance, on the other hand, is merely an insurance policy and is by far the most expensive bill I have to pay (because, ha ha, I disclosed I smoked and then I had to pay more)."

"It's a total care private health insurance -- I took it out over and above normal health care because I wanted first class care should I ever fall ill, here or overseas," explains Regine. "I have never used it in the seven years I've had it, and probably never will. It's an insurance policy, that's all."

"In the current climate of 'bash a smoker' -- and my trust in drug companies, governments and health care now being a big fat zero -- I had a sinking feeling that should I ever end up needing healthcare, the PC health insurance company could very well find a sneaky way to deny me what I needed on the basis of continued smoking."

"On that basis, I'd be a mug to keep on paying for something I'm never going to get."

"Once I deducted that huge expense from my salary I felt positively rich," laughs Regine. "I figure that I should be able to pay off my credit debt within the year, if I'm careful, and I don't have to stress myself unnecessarily by trying to stop smoking again."

"And stress is what it's all about."

"I know it sounds bad that people have to go without health insurance in order to keep their homes -- or choose cigarettes over health insurance," says Regine, "but when you factor in the incredible stress of daily life and trying to make ends meet you really are way ahead in health and happiness once you cut out a huge expense you really don't need."

"It's going to be happy new year for me after all," says Regine, "but my heart goes out to those four and a quarter million Champix guinea-pigs who are now back where they started, most of them a lot worse off for the experience, too."

Regine's story first appeared as suicidal quit smoking drug

a smoker lives to 122!

In researching the secrets of longevity, Emerald, 62, was amazed to learn that the world's oldest people – Jeanne Louise Calment (pictured) and Marie-Louise Meilleur – were smokers.

"I gave up smoking seven years, two months and five days ago," laughs Emerald, "and it's been such a terrible time for me that, yes, I have been taking each day as it comes, reciting the non-smoking mantra and believing that I'm doing myself good when, in fact, I'm probably doing myself more harm by drinking and eating more and stressing myself being a reformed smoker."

"No, I'm not going to rush out and buy a pack of cigarettes," says Emerald, "but I am going to stop all the other nonsense I've been doing for the past seven years, two months and five days and if I ever feel like having a smoke then I will deal with it in a mature and informed manner."

"Jeanne Louise Calment began smoking as a young woman -- like I did," says Emerald, "and she quit smoking at 117 because by then she was was blind, too proud to ask someone else to light her cigarettes for her and was encouraged by her doctor to do so."

"At 117 she had reduced her smoking to just two or three cigarettes per day -- like I did -- and she should have been able to quit completely," says Emerald, "but I guess she was too smart to go through the daily non-smoking mantra and strict regime that the rest of us ex-smokers have to go through."

"She actually resumed smoking a year later at 118 because she felt miserable -- oh boy, do I know about that -- and told her doctor to get stuffed, or words to that effect," laughs Emerald. "She believed, quite rightly I suppose, that only someone who had lived as long as she had was qualified to tell her what she should and should not do."

"When Mme. Calment died in France in l997, at the incredible age of 122, her place on the longevity list was taken by a 116-year old chain smoker from Canada -- Marie-Louise Meilleur -- who had quit smoking just 16 years before."

"I certainly don't believe that smoking prolongs life," says Emerald, "but facts like these really make you wonder about doing what people tell you to do, and doing what your gut instinct tells you to do."

Read more stories by Emerald related to longevity:

how to live to 122

everything in moderation

doggy friends

overeating and early graves?