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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!bbnccv!bbncc5!sdyer
From: sdyer@bbncc5.UUCP (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: re: quit smoking postings
Message-ID: <1253@bbncc5.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 10:05:52 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncc5.1253
Posted: Fri Nov 15 10:05:52 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 09:14:57 EST
References: <815@inuxd.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 28

> Something "flip flops" in the brain, I think.  It had always been
> so difficult as to be impossible before.  Suddenly it wasn't all
> that hard.  That was almost five years ago.  I haven't touched
> the weed since.   

I really can understand what Joyce means when she speaks of a "flip-flop."
In my case, not in regard to smoking but in losing weight and staying on
a diet.  Repeated lack of success or reluctance to start, and then WHAM
endless will-power.  It really is a binary gate, and it's very hard to
understand the components of finding oneself on one side or the other.

Regarding postings, I feel that facts (especially new or not-so-recently-trod
ones) are valuable, though it's important to deliver them without any chance
of being perceived as superior and lacking compassion.  But there's such a
large non-rational component to any addictive behavior that facts alone aren't
enough.  One doesn't present the physiological effects of chronic alcohol
intake to an alcoholic and expect sobriety to result; rather, we
try to say, "Here, you have a problem.  If you can recognize this, we know
of a number of places which have assisted people successfully in the past.
Are you willing to try?"  I think the medical profession would do well to
try to develop therapeutic paradigms which can assist the smoker, since
for many smokers, the task is too difficult to go alone.  Does anyone knoe
about the recently approved nicotine chewing gum, and whether it's just a
flash in the pan or a legitimate aid to helping people quit?
-- 
/Steve Dyer
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