How To Quit Smoking When You're In This Business?

[Baudtender]

I was reading allanjustallan's most recent post in a different topic and one thing he mentioned caught my eye. He wanted to quit smoking so he avoided his business for some time and during that period all sorts of problems cropped up in his absence. I can definitely relate to this!

I've always had problems with the "traditional" advice and strategies given to smokers to help them quit. In short, it's all dead wrong for many people in our business, and certainly was for me. Unless you're in a smoke-free business (which is still a rather small percentage of this country) you cannot avoid smoke and smokers in the bar or breakroom or other areas of the business. As allanjustallan found, avoiding our businesses during the initial stages of quitting (while the psycho/physical trauma of quitting is in full swing) may present a whole new series of serious problems - not the sort of thing we need while we are trying to "avoid stress." Not to mention that for many of us, getting fat on unhealthy food during the process is way too easy when it's surrounding us, and I don't like the idea of trading one evil for another - even if it is a lesser evil.

After dozens of failed "quits", I finally found a different quit smoking strategy that is so radical, yet so obviously _right_ that I just have to share it (and I should mention that I have absolutely nothing to gain by doing so.) It's a book called "The Easy Way To Stop Smoking" by Allen Carr. You can find it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or order it through any bookstore (ISBN #1-4027-1861-6.) Read its customer reviews on Amazon compared to the other "quit smoking" books and prepare to be astonished.

I don't mean to encapsulate his book or program here, but it's weird in that you do not (and cannot) use nicotine replacements like patches or gum, forget Zyban, you don't use crutches like food or candy, you don't necessarily have to avoid smokers or places where smoking is allowed, and the withdrawal pangs are very much diminished. The author says there won't be any withdrawal symptoms at all or that they are so mild as to hardly be noticeable - that just ain't so at least in my case, but they are, for some bizarre reason, a LOT less pronounced, a lot more manageable, and not at all irresistable. It has a lot to do with proper psychological programming (and I don't just mean "happy thoughts") which doesn't come off at all as snake-oil'ish or new-age'ish as it sounds. It just makes sense.

The most important thing I got from this book is that I lost my fear of quitting. I lost my fear of withdrawal. He dissects the quitting process and why it most often fails, and then proposes an entirely different way of doing it. I can't imagine how it could be made easier or less troublesome (what this guy could do for modern dentistry...) He even encourages the reader to keep smoking while they're reading the book.

So, I'm giving this a shot now, a two-plus-pack-a-day for 25 years guy who always during the first days of cold-turkey before this program alternated between a sweat-soaked fetal position and a raging psychotic until failure was unavoidable. The first few days were a breeze compared to earlier quits. I don't feel bad at all after a week - this damned thing just might work. I can enjoy a pint or two and not worry about loss of willpower, there just isn't any desire to smoke - no unbearable pangs drawing me back and no bad temperament. I don't actually feel that I've given up anything, as strange as it sounds. I don't avoid "stressful situations" or worry that I'm just one bit of bad news away from a relapse.

If you really want to quit and haven't found the right way to do it yet, give this book a shot. If others here have tried this method, I'd like to hear how you've fared on it.

But I also think this thread could be a valuable repository for any other methods they have used successfully, as well as advice specific to folks in our industry undertaking this endeavor.

Baudtender

[cayucos cowgirl]

Hey, Thanks for posting that. I am going to check it out. I have been smoking off but mostly on for about 20 years, yet it has never felt like it was something that was like me to do. It is difficult to explain. I did not even start smoking till I was 27. I think I got tired of people treating me like a little kid because of my looks, and just started smoking so I would look older to fit in with my peers. So lame!! Anyway, I think about quitting every day. I really hate spending the money on such a dumb thing and it is so dirty and ugly. Yuck!

so thanks again!!

[Visual Magic]

This really isn't the topic but I would have to say it's even harder to avoid drinking in this business. There aren't a lot of bartenders out there that aren't alcoholics themselves. It's sort of an occupational hazard.
And what about if you OWN a club? I don't know a club owner that doesn't partake a bit too much. I know some that you just can't talk to after midnight.
There are several clubs out there that I designed that I can walk in and drink absolutely free if I wanted to. (At least once in a while. I probably couldn't do it every weekend.)
Heck, when you're the guy that "did the place" you can't pay for a drink. They'll comp whatever you want. You can find yourself out of control in a big hurry if you aren't careful.
Fortunately for myself, I just don't like to be drunk. I like my cold beer but I hate falling down. But that's just me. Not everybody's like that.
I guess it's just a matter of knowing when to say when but some people in this business just don't know when that is.

[DanDTGB]

I find just the opposite. I have been working in the industry for 20 years and the last thing I want to do is drink. It's actually starting to affect my off time. When I am off work, the last place I want to go is a bar or restaurant. If I walk into a restaurant, I automatically go into "work mode" and start critiquing whatever establishment I'm in. I don't want to be around the party crowd and after 8 hours a day watching drunks, the last thing I want to do is be one. Who knew, bartending as a cure for alcoholism... hmm. Maybe I'll write a how-to book. All you have to do to quit drinking is bartend for 20 years. That ought to be a best seller.

[seandell]

How about quiting red bull, I think I'm addicted, thou I only drink it when at work? I would use less TP if I could quit....

[Securitygeek]

I find just the opposite. I have been working in the industry for 20 years and the last thing I want to do is drink. It's actually starting to affect my off time. When I am off work, the last place I want to go is a bar or restaurant. If I walk into a restaurant, I automatically go into "work mode" and start critiquing whatever establishment I'm in. I don't want to be around the party crowd and after 8 hours a day watching drunks, the last thing I want to do is be one. Who knew, bartending as a cure for alcoholism... hmm. Maybe I'll write a how-to book. All you have to do to quit drinking is bartend for 20 years. That ought to be a best seller.

I know what ya mean, I have been in Security work for 16 years and when I walk into a club I enter the "Zone" always on the job. Kinda sucks really.

[soundguy_99]

Hey Baudtender,
Congradulations, and I wish you the best of luck, but by the sounds of it, you wont need it.
Its definetly an intresting concept, that has been catching on latley not only with smoking, but alcholism,or heathly living and eating habits and various other things, kind of a Treat the mind first, then the body will follow sort of a metality, not to say its anything new mind you, old medicin men have been practicing it for ages, just us western's are finally catching on. Again Congradulations.

Also to the comments about how your work affects your life or affects your lack of one, I suppose thats the difference between a job and a career, espcially one that your passionate about, a job is something you leave at the workplace where a career is something you carry with you for the rest of your life regardless how many you may have in your life time. A carrer becomes a part of you, sometimes good sometimes bad, where a job you can seperate yourself from it. Like Securitygeek said once you have been in a career for awhile, you tend to develope habits from that carrer, that is tough to change, and once people know you for that carrer its even that much more harder to get away from that career, even for just a short time. I guess its the price we pay for getting into a career that serves a specalized demand in the public eye.
soundguy_99

[ministry]

hey if you want to quit smoking and still work in a bar move to Ct or Ma. both states are no smoking in bars ! it happened a couple of years without much protesting

[seandell]

hey if you want to quit smoking and still work in a bar move to Ct or Ma. both states are no smoking in bars ! it happened a couple of years without much protesting

Lets not forget the first state to make this law , CA