BBJeff who is unknown to me wrote the followings on my blog's comment page under the topic Another Reason To Quit Smoking :
I just turned 36. After 16 years of smoking about 25-30 sticks a day, I've just quit for the first time on 1st Jan 2008.Nicotine patches do help cut the craving by about 70%. For the rest of the 30% I sniff a vicks inhaler and eat sweets to kill the craving.Its been 8 days now ... The side effects of not smoking ... Extreme tiredness esp after lunch, but the nice part is, my stamina to play football has increased visibly while playing football after only one week of quitting.Wish me luck guys.
Monday, January 07, 2008.
When I read those admission by bbjeff, I felt elated that I immediately wrote to my comrades in arm over the stop smoking campaign namely Akmal and Hantu Laut requesting their cooperation to help bbjeff by encouraging him to be strong willed to fight the desire to give up.
Akmal responded by writing this:
Pak Zawi,
Allow me to respond to bbjeff.
bbjeff,
You made the first and second step already; resolution and action. I bet, now you are facing the withdrawal symptoms, which is the frenzy part of quitting smoking. But you see, what you do right now is noble.I'm with you.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Hantu Laut have yet to respond but I guess he will do so in due course. It may not be due to our effort that bbjeff wanted to stop but nevertheless we are elated that there is somebody out there who has decided to stop and has taken the step to quit as Akmal aptly described it, bbjeff made the first two steps already, resolution and action. Thus far we consider him as on the way to success.
Closer to home, my sister in law's husband, Tuan Haji Hussin Musa has decided to stop too. At the age of 66, Tuan Haji Husin had been smoking for the past 50 years since the age of 16. Though he had reduced his addiction to a pack of 12 sticks of Gudang Garam per day, he couldn't stop it entirely despite the urgings of close family members including his daughter in law who is a doctor and does autopsy at one of the district hospital in Selangor. She had seen too many damaged lungs due to ciggarette related diseases.
After 50 years of smoking ciggarettes Tuan Haji Husin finally decided to quit.
What made him stop abruptly on 1st December 2007?
Dato' Dr. Ashaari Yaakob of IJN had told him matter of factly that he won't do an operation on him unless the patient stop smoking 6 weeks before a bypass is done. Xrays done on his lung on previous preliminary visits to IJN showed his lung to have enlarged lumens, the minute tubes leading to the bronchioles where oxygen is absorbed into the blood. Tuan Haji Husin is due to be warded on 28th Januari 2008 before the by pass will be done on him. He needs to do bypass on two of his blocked veins which is already 100 percent closed leaving only 3 functioning ones.
That did it. He has to stop and stop immediately he did. To tide his craving for ciggarette he is taking some sweets as a temporary measure.
My son Azuan quitted smoking soon after being hospitalised for removal of a blood clot in his brain. Here he is with his uncle Tuan Haji Hussin.Do you have to wait for the doctors at IJN to tell you to stop smoking before you can make yourself strong enough to quit smoking?
Here are some pictures taken from the following sites to show how lungs infected with smoking diseases look like and you can read more at the same sites where the pictures were copied:
http://www.smokinglungs.com/cyber-gallery/
http://www.smokinglungs.com/
Cerebellar Metastasis: This image shows an operative photograph of a craniotomy (circular opening in the scull) through which can be seen an area where a lung cancer metastasis to the cerebellar area of the brain has been surgically removed. This patient is alive and well ten years later.
A diseased lung seen via an endoscope
This image is that of a lobe of the lung resected at surgery containing a large squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.
It will be interesting to see how Akmal will keep the fire of the campaign to help people quit smoking going through his next post on the same subject. Hit it Akmal.
Thai Pubs To Be Smoke-free
The Star of 12th January 2008 reported that Thailand has introduced a new rule to tighten an earlier restrictions which ban smoking in restaurants. Now the non smoking zone is extended to pubs too. Beginning from Feb 17th, 2008 this ban will be in force. Knowing the Thai authorities, they will strictly enforce it. Non smokers will have an easier life breathing in pubs in Thailand compared to in Malaysia where smoking is still allowed.
The Thai Authorities is of the view that smoking is so pernicious that they have a duty to protect their citizen.
Why can't Malaysia take a lesson from the Thais?
A close friend forwarded this to me, I paste it here as the way it came. Hope you will enjoy reading it.
I am PETER STUYVESANT. Come from the city of MARLBORO, whose main business is in Storing Salt (GUDANG GARAM). Said good-bye to my two close comrades, BENSON & HEDGES. I traveled up to the mountains of METHAHORN(Matherhorn?). Through the valleys of MILD SEVEN. Riding on my WHITE HORSE. There, I fell in love with 2 EVEs. One with the daughter of MASTER DUKE. Two with the grand daughter of ROTHMANS. We checked in at the house of DUNHIL. Land booked into room 555 STATE EXPRESS. Put on the aircon to COOL. I laid them onto the bedsheet made of GOLD LEAF. One cried in delight "you are a ROUGH RIDER". The other "As though you are riding on a CAMEL" Spading the SPADE. Huh… not long after, they asked for MORE. No.. Not now.. I KENT.
~source:unknown. Revised Version1.
Original taken from Blogspot: Hok Kawe.
39 comments:
Salam Zawi,
Satu usaha yang patut disokong. Di sini saya ingin kongsi pengalaman saya sendiri berhenti merokok.
Saya telah merokok sejak berumur 19 tahun dan hanya dapat berhenti sepenuhnya ketika berumur 44 tahun. Saya pernah mencuba berhenti merokok beberapa kali sebelum itu tetapi kembali merokok semula atas sebab-sebab tertentu. Walau bagaimana pun saya ada menulis tentang merokok ini dalam tiga N3 saya seperti berikut:
http://zainulabs.blogspot.com/2007/06/rokok.html
http://zainulabs.blogspot.com/2007/08/rokok-2.html
http://zainulabs.blogspot.com/2007/08/rokok-3.html
Semoga mereka yang hendak berhenti merokok ini kuatkan azam. Kalau orang lain boleh berhenti, kita juga tentu boleh. semoga berjaya. InsyaAllah.
zabs,
Waalaikummussalam.
Sebenarnya ramai yang ingin berhenti tetapi tidak cukup kuat azam dan tiada sokongan dari kwan-kawan. Itu menyebabkan mereka gagal.
Terima kasih kerana memberi URL saudara yang boleh dibaca oleh mereka yang ingin mendapat ilham dari saudara cara mana yang digunakan seingga berkesan.
Dalam keadaan harga rokok sekarang adalah wajar bagi semua perokok berhenti merokok. Kita tidak boleh menyalahkan mana mana pihak yang menyebabkan kita merokok, ia adalah pilihan kita sendiri.
Zawi,
You scare me with those pictures. I'm a heavy smoker. I just don't want to quit and do not intent to quit; I don't know why. I know it's bad for my health, but I love smoking... how???
maverick sm,
I am sorry if I did scare you with those pictures. Next time wear some dark glasses to view it or just close an eye OK?
The intention is to help those who intend to quit and since you dont intend to, there is nothing anybody can do about it. You just wait till a doctor at IJN tell you to quit cos he wont do any operation on you if you are still a smoker by then. Then you decide what to do hahahaha. Its you lung so do as you please with it. Just enjoy your smoke bro.
Pak Zawi,
BBjeff is already in the right course. He came over, left a comment, telling us the details of his smoking habit before gave it a quit, his wish for a complete stop; we can conclude that his resolution is not to be questioned anymore.
I'm working on the psychology part of quit smoking. Will be published later, I need some more time to finalise it.
Until then Pak. Have a nice evening.
Akmal,
You are right about bbjeff.
Thank you for the support. Let see what you can do about it and maybe you will be able to give more helpful tips for our friends who need help to quit.
salam pak zawi;
very wise action. smoking is bad for everyone even to non smokers. the smoke that they inhale from smokers are twice as bad.
i think there was a fatwa from majlis agama that says merokok itu haram. correct me if i'm wrong
Salam Pak Zawi
The other half quit smoking more than a year ago. I don't think I had anything to do with it although I had nagged him endlessly about the effects of contaminating his lungs with the nicotine.
He did it on his accord.
Now that he has successfully done it, I constantly tell him how proud I am of him.
So, people who want to quit smoking must do it because they want to do it, not for others, and that we have to support them in whatever way we can.
To BBjeff, good luck. You lose nothing by not smoking. You'll gain in good health and a little bit more money in your pockets.
kc,
Agree with you fully that the passive smokers are getting the worst deal for being forced to inhale the second hand smoke. Do you think the active smokers care? All they care is they get their fix.
A meeting in an airconditioned room with the chairman smoking like a locomotive train will lead to the other smokers following his action. By mid point thru the meeting the room will stink like an ashtray with the smell sticking to your shirt and all. How I dread to be in such a meeting.
As far as I know smoking is 'makruh'. Maybe smoking marijuana or opium is haram. Would be great if they can make smoking ciggy as haram too as smoking parents will set as a bad example to the children. I was as guilty of that as it was my smoking that made my children smoke while they were in school. It was set in their mind that smoking ciggy was OK since their father smoked too.
Fauziah,
let us salute your other half for taking the right action. In a way you have contribuuted to his decision and action to stop. He must have loved you and the children so much that he prefer not to tourture you all with his second hand smoke.
Smoking is an expensive habit now as the price of ciggy is so high. When I stopped smoking the price of a pack of 20 was just RM3.80. I got a big shock recently when I found out that now it costs RM8.00!
Assuming you smoke a pack a day which is normal for a moderate smoker, it is a saving of RM240 over a 30 days month. That translates to RM2880 a year,which is definitely more than enough to pay for your children yuran tambahan at school and your income tax too if you are in the middle income bracket.
Ain't that enticing enough?
Salam, pak zawi, first of all, I would like to congratulate you and akmal and others who tried their best bringing out the awareness to the public. It was a noble deed indeed. To bbjeff, good luck bro, it's still not too late for anything. We have the experience from pak zabs and the other veterans who survived through it and i bet you can too. My father was also one of the survivors. Just like most of the quitters, he finally realized hes making the damage both ways, himself and the people around him including his loved ones. He stopped about two years ago and stay sober till now. It is a normal thing for a quitter to develop another habit in exchange. My father directs his focus to golf and he was very good at it rite now. Thanks again to pak zawi and akmal. I lost my grandmother due to the passive smoking (my grandfather was a heavy smoker), if I'm not mistaken, the cancer was initiated from her lungs and metastasized to her breast. Let us prevent this from happening to others. Really looking forward for akmal's post. I may be working on my post on the awareness of cancer prevention. InsyaAllah, I'm working on it at the moment. Until then, take care pak zawi, salam...
fishy@ike (Muiz),
I am glad to have another ally in you. Let us all do something for society. Those who still wan't to carry on smoking let them do it as it is their choice but what matters to us is those who want to quit and we are all in support of them.
How sad to hear the demise of you late grandmother was the indirect effect of her own husband's undoing. Let that be a lesson to all who cares about their loved ones around them. If that wont open up their eyes and their heart, nothing will.
Looking forward to reading your post on the awareness of cancer prevention. Quiting smoking is one of the ways to prevent cancer I think.
Pak Zawi,
My FIL had a heart attack a few days before Ramadhan last year and he had quit smoking since then...his last check up at the IJN last week showed that the heart is doing quite well....imagine that just a few months quitting can do that....
i pray for BBjeff to be strong and got over the withdrawal symptoms soonest...once that over living daily without a puff should be smooth sailing.....
zaitgha,
Its heartening to note that quitting from smoking can help that much. Hope others can learn from him too. No doubt non smokers can get a heart attack too due to other reasons such as the wrong diet.
Thanks for the support to bbjeff. He will be very impressed with the show of support.
Salam Pak Zawi :o)
All the best to BBJeff. It's hard but not impossible. He needs all the support he can get and I can see a big support group from here :o)
Good luck, BBJeff :o)
syana,
On behalf of bbjeff, Ithnk you for the support. Hopefully other smokers who are keen to stop smoking will declare their intention and we promise to give the same support as accorded to bbjeff.
Pak Zawi,
Some tips for Bbjeff.
Bbjeff,
It's a good thing for you.You have passed the first hurdle of going through with your resolution.Next step is the will power to continue the arduous journey.This is the most dangerous part of the journey, the first 2 weeks, will decide whether you fall flat on your face and revert to your old habit or triumph with a feeling of great satisfaction to find out you have the inner strength to do it, which you din't think you have before.
Try stay away, as far as possible, from smokers.If you are a boozer, refrain from drinking for the initial period as alcohol and tobbacco are good friends.If you drink, you may be tempted to pick up a cigarette and before realise it, you are back to your old habit.
Don't use the nicotine patch for too long, so are the vick and sweets.You may drop your smoking addiction but may pick up another kind of addiction.
Bbjeff keep it up.I wish you success in your journey to a healthier lifestyle.
Hantu Laut,
Thanks for the tips. I know I can count on you as an ex smoker for support. Now we need further encouragemnet from current smokers like Mat Salo and Elviza who harbour some dreams of quitting from smoking but have yet to take the first step of making the resolution to quit.
Come on Mat Salo and Elviza, you too can do it.
Hello Zawi,
The trick is (I just had this spark in my head this instant), is not to tackle the masses. We must tackle the cigarette manufacturers.
Zawi, get a group to think for the manufacturers another use for tobacco that can generate more money than producing cigarettes!! Maybe convert the tobacco leaves into fertilisers, or create it to be alternative building bricks or do some research if the young tobacco shoots if eaten can produce instance slimming effect...something like that. What say you? He he.
My point we get 1m people to stop, the cigarettes ad campaigns will convert a new 1m users! Gosh! Just an idea though what you're doing is admirable. I'm just being crazy here.
Keep up the good effort.
Ruby,
Ciggarette or tobacco is big money. Even governmets are scared of tobacco companies.We can get the farmers to plant alternative crops and they can still survive but the government cant do away with the massive tax they are collecting. That's the main crux. The country's health bill can be reduced substantially if the smoking related diseases can be avoided.
Eat the tobacco leaves? Even voracious feeders like goats dont take them, what more humans. Hey tell me why coes dont smoke ciggarettes? Are they more intelligent? Hehehehe.
If everybody stop smoking, ciggarette companies will go bust. That will be real nice. Then only they will do R & D to find other uses fr tobacco. All I know is that tobacco is the best leech repellent. How many people are interested in leech reppellent?
Pak Zawi,
Scary pics there. I don't smoke but it scares me to think of the possibility of that happening to me as my husband smokes and many people that I know smoke too. I've been nagging my husband to stop smoking but I guess he is not ready yet.
Good effort by you and Akmal to encourage people to quit. Keep it up!!
Nana,
Please don't nag him. Nagging will only make him more resolved to carry on smoking. If he says he is not ready, give him time to be ready by asking him to commit to a certain time frame. Ask him to read the stories in here from people who succeed in quitting based on the various reasons. Hantu Laut gave a very useful tip in here.
If you have young children make him smoke outside the house as my daughter inlaw did to my son. My daughter went to the extent that the father may not kiss the baby without brushing his mout and gargle with mouthwash. That way the smoking will be reduced somewhat.
If your children are big enough to speak, get them to ask the father to stop smoking.
Ultimately he will want to quit himself but why wait to later when you could have done it now?
Bring him to read this blog and if he chooses to quit, we will give him words of support to get him through.
Keep trying.
Those pictures look horrible! Bleerrhh! :-( Imagine carrying a diseased lung like in your body! No wonder it is hard to survive lung cancer!
Puteri,
Those pictures are meant to scare the shit out of the smokers and help them to realize the folly of the habit. Hopefully it will work.
Can you imagine yourself kissing a guy with a rotting lung in his body?
Did you throw up? Cruel me hehehhehe.
Helo Pak Zawi,
Good post and thanks for sharing. I m sure BBjeff will pull through with so many ppl helping.
Last week, my primary school friend's sister (36 years old) passed away after battling lung cancer.
She was diagnosed not long after getting married 2 years ago. At the time, the doctor gave her only 4-6 months to live.
After the news..i heard that she went to Singapore for treatment.
Last year (forgot which month), i did see her around and she look ok...a bit thin...but ok.
She fought on until last week. I think the family was already prepared for it.
BBjeff...all the best in ur journey...in getting ur health back. We are all supporting u. Keep ur chin up.
Nightwing,
Just doing my bit for society. Being an ex smoker myself, I know how difficult it is to quit, to pick up the habit is easy.
I am sorry for your friends sister. Was the lung cancer related to smoking? Eve if she wasn't a smoker, a passive smoker could be just as bad.
Thank you for the support for bbjeff, I know he will appreciate it.
Salam pakzawi...
Here I am reading and looking at those photos with eeeiiioouuuu sounds coming from my mouth...Eery dear...
Thank you for taking another milestone, for advising those smokers to stop smoking...I pun sebenarnya sesak dada bila surrounded by asap rokok...
Another sebab is I would be the one affected badly by this nonfiltered smoke...
Hopefully, this piece will trigger a stronger determination for those smokers to quit smoking ya...
Take care Pak.
Go bbjef go!
Erm, by the way, pak zawi, i've been wondering, why bbjef doesn't reply to you about his condition at the moment?
p/s: do you mind if I link your blog to mine?
D,
If I get one person to quit, I feel my effort is already worth it. So far the concerted effort by Hantu Laut, Akmal and his friend Muiz aka fish@ike in giving me support to continue the crusade is really giving the strength to me to go on. I know there are people out there who needs help. They deserve all the help we can give.
Regret often comes too late before we can do something about it.
I am supposed to get better pictures from my neice at Klang Hospital but since none came I have to use those pictures from the net.
Thanks for dropping in D.
Muiz,
I think bbjeff is not a blogger like us so he may come in once in awhile and posted his comment and forget about it. Hopefully he will come back oneday to see all the support we are giving him. Maybe he has read em all? Who knows?
I have stated in my sidebar no permission is necessary to link my site. Be my guest Muiz, I will be very happy to be linked tou yours. I will add yours to an already long list of mine hahahaha. Now I have to sort it in alphabetical order to make it easier for me to find the site that I want to go to.
Salam Pak Zawi,
Hey, so many people are giving out their support. I think it is the time to spread the wing. I am currently trying to look for a suitable FREE forum host(can anyone suggest one?). I found some, but they are somewhat not suitable. We perhaps can invite dr.bubbles, mueiz, doc tokasid, pak zabs, whoever interested in this isue, to be the moderators of the forum. But until I found that suitable host and started that forum, put this one as a pending plan. The general idea is all about health discussion, but of course we can also forum about misc. stuffs.
As for my posting, I am sorry but I can only post it later. The draft was somehow, somewhat mising from my pendrive, I did all kind of forensic that I know! So what can I say, I'll need to restart from a scratch. Lucky I already have the outline, though.
Have a nice evening.
Akmal,
The idea of the forum is interesting. I am not so techie over such matter and can join in to give my opinion. I think those people that you mentioned are very suitable. Please try to invite Jaflam and Pak Idrus too as I think they are people who can contribute to the forum.
Best of luck to you.
Sorry to tell all my smoking friends.. that I anti-smoking.
Hi Zawi, good post this. Glad to read of your friends quitting smoking.
However, I have no comments re this topic, ha ha. You know why.
I know, I know, my friend..but soon.
Keep well, Zawi, Lee.
kbguy,
Your statement is indeed a big support of our campaign for smokers to quit smoking. Let us hope that your friends know of your feeling towards smoking.
Thank you kbguy.
Lee,
I can understand you well my friend. You are considered a light smoker now compared to your younger days. You are definitely lucky to have not contracted any lung disease after 50 years (so far) of smoking. Hope luck will always be with you my friend.
My husband is a smoker and I'm tired of nagging him to stop.
When we were dating he told me, "When we get married, I'll stop". But no, he didnt.
Then he said "when we have a baby, I'll stop". But of course he didnt. My daughter is already 5.
I show him articles and pictures on the effects of smoking but he ignores them.
He wont smoke in front of his parents (out of respect but I think he's just scared). He doesnt mind smoking in front of me though :)
trueblue,
Please don't nag him, coax him into stopping. Get your child to urge him to stop as well. Exposing you and the child to second hand smoke is even more dangerous. Tell him that there is a group out there who is supportive of him should he ever want to quit. We were ex smokers too.
Restrict his smoking area to outside the house.
My son in law promised his wife tha same thing too and he couldn't keep it as well.
Best of luck to you in getting your husband to quit smoking.
Nice Post! I also read some of your postings. I really learned a lot of things. Thank you for sharing.
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