首页    期刊浏览 2025年07月20日 星期日
登录注册

文章基本信息

  • 标题:No Ifs, Ands, or Butts: After 33 years of smoking and thousands of dollars to quit, officer confronted mortality
  • 作者:Carie A. Seydel
  • 期刊名称:Airman
  • 印刷版ISSN:0002-2756
  • 电子版ISSN:1554-8988
  • 出版年度:2001
  • 卷号:Nov 2001
  • 出版社:Superintendent of Documents

No Ifs, Ands, or Butts: After 33 years of smoking and thousands of dollars to quit, officer confronted mortality

Carie A. Seydel

Smoking was more than a habit for Maj. Liz Stone. Cigarettes were her best friend. Her father smoked in the house, and she and her three older sisters were used to hazy air.

"We weren't as educated or enlightened as we are today," she said. "That was the 'smoke 'em if you got 'em' generation."

It didn't take long for her to start smoking. Like 90 percent of adult smokers, she started puffing young.

"All of my sisters smoked, and I associated smoking with being grown up. I really wanted to be like them," she said. "I worked hard at smoking--this isn't a skill we're born with -- there was a lot of choking, coughing and nausea. But I'm an achiever, so I got very good at it."

By the time she turned 16, she was addicted to nicotine.

"I was a slave to cigarettes, an absolute slave to the habit," she said.

Nine years later, when she swore to support and defend, she issued hospital patients an ashtray along with their pajamas and slippers. Ironically, while working in an oncology unit, Liz smoked with dying lung cancer patients.

Despite being surrounded by the aftermath of smoking, she denied the potential lethality of her addiction. The habit became a way of coping with the stress of life.

"Smoking became my internal reward system. For every job completed I had a cigarette, whether it was putting laundry in the dryer or wrapping a dead body."

As she got older and society became more conscious of the hazards of smoking, she made several attempts to quit. She wasn't alone. Her husband, Mark, was a smoker.

Their pursuit to become nonsmokers wasn't easy. At their peak, each smoked three packs a day -- 60 cigarettes or almost a duty-day worth of puffing.

One attempt coincided with construction of a new home in Tulsa, Okla. The couple quit "cold turkey." While picking out wallpaper, carpet and cabinets, the pressure was too much. A teary-eyed Liz looked at Mark and begged him to join her for a cigarette. They left the samples on the showroom floor, went to a convenience store and bought two single cigarettes from a jar on the counter.

They pursued a seemingly endless list of therapies.

"I tried everything," she said. "I've spent thousands of dollars to quit smoking. From hypnosis at $350 per session, where my husband and I smoked on the way home, to $800 for a pharmaceutical approach to not smoking without behavior modification."

She was even one of the first participants in the trials of the nicotine patch, before it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Once her 10-week supply was gone, she started smoking again. So when the medical group commander handed her a box of the patches as he offered her a job at the health and wellness center, she knew she was in trouble.

"He told me it wouldn't work for the health promotion director to be catching a smoke outside the front door of Give the butt the boot the wellness center," she said. "I couldn't very well promote health while I was still smoking."

Despite the contradition, she became a 'closet smoker.'

"It's tragic. The power of the addiction is horrible," Liz said. "At that point in my life, I had smoked longer than I had not smoked."

She estimated that she and her husband spent almost $80,000 - the cost of their house in Tulsa, Okla., -- on cigarettes over the years. Even so, that wasn't her motivation for quitting. It was a single day -- Feb. 13, 1998 -- while on leave from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, that changed everything.

That morning, in an Austrian chalet, Liz was reading about cardiovascular disease in women when she felt a pain in her chest similar to one she experienced briefly over the last several days. But this time the pain didn't pass. While her husband and a friend loudly watched the winter Olympics on television, she wandered to the bathroom. The nurse came face-to-face with denial as she looked in mirror. Her lips and face were ashen. As she lost feeling in her arms Liz realized the severity of the pain.

"All I could think of when I saw myself in the mirror was 'I'm going to die right here with my husband watching the Olympics in the next room.'"

After more than 30 minutes, an ambulance arrived and the medics thought she was having an anxiety attack. But Liz's experience as a nurse told her otherwise. She asked for nitroglycerin -- anything to take away the pain. Once she swallowed the medication it was like nothing had happened.

In fact, the only evidence of her ordeal was revealed sometime later. A doctor determined a spasm in her coronary artery didn't allow blood to flow. At 43 years old, with no risk factors beyond smoking, she had evidence of cardiac damage from a major heart attack. Not only did Liz quit smoking, so did Mark.

"I saw what smoking did to her," he said. "Saw her fear and realized it could be me."

After three years of being a nonsmoker, Liz said the only thing that worked was sheer commitment, not looking for a magic cure. Her focus shifted from illness to wellness.

Smokers need to quit when they're ready for their own reasons. But it's not always as easy as not lighting up.

"Once you quit, don't be discouraged if after six or eight months you still have an occasional craving," Liz said. "Each tobacco-free day brings you one day closer to a lifetime as a nonsmoker."

And if anyone understands the urge to smoke, she does.

"It's not physical but feels very physical," she said. "I've lived through it, and it's a grieving process when you lose your best friend, the cigarette."

Editor's note: Maj. Liz Stone separated from the Air Force in May. Statistics from the American Cancer Society:

www.cancer.org

RELATED ARTICLE: Give the butt the boot

Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of death in America. It wasn't the chemical addiction that made quitting hard for Maj. Liz Stone; it was the habit.

Here's a few tips to help you kick it to the curb:

* Spend the first few days in smoke-free places like libraries, museums or theaters.

* Drink large quantities of water and fruit juice.

* Avoid alcohol, coffee and other beverages that you associate with smoking.

* Strike up a conversation instead of a match.

* If you miss holding a cigarette, try something else like a pencil or paperclip.

* If you miss having something in your mouth, try toothpicks, celery, raisins or gum.

* Stay away from situations you associate with pleasurable smoking.

* Find new habits, and develop a non-smoking environment around you.

* Anticipate future situations that might lead to smoking.

* Take deep rhythmic breaths similar to smoking to relax.

* Remember your goal and the fact that the urge will eventually pass.

* Compile a list of "urge activities" and start at the top when you want to smoke.

* Eat several small meals to maintain constant blood sugar levels.

* Never allow yourself to think "one won't hurt," because it will.

* Reward yourself. Plan to do something fun for doing your best.

Data from American Cancer Society:

www.cancer.org/tohacco/tips.html

COPYRIGHT 2001 U.S. Air Force, Air Force News Agency
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group

联系我们|关于我们|网站声明
国家哲学社会科学文献中心版权所有