Friday dilemma: the price of friendship

Cate P says:

11:08am | 19/11/10

With friends like this ... what about supporting her and encouraging her - at least she’s trying.  Maybe she will succeed this time.  If she doesn’t, then start with the wake up to yourself line.  Went through this with my husband and smoking - took him lots of tries but he has now stopped.  While the motivation has to come from her, you can help by supporting her every time and lauding even small progress she makes.

Rose says:

11:14am | 19/11/10

Sorry but any true friend would be offering support not trying to talk her down. Having smoked for close to thirty years I am fully aware of how difficult it is to quit, and when I did it I was cheered along with all the negatives, just like you are doing to your friend. Even if this time she isn’t successful, she is one step closer to the day when she will be. If you want to be helpful, take her along to the chemist where she can check out all the nicotine replacement therapies just in case she needs them.
In all honesty though, if you can’t offer support, at least have the decency to keep your mouth firmly shut.

Elphaba says:

11:18am | 19/11/10

Look, whether this makes me a bad friend or not, I don’t do the whole “Your goal sucks, maybe you should aim lower.”

I would be heartbroken if a friend scoffed at my decision to learn the guitar.  I have no idea if I’m musical or not, but I’m going to give it a go.

A friend of mine has a problem with her dog - it barks like crazy.  He barks, because she’s got no time to walk him and he’s bored.  Saying “Why did you get a dog if you can’t walk him?  Where are your priorities?” doesn’t benefit anyone, and makes her feel like crap.  Making possible suggestions to curb the dog’s barking is constructive. It’s better for me to be supportive.  We both know she’s not giving the dog the attention it needs - how does she benefit from me telling her that?

So support your friend.  She’s trying to quit smoking, not trying to make a relationship work with an abusive alcoholic who is going to steal her money.  In that situation, it’s ok to speak your mind.  Ok, so smoking is bad for you, and if she fails, she’s closer to lung cancer and whatever, but so what?  How does pissing on her goals make her feel better?  Why do you want to do that?

She might surprise you.  Have a little faith.

loxy says:

12:02pm | 19/11/10

A good friend may have their doubts but always hopes and as such encourages and supports their friend.

stephen says:

12:02pm | 19/11/10

Not only to stop, but you have to replace it with something, and in my case it was exercise.
Change or alter the things you associate with the habit. For instance, I used to like a smoke after I ate, so then instead of sitting and drinking coffee after dinner I used to get on a bicycle and ride, or just go for a quick walk.
You really have to change a lot of other habits ; almost you have to become a different person to beat this habit.
As well - although i may not recommend this - the day before I stopped, I purposefully overdosed on cigarettes and beer the night before so I would give myself a psychological ‘clean-up’. e.g. A brand new start.

S.L says:

12:07pm | 19/11/10

I quit once when I was 20 after starting as a rebelious teen. The straw that broke the Camels back back then was a packet of Marlboros reached $1.15 a pack! I didn’t touch another one until I was 26 and met a lady who was a smoker. She lasted 6 months, my renewed habit lasted another 17 years! At 39 a met another lady who was an antismoker to the point of total paranoier. While I wasn’t nagged the question was regularly asked “when are you going to quit?” I finally promised I would give up before our son was born (August 05) which I did. Now I’m single again and casually date another smoker but I suppose it’s age as much as anything as I don’t feel the urge any more!
Lucy my secret is just quit! Cold turkey! If your friend needs pills or gum or even hypnosis to quit she doesn’t really want to. She has to get her mind around it first….....

iansand says:

12:51pm | 19/11/10

Look, Lucy.  You don’t need any friends supporting you.  You decide you need to do it, and yoiu do it.

Good luck.  If at first you don’t succeed, etc.

MarK says:

01:02pm | 19/11/10

If you really want to give up smoking try Zyban.

Get it from your Dr’s.

50 a day to none.

Old Bert says:

01:40pm | 19/11/10

Can only tell you my story.  Fags automatically came with a drink in hand. Couldn’t imagine a drink without one, but regularly, after a night with the lads, woke up next morning looking for one, only to find the 20 pack empty bar one. They were Camels. No filter. My superior, and all ranks below smoked them. That’s what was done. I never touched that last one, until a few days later, when that fag was to accompany another 20 pack, along with another session with the lads. In the days when Government offices had no ban on smoking, I had a job with stress, and figuring a fag would help me think, I smoked 20, to help me think 20 times better, and that a ‘few’ drinks with the troops afterhours, would relieve the stress, which of course, with generous distribution of ciggies to somehow justify my smoking, I found myself on the slippery slope. I finally woke up;  the primary trigger to smoke was the association with alcohol, the secondary one,  job stress. The alcohol triggered a major need for nicotine. It’s common. So I worked on that. I gave up drinking for a while, but lack of social intercourse drove me back to blokes company, but was determined not to smoke, by increasing alcohol intake substantially, to the point of feeling sick, to make the need for nicotine a secondary brain ‘explosion’. That was a mental and physical test, not recommended. Little did I know then, that the effect of smoking with alcohol increased the effect of damage to the heart and lungs tenfold.  My superiors,  who by magic know everything, knew of my struggle to give up the fags. Eventually, the smoking habit faded, and the drinking soon returned to social occasions. That was 20 years ago.  The need for nicotine is gone, the daily satisfaction of conquering the habit is faded; it’s history. One of the helpful results of giving up, is the return of the olfactory senses, and you can smell cigarette smoke a mile away on the wind, and have a quiet sense of superiority that you are not ‘one of them’. If you get thus far, you’re on the way. You’ll take joy in mixing with the non-smokers, (some of whom incidentally, may also have been smokers, but unwilling to admit this in company of non-smokers, to your benefit). Stick with it, without giving too much away in company, after all, it’s your battle. Only you can conquer it. Your friends can’t.
Of course this is man’s account, but really, it’s not a gender issue. It’s only my story. I wish you the best; please, try again and again, take no notice of negative people and their vindictive nature, it’s your life. Good luck. Here’s some info, please read,  http://www.smoking-cessation.org/content/healthissues.asp  . Cheers.

Peter says:

04:09pm | 19/11/10

And then you have the kind of friends who are so competitive, they will do anything to sabotage your attempts to stop just because they cant. Get them out of your life!

These people compete with you right down to your very health… I can’t believe people like that even exist..

Reg says:

05:38pm | 19/11/10

Friendship is such an easy word to toss around when you don’t have to pay for it. It’s such a cheap word that it has no value at all and why should that be surprising, there are very few who would put their “friend’s” welfare above their own. The big things in life are always done alone and the only problem with giving up smoking is that most people have no idea how important giving up smoking is to themselves. You’d think it should be obvious that having smoke emerge from their lungs is not the usual thing.

One of the important moments in my life and probably the reason I never took up smoking, was leaning over an open manual with a friend who, for hours, kept blowing his cigarette smoke into the binder of the open book as we both studied it. I never said a word but I knew he wasn’t my friend.

Robert Smissen, rural SA, God's own country says:

11:09pm | 19/11/10

With friends like you, who needs enemas? ?

lola says:

11:29pm | 19/11/10

that friend who is tryin to stop smoking and has been waking up everyday 5:30 so she can hit the gym before work is me….i need my friends support and tell me is gonna be ok..is best to try and fail than not tryin at all.

martinX says:

07:07am | 20/11/10

The last time I gave up smoking my wife said she didn’t care if I smoked or not, but she was sick of me giving up.

I tried patches and that worked.

Avoid alcohol. It’s a trap. You have a few drinks, borrow some ciggies, maybe buy a pack “just for the pub”, next thing you know you’re going to the pub every night getting pissed just so you can have a durry.

Suggest these things to help your friend.

Biteme says:

08:01am | 20/11/10

These things need to be done in small steps. 6 weeks ago I couldn’t swim 50 metres freestyle without becoming breathless. But I forced myself to increase the distance day by day. Today 6 weeks later I can swim 500 metres in 11.48. And then leisurely swim another 1,000 metres doing the combat side stroke. I’m joining the Navy, that is what inspired me. Plus my wife was away for 6 weeks and I wanted to show her a new body. My point is, if you put your mind to it it can be done. So encourage your friend by asking her why she wants to stop, and then remind her of that reason when she feels the urge.

Rachel says:

01:03pm | 20/11/10

When I gave up smoking the last time (probably about my sixth try), I bought a pack after a bad day at work, then rang my friend to confess. She told me that just because you eat a chocolate bar, doesn’t mean you give up on a diet, and it’s the same with smoking. I’ve had three cigarettes since, and none at all for a year and a half. Being her friend is not the same as being her Mum.

jonn1 says:

11:53am | 03/05/11

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jonn3 says:

08:53am | 09/05/11

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jonn3 says:

08:48am | 20/05/11

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oem software says:

09:35am | 09/02/12

lIBRTz Of course, I understand a little about this post but will try cope with it!!....