A commenter on Goose-Stepping Hippies writes:
My mom was addicted to cigarettes, and it killed her. You've got some interesting hippy theories yourself, Pierce.
I'm really sorry about your mom. That's tough.
My wife's addiction to cigarettes was tied in with her hypoglycemia: she smoked during the parts of the day when she needed an energy boost. Fixing the hypoglycemia meant she no longer needed the cigarettes.
I remember asking my sensei about her smoking, and his question back to me still floors me:
Why does she smoke?
I had never, ever thought of it that way. I sort of sat there with my mouth making fish motions... My sensei commented to me that tobacco was a powerful herb, and it was possible she was self-medicating. To me this has always highlighted the difference between the clinic and the Western approach: ask the patient why they do something, and then fix that.
I went home and asked her, and she said she craved cigarettes the most when her energy was low. So the first one in the morning, during her lull in the afternoon, those were the hardest to give up.
From that moment on, I stopped bugging her about quitting. She'd been trying for two years, and at that point was both wearing nicotine patches and smoking. Instead I bugged her about going to clinic. What I'd said to her also clicked with her, and she came into the clinic and started getting treated for her hypoglycemia.
Soon, she came to realize that the cigarettes were the devil's bargain: she would get a boost of energy for 15 minutes from a cigarette, but she would end up being more tired later. It gave her a 15 minute boost at the cost of an hour nap. Not a good trade. So they seemed less attractive as a solution . As the clinic evened out her energy levels (and mood swings, thank God!), she didn't need the crutch of the tobacco.
The real test came when her dad died (of Lung Cancer), and she had to go out to California alone. Despite all the stress, not once did she smoke to relieve it. In her mind, she knew they didn't really work as a solution, plus her hypoglycemia was gone, so she no longer had the large peaks and valleys.
All of that taught me the lesson to not be so judgmental about other people's addictions, even people who are addicted to things like crack or heroin. My first question is always: Why?
So yeah, if you want to call it that, I have my own hippy theory: judge not, lest you be judged.
Comments (8)
I’ll leave the “judge not” part alone. I’ve been having a lot of trouble with this myself. As for calling cigarettes “medicine.” There are two problems with this. First, you have to consider the tobacco separately from the contaminants in the cigarettes— everything from the filter to the pesticides to god knows what else they put in them. Anything can have medicinal purposes, but sometimes a poison’s a poison. Second, you were concerned that people are imposing their views or judgements on others by banning smoking first in restaurants, then later in bars. To continue your medicine thought, this would be the equivalent of banning the practice of forcing other people in the room you’re in to take whatever medicine you happen to be self-medicating with. And yes, non-smokers have the option to not go to that bar, but they’d also like to see musical acts that are playing there, or in the case of non-smoking musicians and singers, they’d like to not wake up the next day with a raw throat and a second-hand smoke hangover.
Posted by dean bonzani | May 27, 2005 9:31 AM
Posted on May 27, 2005 09:31
As my doctor says: everything is a poison in too much quantity, and especially most medicines.
I thought I made it clear: Cigarettes are not a very good medicine for what people take them for, I’m just pointing out that’s why people take them. I feel the same way about Ritalin though…
Anyways, banning something is a negative act. Club owners always had the option to not allow smoking in their club, and there could have been smoking and non-smoking clubs, and the market could have worked it out. Or the same club could have had “smoke-free” nights.
Clubs also could have installed better ventilation, so that “raw throats” and “second-hand smoke hangovers” were less of an issue.
Someone could have made some positive attempts to change things instead of jumping first to passing a law.
What bugs me is this constant knee jerk reaction by people to legislate those “other people” because those other people are “bad”. As a healer type, I’ve become much more open minded about chemical dependency.
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May 27, 2005 9:54 AM
Posted on May 27, 2005 09:54
I was making a distinction between tobacco and cigarettes. Even medicinally (or ritually, for that matter) used tobacco can be delivered in a less harmful manner, and doesn’t have to be shared with those who have no need of such “medicine.”
For every person who says, “Hey, I can’t smoke in here!” there’s probably a person who would say,”Hey, I can’t breathe in here!” But to ban it? Yeah, that might be too much. Would my mom still be alive if it had been harder for her to light up everywhere? Maybe, but it was her perogative to kill herself, slowly and very,very painfully.
The ethics involved are complex and the issue emotional, especially considering that it’s a physical addiction. Hard one.
It’s amazing that doctors used to recommend cigarettes. But then, they used to prescribe laudinum, cocaine, and bleeding for the relief of “humors,” too.
Posted by dean bonzani | May 27, 2005 1:04 PM
Posted on May 27, 2005 13:04
Western medicine really only dates back to 1950…
On the other hand, deuteronomy (sp?) pretty clearly spells out the germ theory of disease…
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May 27, 2005 1:30 PM
Posted on May 27, 2005 13:30
1950? How so?
Deuteronomy was probably written by aliens. What passage are you referring to? That could be a whole blog entry right there, about the ancients’ knowledge of such things.
Posted by dean bonzani | May 27, 2005 1:50 PM
Posted on May 27, 2005 13:50
It was the Flexner report in 1910 that really started the doctrinaire AMA-approved approach we use today but it wasn’t really until the introduction of antibiotics that people really started to trust “modern” medicine. Sulfa drugs came out in 1937, penicillin in 1941. The randomized double-blind controlled clinical trial didn’t really exist until after WWII. In the 1950s Christian Scientists outnumbered MDs…
The passages about cleanliness. Did I say Deuteronomy? I meant Leviticus, chapters 11-15. Don’t know why I always get those confused. Lister was in 1870, Leviticus 1500 BC…
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May 27, 2005 2:27 PM
Posted on May 27, 2005 14:27
In a weird co-incidence, my old friend, Lance, who graduated from NAU with a degree in microbiology, and is a thin hair away from his doctorate in Maryland, stopped by today. He worked in the anthrax lab at NAU, and is now in Maryland working on a project studying just how sick people are getting from eating vegetables that come into contact with manure from stock animals that have been given so many antibiotics that the bacteria that invade them have developed tremendous immunity. A bad trade-off. I told him that the bacteria must be pretty happy about this latest turn of events.
Posted by dean bonzani | May 27, 2005 5:21 PM
Posted on May 27, 2005 17:21
…and today’s DDGirl is awesome.
Posted by dean bonzani | May 27, 2005 5:22 PM
Posted on May 27, 2005 17:22