Yay, I quit smoking! This time for good. I read this book called
Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking and it helped a lot.
I got this book I think a year and a half ago. I started reading it and then ended up putting it down and forgetting about it, only ending up on page 30.
Recently, however, I decided to give the book another try after going through many other ways to kicking the addiction throughout my transition.
I know that many trans-folk smoke, and sometimes it can be really hard, especially with the stress that comes with transitioning. I tried a lot. Even when going for SRS I tried and cut down to almost nothing, then one smoke here, and one smoke there after, and once I got home *poof* back to full-time smoking.
It produces a lot of shame, especially when you have other trans ppl who might belittle you for smoking and go up and down about how awful it is and, in turn, how awful you are for smoking. It only drives you more into smoking and more away from other trans ppl. I stopped going to a local trans-group over how belittled I was for being a "smoker." It's not fair. Not that smoking is good, but not fair that someone seeking help and support gets the rug pulled under her (or him) -- support is something the trans-smoker needs most of all.
Smoking and transitioning can be very difficult together; smoking is increasingly becoming the anti-social thing to do, and more places are banning smoking indoors or in other public places. And now, a lot more people are seemingly gathering against smokers, often making remarks, giving dirty looks, and treating them like out-casts. A smoker, however, is human and simply has an addiction, he or she doesn't deserve to be treated like garbage.
With transitioning, you already feel like you're a 3rd or even 4th class citizen. Add smoking to that and you feel even further down. Add other trans-folk mimicking the rejection of smokers, and you feel like your supports are taken right out from under you. You then turn to what you know, and light another cigarette.
I think it becomes a hard and difficult cycle. It can be very difficult to deal with sometimes. I just wanted to say that yes, you can quit. I found the book to be pretty helpful and it seemed to really click. It takes stop-smoking to a different level and you begin to look at it differently. It doesn't use scare tactics (and face it, we know that doesn't work -- if scaring and belittling a smoker worked, no one would smoke). You can even smoke through the entire book. I smoked from page one to page 150. Every time I went for a smoke, I read the book. By the end of the book, I no longer wanted to smoke. You just need to stick it through to the end of the book and give it a chance -- you have nothing to lose.
Being trans, we know that smoking isn't good for us. We know how left-out we can feel and how it can add to the anxiety and the feeling of being anti-social. We don't need someone to preach to us about that. We already know. What we need is support and encouragement -- not preaching, belittling, or the shame.
--Natalie
