That’s hardly the case.

Take outdoor events for example.  It’s an easy question in my opinion to answer.  Should you be allowed to smoke at the beach?  Should you be allowed to smoke at a wine tasting event held outdoors in the vineyard?

Of course not.

The beach has plenty of little kids.  My wine club might be shipping me a $50 bottle of wine and I don’t want your smoke anywhere near that vine.

What he was trying to illustrate is that we have less control over our thoughts, emotions and actions than we think. One of the mistakes of enlightenment philosophers was to place too much emphasis on the rational mind. It was elevated to the status of soul. This idea was only undercut by Freud at the turn of the Twentieth Century with his discovery that the rational ego was only the tip opf the iceberg – that nine tenths of our motivation came from the unconscious which by definition we have no control over.

This is relevant to tobacco addiction. People feel that by an act of will they can quit; only to discover that it is not as simple as that. Try an experiment. Try to sit still and stare at a wall for an hour. You can’t read book, watch TV or play a game. You must sit. You will find after 10 minutes how excruciating the experience is. In the West we fidget; we require distractions. We think we are in control, but really we are at the mercy of distractions. One of those distractions being smoking cigarettes.

The fix is difficult. One consumer notion is to replace one habit with another. Stop smoking cigarettes and instead smoke e-cigarettes. Stop smoking and become addicted to eating. There can be no design and engineering solution to addiction. The answer comes not from the outside but from within.

The Indian man that I met spoke of meditation and yoga, of bringing the mad monkey under control. It is only by quiescence through clearing the mind and accepting the now that we can gain a small control of our addictions and nervous ticks. This is a free thing, and cannot be easily marketed. And hence in the West it will remain a rogue idea. But ideas are there to help, to elucidate, not to generate money.

Nutritionists such as Mary Gertrude Enig describe coconut oil, milk and water as functional foods because they not only nourish the body, but they also help to protect the body against disease. Coconut milk and coconut oil contain significant amounts of lauric acid that triggers the formation of antimicrobial agents in the body that helps to fight viral infections. It is common for people who regularly drink coconut milk to never contract common colds.

Moreover, coconut oil has been shown to stimulate the thyroid gland. Tests with rats have shown that taking coconut oil in the diet reduces the chances of developing cancer. Coconut oil is known to boost the immunity system and is now commonly used by HIV patients to stop their disease turning to AIDS.

Coconut oil contains medium chain triglycerides that are easy for the body to absorb and turn into energy for the body. For this reason athletes often eat coconut oil the night beofre a big competition to boost energy and stamina levels.

Finally, coconut water contains more electrolytes than any man-made sports drink. It is ideal for rehydration either for those who do sport or for those recovering from sickness. Coconut water is also an exact match with human blood plasma.

In short there is a lot that is special about coconut food products. If you stop smoking and you start to add coconuts to your diet you have made a great start to being truly healthy.

Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to talk a bit about one thing that adults can partake in which is healthier than they imagine.  Wine gift baskets combine wine (which we talked about before here as well) in addition to other products.  If you’re including chocolate, popcorn or other healthy snacks then it stands to reason you’ve likely found a way to enjoy a bit of junk food without truly sacrificing your health.  Smaller, healthy choices is the perfect place to start for adults looking to make a change in their lives!

I didn’t think I would succumb, but then one night a week ago I knocked on his door and instead of asking him to open a window, I asked him for a cigarette. He happily handed me one and lit it up for me. I wandered back to my room. I smoked every last millimeter of that cigarette, and felt like I was going to puke. I realized that I couldn’t live with this guy down the hall. I had gone too long to fall off the wagon again. Smoking nearly killed me 10 years ago in a horrible coughing fit. A piece of inflamed tissue broke off of a clot in my windpipe. That sort of thing only happens to smokers. Luckily I was able to spit out the remnants, and live another day. When I finally quit smoking I felt like I had unchained shackles that had been round me since I was a teenager.

Now I have to find houses to rent that are far enough away from smokers that I won’t have to smell and as they indulge. I hope that when I find the right house and will just call out to me that there are no smokers around. As there is no local law against smoking I’m just going to take my chances. Until the law catches up with reality.

Many stop using tobacco sites will also have participant boards and advocating more people to quit. In these boards you will be able to talk about your issues and enjoy your goals with other like-minded people. You will need support to help you overcome your ecigarette using tobacco urges. When you first stop, you may be unsettled and have some uneasiness. If you find yourself alert all alone in the nighttime, you might be sorely inclined to give in to the powerful urges. Going online and finding someone to discussion with who knows what you are going through may be just what you need to make it until day.

Stop using tobacco sites can provide you with useful information when you need some motivation to keep you on the right track. Just looking at some of the visual pictures of people with mouth and neck cancer attached to using tobacco is enough to turn off most peoples’ desire to light up a ecigarette smoking. You might also find creativity in the encounters of those who have stop using tobacco. There are several sites that show before and after pictures. It is awesome how much better the skin looks after reducing out using tobacco completely.

Electronic cigarettes are a product much like the tobacco equivalent with one major difference, they don’t contain the vast majority of the deadly ingredients which cause death and disease in those who choose to smoke. With e cigarettes there is an absence of carbon monoxide, tar, ammonia, Benzyl alcohol and the other 4000 chemicals which are most unwelcome in the human body.

The fact is that these electronic cigarettes contain just a few ingredients. There is water, nicotine, propylene glycol, and a few flavorings to make them taste a whole lot nicer than burning tobacco. While there aren’t many people who would content that breathing these things into your lungs on a daily basis is going to improve your health, you can probably assume they are a lot less harmful than the tobacco alternative.

The reality is though that there hasn’t been a lot of research carried out to ascertain just how much damage long term e cigarette use is going to cause. Even if we are sure they are less damaging than using tobacco, the regulatory bodies and stop smoking groups want cold hards fact before they opening encourage their use.

Over time there is no doubt this evidence is going to be forthcoming, but in the meantime it might put many smokers who could benefit from e cig use off buying one. In our opinion this is hugely unfortunate as we are of the belief that any product which can stop us from inhaling copious amounts of tar and carbon monoxide has got to be a step in the right direction. Having said that, it’s always more preferable if smokers can completely break an addiction to nicotine if you want to improve your health as much as possible.

We had a sit down and discussed our addiction and how to fight it. The one of the group had a flash of genius; we needed to give ourselves a reward system to encourage us through the really hard times when we were off the puff. I could not think of anything more compelling than a healthier lifestyle, but one of the girls said that she would love to go out coach riding in the snow. So I found her the answer to her desire  which could provide all of the necessaries or just such an event.

It holds no glamour for me, but it was just the spur on that she needed. When she felt like lighting up she would go to the web page and read all about the trips and look at the pictures of those happy people cutting about in the snow.

It is proving to be a Godsend to her and maybe she has hit upon a way of getting past the quitting blues…who knows. Anyway I am still having a go at stopping, but my incentive is a marlin fishing trip in the summer. All of the money I would normally spend on smokes I put in a jar and will empty it out in June.

The ay I smoked I smoked I could have afforded to buy the boat never mind rent it. But there is still a way to go yet…only 109 more days till I get my feet wet.

It is interesting to note that now China is the biggest producer of tobacco in the world. They also have the largest population. It would be much more useful for Chinese farmers to brow bamboo. It is a crop that can grow in much of China. It doesn’t need fertilizers and pesticides and does not drain the soil. Rather it helps to hold the top soil together and to improve water retention. Bamboo can be a cash crop. It is also a source of nutrition. Bamboo charcoal can be used as a fuel, a fertilizer and a water filter. Bamboo vinegar can be used as a medicine and as a green cleaning substance that does not posion water supplies.

The same is true of Sub-Sharan Africa and northern South America. Bamboo is one of the ideal crops that could be grown instead of tobacco. Bamboo benefits communities financially and practically. It is also a major source of carbon recycling for the atmosphere. Bamboo is good for communities and good for nature. In short, it is the opposite of tobacco.