7

Up in Smoke

Deleting the Nicotine Fix

The tobacco plant is native to North and South America; indigenous peoples on both continents used its leaves for healing and in spiritual ceremonies. When European explorers first reached the Americas, they were curious to know more about this sacred herb. They learned to grow it, and they carried samples back with them to Europe. Five centuries later we find ourselves in a world inundated with chemical-laden tobacco mixes and plagued by tobacco abuse. According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills more than eight million people every year. What happened?

A BRIEF HISTORY

When Columbus arrived in the New World in the late fifteenth century, he was given gifts of fruits and “certain dried leaves” by the Arawak tribe, the first Native Americans he met. The gifts seemed prized, and he accepted them. Not knowing what to do with the strange leaves, he threw them away. Others who followed in his footsteps were not so hasty.

Within the space of a few decades more Spaniards were converted to tobacco than Indians to Christianity. European explorers and colonists touting tobacco’s medicinal properties introduced it to Europe. It wasn’t long before vast expanses of North American forests were cleared to make way for tobacco growing.

The custom of smoking tobacco rolled in paper began in Spain in the seventeenth century and gradually spread. Before the invention of cigarette-rolling machines in the nineteenth century, tobacco was handrolled, snuffed, chewed, or smoked in pipes—and the inconvenience of these methods most likely limited their use. In addition, smoking was not an acceptable social behavior in many circles at the time. In fact, ten states had laws against smoking. By World War I, however, smoking had become an integral part of North American culture. Cigarettes were distributed free to soldiers, and it became customary even for women to smoke. At last count (the 2019 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report issue 68, no. 45, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control), 34.2 million adults in the United States were regular smokers.

TOBACCO’S MEDICINAL USES

Tobacco wasn’t arbitrarily chosen as a sacred herb by Native Americans. Like most plants, tobacco has some medicinal properties. It’s an anaphrodisiac (the opposite of an aphrodisiac, in case you were wondering), antispasmodic, cardiovascular stimulant, depressant, diaphoretic, emetic, and stimulant. It has been used to soothe anxiety, reduce appetite, combat fatigue, and stimulate mental function. Tobacco juice can be applied topically to kill worms and lice and to treat wounds, swellings, ulcerations, snakebites, and scorpion stings; tobacco smoke blown gently into the ear can soothe an earache. Tobacco “tea” is a potent insecticide, especially against aphids, and is used in commercial agriculture.

Chewing tobacco, pipes, and cigars are as addictive and dangerous as cigarettes. Although most of this chapter will focus on cigarettes, the advice and remedies given are also effective for those wanting to beat addiction to these alternative forms of tobacco.

On the whole, however, tobacco is highly toxic. Chewing on tobacco leaf or drinking an infusion of tobacco can lead to vomiting, convulsions, and possible respiratory failure. Nicotine, one of the most notorious alkaloids in tobacco, is a known poison; taken in large enough doses, it can lethally paralyze the breathing muscles. Cigarettes deliver nicotine only in small amounts that the body can quickly break down and get rid of, which is why the nicotine does not kill instantly. These small doses, however, are enough to cause dizziness, sweating, and heart palpitations in people whose bodies haven’t built up a tolerance.

THE SMOKER’S HIGH

Cigarettes function as both stimulant and sedative. They can make your body more resistant to insulin, thereby raising blood sugar levels. In response to cigarettes, the body produces epinephrine, which helps eliminate the smoke’s toxins by speeding up the metabolic process. Circulation increases; blood vessels constrict; the heart starts to beat faster.

 

Smoking and Women

Smoking holds unique risks for women. Women over the age of thirty-five who smoke and use birth control pills (oral contraceptives) are in a high-risk group for heart attack, stroke, and blood clots of the legs. They are also more likely to have miscarriages or babies with low birth weight.

 

Later, as the body rids itself of the nicotine, heart rate and other body functions slow down. The smoker may initially feel relaxed, then later a bit uncomfortable and depressed. Blood sugar levels drop. At this point the smoker will feel anxious to have another smoke.

DECIDING TO QUIT

If you want to quit smoking, you’re not alone. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in 2018 more than half of all smokers in the United States made an attempt to quit.

Unfortunately, quitting smoking is a difficult undertaking. The nicotine found in cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other vaping products, cigars, and chewing tobacco is highly addictive. In fact, the National Comorbidity Survey for adolescents conducted from 2001 to 2004 estimated that of people aged fifteen through twenty-four, 36 percent had tried smoking; of those, 19.6 percent had developed a nicotine dependency (see Dierker et al. 2011). In other words, of all the young people who try a cigarette, one in five will go on to become addicted to nicotine. And those figures don’t even include vaping products, the newest trend in nicotine delivery!

THE DANGERS OF SMOKING

Modern cigarette production is a very toxic endeavor. Herbicides and pesticides are used in the tobacco fields, chemicals are added to the tobacco mix to enhance burning, and the rolling papers are processed with heavy-duty bleaches. Cigarette smoke contains many lethal gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen, hydrogen cyanide, and sulfur oxides, as well as tar, which is composed of more than four thousand different chemical constituents, including forty-three known carcinogens. Is it any wonder that smoking makes us sick?

In today’s society just about everyone is well versed in the dangerous relationship between lung cancer and smoking. However, few people realize that smoking has also been implicated in myriad other cancers and health problems.

The American Cancer Society estimates that smoking decreases a person’s life span by about ten years.

Cancer

Tobacco use accounts for 30 percent, or one in three, of all cancer deaths in the United States. Cigarette smoking is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx, mouth, pharynx, and esophagus and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, cervix, and kidney. Chewing tobacco, cigar and pipe smoking, and tobacco snuff are linked to a higher incidence of tongue, mouth, and throat cancers. People with a history of smoking who develop melanoma, or cancer of the skin, are more likely to die of that disease than people who have never smoked.

Lung Disease

Cigarette smoking causes several lung diseases that can be just as dangerous as lung cancer. Two of the most common are chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

A person with bronchitis suffers from inflammation in the bronchial tubes and excess mucus in the airways, which often causes him or her to cough frequently and uncontrollably. Chronic bronchitis is a repeating incidence of this illness.

Emphysema is a degenerative disease that slowly destroys a person’s ability to breathe. The surface of the lungs is covered in thousands of alveoli. When you breathe in, the alveoli stretch as they transport oxygen from the air to the blood. When you breathe out, the alveoli constrict to force out carbon dioxide. Smoking can cause the walls of these cells to become less elastic and eventually to break down, resulting in larger but fewer sacs. Exhaling becomes difficult because the damaged alveoli have air trapped inside them and lack the elasticity to force it out in exchange for fresh air. As the damage progresses, each breath becomes more labored.

 

Eastern Perspectives on Tobacco

In traditional Chinese medicine tobacco is considered energetically hot. It heats the body, particularly the lungs. Tobacco is bitter and dry and is harmful to the chi and yin (fluids) of the lungs. In the short term smoking tobacco can be relaxing because the heat of the inhaled smoke disperses stagnant chi from the lungs. Tar and nicotine buildup in the lungs causes chi stagnation, however, and smoking soon becomes a cycle of chi release and stagnation. In addition, when the lungs are hot and dry, as from smoking, they become easy targets for cancer.

 

Heart Disease

High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a sedentary lifestyle are all factors in the incidence of heart disease, but smoking is the only factor to double that risk. In addition, smokers who have had a heart attack are more likely than nonsmokers to have another attack. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day—that’s twenty cigarettes—can make you three times more likely to have a heart attack and five times more likely to suffer a stroke than nonsmokers. Women who smoke and also take birth control pills are at even greater risk.

Poor Nutrition

Smoking one cigarette destroys about twenty-five milligrams of vitamin C. Smokers almost always have less vitamin C in their bodies than do nonsmokers. The longer you’ve smoked, the less vitamin C you have in your system. Without vitamin C, your body’s cells are more likely to suffer from free-radical damage—and free radicals are a by-product of cigarette smoke. A vitamin C deficiency can contribute to hardening of the arteries, which is common in smokers. In addition, nicotine has been found to stimulate digestive secretions and shorten bowel transit time, thus decreasing the nutrients available to the body.

Decreased Immune System Function

Of all the addictive substances, tobacco is one of the most damaging to the immune system. Tobacco stuns the cilia, the small hairs that act as natural filters in the air passages and keep foreign particles out of the lungs. When these cilia become paralyzed, foreign particles have free access to the lungs, increasing the risk of infection. Smoking also causes more mucus to be produced, creating a breeding ground for bacteria and making you more prone to respiratory infection such as emphysema and bronchitis. In addition, smoking impairs immune activity by increasing suppressor T cells and decreasing helper T cells. Smokers in general have higher levels of white blood cells, which increase in the presence of infection and inflammation in the body.

Poor Reproductive Health

Smoking can cause men to have a lower sperm count, more abnormal sperm, and sperm with less motility. Because smoking causes constriction of peripheral blood vessels, it can also impair blood flow to the penis and make a full erection unlikely.

In women, smoking is associated with more difficulty in conception. Pregnant women who smoke share with their unborn child all of the side effects of smoking: nicotine enters the placenta and amniotic fluid, and the fetus’s blood vessels become constricted, lowering fetal blood supply and decreasing the amount of oxygen and nutrients available to the baby.

Pregnant women who smoke have more miscarriages and stillbirths and usually give birth to smaller babies. After birth, smoking is still a risk. Nicotine enters the breast milk and can decrease the amount produced in nursing mothers. Babies whose mothers smoke are at higher risk for asthma, colds, ear infections, and other respiratory diseases as well as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Premature Aging

Nicotine decreases circulation to both the organs and the skin, causing smokers to age more quickly on the inside and the outside. Smoking creates skin that’s dry, wrinkled, leathery, and grayish yellow in tone—not a pretty picture! Women who smoke reach menopause at an earlier age, though the reason is not certain; many researchers believe that smoking is related to reduced estrogen levels, which may also be why women smokers are at a higher risk for osteoporosis.

Decreased Circulation

Because nicotine decreases circulation, which drastically reduces blood flow to the extremities, smokers tend to have cold hands and feet. Smoking is also a contributing factor in Buerger’s disease, a circulatory disease characterized by blood clots and severe pain, usually in the legs.

Digestive Disorders

Smokers experience more digestive disorders, including heartburn, diverticulosis, and indigestion, than nonsmokers. Smoking can contribute to the development of peptic ulcers, and in general ulcers take longer to heal in smokers than in nonsmokers.

Diminished Eyesight

Smoke is not only an eye irritant but can contribute to eye diseases, particularly macular degeneration and cataracts. Smoking can also be a factor in photophobia, or light sensitivity.

Gum Disease

In addition to causing cancer of the mouth, tobacco smoke is associated with increased susceptibility to tooth loss and periodontal disease.

Alzheimer’s Disease

Nicotine has a strong effect on the central nervous system. Initially, smoking causes enhanced learning, memory, and alertness. However, studies have shown that people who smoke are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia than nonsmokers.

Depression

Nicotine stimulates a reduction in serotonin levels, which can be a factor in depression. In addition, smokers tend to suffer from insomnia more often than nonsmokers, which can also contribute to depression.

THE DANGERS OF VAPING

A vaping device, sometimes called an e-cigarette, consists of a mouthpiece, a battery, a heating component, and a cartridge containing a liquid compound. The heat converts the liquid into a water vapor, or aerosol, that’s inhaled like smoke. The liquid usually contains nicotine, flavorings, and various other chemicals.

Though nicotine carries its own risks, as we discussed above, it’s the other chemicals that make vaping particularly dangerous. The chemicals found in vaping products—which can include aluminum, cadmium, silver, lead, propylene glycol, and diacetyl—have been linked to cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease, and respiratory disease. Vitamin E acetate, a common thickener for vaping, seems to be one of the most dangerous chemicals; it’s been identified as the most likely culprit in the ongoing crisis of rapid-onset and potentially fatal lung damage in young people who vape. Vaping can also disrupt the delicate microbiome of the mouth, contributing to gum disease.

Almost all of the issues we describe for cigarette smoking in this chapter also apply to vaping, including the potential for addiction. However, the same holds true for quitting vaping—the techniques and therapies we’ll talk about later work just as well for vaping as they do for cigarettes and other tobacco products.

SECONDHAND SMOKE

If you can’t quit for yourself, quit for your family and friends. Secondhand smoke is a potent human carcinogen. According to the CDC, almost 34,000 people die prematurely from heart disease every year as a result of breathing secondhand smoke. Another 7,300 die from lung cancer due to secondhand smoke. In children, exposure to secondhand smoke can cause respiratory infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) and greatly increases the risk for asthma, the incidence of asthma attacks, and the severity of those attacks.

QUITTING CHANGES YOU—FOR THE BETTER!

To quit smoking, you must break yourself of two dependencies: physically, you must make your body go through the nicotine withdrawal symptoms; psychologically, you must give up the habit of smoking. Withdrawal symptoms can include depression, irritability, frustration, restlessness, insomnia, difficulty concentrating, headaches, lethargy, and increased appetite. They can last from a few days to several weeks. Is quitting worth all this? You bet.

After twenty minutes without a cigarette, heart rate and blood pressure fall to normal levels. After eight hours, carbon monoxide levels drop to normal. After only twenty-four hours, the risk of heart attack decreases. Forty-eight hours after the last smoke, the senses of smell and taste are already improved. After seventy-two hours of not smoking, breathing becomes easier. After two weeks, lung function and circulation improve. Within the first smoke-free year, coughing, sinus congestion, shortness of breath, and risk of coronary heart disease decrease. In addition, the natural cilia regrow, reducing the risk of lung infection. After five years, the risk of lung cancer drops, and it continues to drop commensurate with the number of smoke-free years that follow.

 

If You Must Smoke

If you are going to continue to smoke, select brands that are chemical-free. Natural tobaccos pose somewhat less of a cancer and heart disease risk. Don’t bother with “light” cigarettes—according to the National Cancer Institute, there are no significant differences in the negative health effects between full-flavor and light cigarettes.

 

BEHAVIOR THERAPY

Once you’ve made the decision to quit smoking, think about the situations in which you smoke. Is it when you’re bored or stressed, in certain social situations, or with certain beverages? For example, some people smoke when they’re under pressure; others smoke at social gatherings, after dinner, or when they’re out with their friends. Avoid those situations, or substitute a better habit—going for a walk, chewing sugar-free gum, drinking mineral water—for the smoking habit. Set a smokefree target date, whether that be a week or a month into the future. Give yourself an allotment of cigarettes to smoke each day, and as you approach the target date, start cutting back on that number.

There are several tactics you can use to help yourself cut back and, eventually, quit:

• When you feel a craving for a cigarette, delay. Wait five extra minutes before lighting up. As you approach your target date, make yourself wait longer and longer.
• Pick certain hours of the day when you won’t smoke; for example, from 6 A.M. to 9 A.M. and from 6 P.M. to 9 P.M. As you approach your target date, keep extending these smoke-free time periods.
• Smoke only half of each cigarette.
• Keep switching brands. Don’t buy your favorite brand.
• Avoid deeply inhaling the first few puffs of each cigarette.
• If you’ve made it through a smoke-free time period, don’t use a cigarette as your reward. Think of something else you can use, such as dropping money into a jar reserved for funds to buy something nice for yourself.
• Before lighting up, ask yourself, Am I smoking because I really want to, or am I smoking out of habit?
• When you’re smoking, hold each inhalation of smoke in your mouth for thirty seconds while focusing on the negative aspects of smoking. This technique has proven to be successful in many stopsmoking clinics.
• Find a substitute habit for those times when you were accustomed to smoking. For example, if you used to smoke after the dinner meal, go for a walk instead, or use a minty mouthwash or sugar-free mint after a meal to please your mouth and taste buds.
• Take a couple of brisk walks daily in fresh air to get more oxygen into your lungs. Exercise helps reduce stress and increase energy.
• Try rolling your own cigarettes using a mixture of tobacco and other herbs (such as calamus or yerba santa). Gradually reduce the amount of tobacco and increase the amount of herbs. Then gradually reduce the number of times you smoke until you’re not smoking at all.
• Practice your breathwork. Whenever you feel the desire to smoke, instead focus on deep diaphragmatic breathing. Inhale deeply and slowly, letting your abdomen fill up and expand. Exhale deeply and slowly, feeling your abdomen sinking in. By breathing more deeply and slowly, you feed your body more oxygen. See here in chapter 2 for more deep-breathing exercises.
• If you’ve been using chewing tobacco, substitute herbal chew formulas, which are available in flavors such as cinnamon, licorice, mint, and wintergreen in many natural foods stores.

Once you’ve reached your smoke-free target date, don’t tell yourself and others that “I’m trying to quit”; instead, say, “I quit!” Get rid of your smoking paraphernalia. Make an appointment to get your teeth cleaned.

Once you’ve quit, you may find yourself in situations where you’re surrounded by smokers. If so, try setting out bowls of apple cider vinegar and burning beeswax candles to remove the odor of smoke from the air.

ORAL-MANUAL THERAPY

Aside from breaking the nicotine addiction, one of the hardest aspects of quitting smoking is giving up regular hand-to-mouth activity, or what many call the oral fixation. Once you’ve quit smoking, you may find yourself chewing on toothpicks, enjoying lollipops, and searching for something to occupy your now-fidgety hands.

Don’t let yourself substitute food for cigarettes. Weight gain is one of the most common side effects of quitting smoking. Here are some better methods to help satisfy the oral-manual fixation:

• Chew on a licorice root, birch tree stick, or other safe, pleasant-tasting natural object.
• Mock-smoke a cinnamon stick.
• Sip water through a straw.
• Take up a craft or activity that keeps your hands occupied. Use Chinese hand balls, play with a yo-yo, knit, build a paper clip chain, learn origami—whatever it takes to keep yourself smoke-free.

NUTRITIONAL THERAPY

Tobacco addiction, like most addictions, has roots in low blood sugar. Tobacco intake causes the liver to release more glycogen, which temporarily elevates blood sugar levels. To stabilize blood sugar levels, eat small frequent meals that contain adequate protein from sources such as legumes, fish, poultry, and whole grains such as brown rice, millet, corn, and buckwheat.

Other good foods to help you quit the tobacco habit include:

• Oats. Eat oats regularly; they can curb the desire for nicotine.
• Yogurt. Yogurt helps calm the nerves.
• Sunflower seeds. Eating sunflower seeds, especially the ones that have to be shelled, is nourishing and satisfying, and it keeps the hands busy.
• Ginger. Eat pieces of crystallized ginger to open the lungs (but rinse off the sugar first).
• Alkalinizing foods. A body that is more acidic is more likely to crave cigarettes. Eat alkalinizing foods such as apples, almonds, beet greens, berries, carrots, celery, dandelion greens, figs, lima beans, onions, peas, raisins, and spinach to curb this desire.
• High-chlorophyll vegetables. Be sure to include lots of high-chlorophyll vegetables such as collards and kale, which help the body better utilize oxygen.
• Food rich in beta-carotene such as carrots and winter squash have been found to help decrease the possibility of lung cancer.
• High-sulfur foods. Like foods rich in beta-carotene, high-sulfur vegetables such as broccoli and cabbage have been found to help decrease the possibility of lung cancer.
• High-fiber foods. Quitting smoking causes a decrease in digestive stimulation, so you’re more likely to be constipated. High-fiber foods such as oat bran, flaxseeds, carrots, celery, and sweet potatoes will help prevent constipation. In addition, be sure to drink plenty of water.
• Fresh vegetable juice. Drinking fresh vegetable juice will help detoxify the body. Celery, beet, wheat grass, and carrot juice are helpful; they encourage cleansing of the body and provide valuable antioxidants. Because they’re sweet, juices should be diluted by half with springwater.

SUPPLEMENT THERAPY

A healthy diet is of utmost importance to a healthy lifestyle, and it becomes even more important when you’re attempting to beat an unhealthy addiction like smoking. After years of smoking, your body is nutritionally unbalanced. Supplements can help you make a full recovery.

HERBAL THERAPY

There are several herbal preparations—available in natural foods stores in the form of teas, extracts, or capsules—designed to help people give up smoking. In addition, you can fine-tune your own herbal regimen by trying some of the following time-tested stop-smoking aids:

• Ashwagandha, asparagus root, and marsh mallow root are lung tonics that nourish, tone, and support lung function.
• Cloves stimulate lung circulation, contain valuable antioxidants, and give your mouth a fresh, clean flavor. To help overcome the oral-manual habit as well as the physical dependency, suck on a whole clove.
• Garlic can be taken during the cutting-back period to help open the lungs.
• Ginger helps increase circulation to the lungs, which in turn helps move toxins and reduces inflammation in lung tissue. You can take ginger supplements as described in chapter 2, or you can chew on fresh ginger slices or pieces of candied ginger (wash off the sugar first so that you don’t feed a sugar dependency).
• Ginseng helps the body better utilize oxygen and aids in keeping blood sugar levels steady.
• Juniper berry can help open and detoxify the lungs. Try chewing on five berries a day.
• Magnolia is drying to the throat, which can make smoking unpleasant, and it has cleansing and diaphoretic properties.
• Marjoram is also drying to the throat, and it increases circulation to the lungs, which can help move the toxins that have collected there.
• Mullein is an expectorant that helps move toxins from the lungs. It’s also soothing to irritated lung tissues.
• Oat seed or oatstraw helps nourish and calm the nervous system while you’re giving up tobacco.

You can also try mixing in other herbs with the tobacco, or substituting other herbs for the tobacco. (For Native Americans, the first tobacco smokers, tobacco comprised only about 5 to 10 percent of the blend of herbs that they smoked.) When you smoke these herbal mixtures, make it a ritual. Offer the smoke first in prayer and to the four directions.

Other herbs that are less harmful than tobacco and may be helpful to smoke during the transition period include:

Arnica flowers

Buckbean

Burdock leaf

Catnip

Chamomile

Chervil

Coltsfoot

Cornsilk

Damiana

Eyebright

Hawthorn leaves

Lavender

Licorice

Marjoram

Mullein

Pearly everlasting

Red clover

Rosemary

Sage

Sarsaparilla

Thyme

Uva ursi

Wood betony

Woodruff

Yarrow

Yellow clover

Yerba santa

Those who have been smoking mentholated tobacco may benefit from adding a bit of peppermint to the mixture.

Smoker’s Cough Tea

This tea will relieve that hacking, persistent cough that troubles so many smokers.

1 cup water

1 teaspoon flaxseeds

1 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Bring the water to a boil. Stir in the flaxseeds and cover. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, then strain. Stir in the honey and lemon juice and drink.

HYDROTHERAPY

Stay wet. You can’t smoke very well when enjoying diversions such as swimming, showers, or long soaks in the bathtub. In addition, breathing in steam can help loosen debris in the lungs.

AROMATHERAPY

Helichrysum aids tobacco detoxification, and black pepper essential oil helps alleviate nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Lemon, lime, grapefruit, and orange are other essential oils that can be used in aromatherapy to alleviate the desire for a smoke. Whenever you feel a strong craving, open a bottle of one of these essential oils and take a few deep breaths from the bottle.

Burn some dried artemesia or sage as incense. These herbs have long been used in sacred ceremonies. Surround yourself with their comforting, purifying smoke, rather than the polluting smoke of chemically cured tobacco. Breathe in the healing smoke. Say a prayer.

 

The Cure for the Common Cold?

I’ve known folks who got a respiratory cold when they quit smoking. They felt better when they had a cigarette, so they thought that smoking was the cure. Not so! Once they stopped smoking, all the particulate matter and mucus that had been accumulating in their lungs was released. The cold symptoms were simply a side effect of the elimination process.

 

NICOTINE REPLACEMENTS

Nicotine gum, patches, and nasal sprays are all available techniques for giving up smoking. Ideally, you should use them for no more than a couple of months, though some people continue their use for a year or longer. But this book is so full of natural alternatives that you should consider nicotine replacements a last resort. Pregnant women and those with ulcers or cardiovascular disease should avoid these alternative nicotine treatments.

TO AVOID WEIGHT GAIN WHEN QUITTING SMOKING

It’s common for people who’ve quit smoking to gain weight. When you quit, your senses of smell and taste improve, so appetite is often regained. Nicotine also speeds up metabolism and stimulates the entire gastro-intestinal tract, so you may find that once you’ve quit your metabolism slows down. Remember, though, that it’s not stopping the tobacco habit that causes weight gain—it’s what you choose to eat after you’ve quit, when you’re breaking the physical and psychological habit of smoking.

When substituting a snack for a smoke, select low-calorie items such as raw vegetables and unbuttered popcorn. Celery and carrot sticks make good nibbles. Go for high fiber and low fat.

If you’re having a hard time controlling your appetite, try taking 500 milligrams of the amino acid L-phenylalanine between meals up to three times daily; this substance can decrease appetite. See also chapter 6 for tips and advice on controlling food cravings. But most important, keep in mind that putting on a few extra pounds is less of a health risk than smoking tobacco.