The interesting thing about quitting smoking is the dichotomy between withdrawal and healing. Both aspects can demand as much attention as, say, wrestling alligators. Often at the same time. But in entirely different ways.

Withdrawal has a wide range of characteristics. It can be subtle and work on you at the subconscious level. Or it can be as obvious as a big, slobbering dog and just hammer you physically. Either way, it makes itself evident in many unpleasant ways.

Healing is not necessarily subtle, but it is gradual, and takes time to accumulate. It works as a function of time and metabolism. Your body will not repair all the damage you have done to it, but it will do its work as best it can. You have to pay more attention to the healing because it is not as vigorous as the withdrawal.

It does not take long, once you quit smoking, for both aspects to manifest themselves. Withdrawal starts first, and can get real nasty. But if you wait long enough, you will soon see healing taking place. And this is where things get more interesting.

At first, the balance was tilted much more towards wanting to smoke. But my appreciation of feeling better has been increasing to the point that now, the balance has shifted. The key to this situation is lasting long enough for that change. I have never done that in a quit before

I have found myself simultaneously wanting to smoke and appreciating feeling so much better. Sometimes I think about that, and it strikes me as funny. How could I want to do something that made me feel so bad? Now, I accept the fact that that is the way of the world to want to do something that is bad for me. I accept that idea without needing to understand why it is that way. But I do laugh at it too. Foible, indeed.

The encouraging thing is that the withdrawal is decreasing, and the healing is surging. All I have to do to keep that trend going is not smoke.

I quit smoking over 35 years ago, and I have never touched a cigarette since that time. There are millions of American's who struggle to finally quit smoking, only to start up again a few years later, which is a shame! Why would a person do this? Why would a person want to go back to putting poison back in his or her body? I've known a couple of people who have done this, and I think is a sign of weakness!

I have not written this piece, because I am a crusader or an activist for quitting smoking. If a person wants to smoke...go ahead...it's your right! But, my personal decision is that I have zero tolerance for smoking and smokers! I don't like smokers around me, and they can do their damage someplace else! Smokers know the risks of smoking, and if they die from smoking, it's their own fault!

Here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this is where I-40 (Route 66) and I-25 (Pan American Freeway) come together, and it's called the "Big I." And, as you might imagine, it's a very busy place for traffic. About a mile north of the Big I, is an electric sign that was put up, and shows the number of deaths from smoking all year long from across the country. The numbers on the sign are large and flash on and off, and can be viewed easily. At the beginning of the year, the sign shows zero deaths from smoking, and it updated every hour, and at the end of the year, shows about 220,000 to 250,000 smoking deaths, which is astonishing to me!

A fellow employee, named Sabrina, and I worked at the same company, and one day, we were out on the patio taking a break when she said to me, "Jerry, I hate you!" It didn't take me long to do a double-take when she said that, and I asked her why she hated me! She said, "I'm 38 years old, and my face looks like a dry river bed, with wrinkles and "crows feet' all over the place, and when I smile, I have all these gouges all over my face! On the other hand, you're 50 years old, and you have NO wrinkles on your face whatsoever...no "crows feet" nothing! And, that's why I hate you."

I've been hated by many people in my lifetime, but never for not having wrinkles on my face, so this was all new to me! I knew Sabrina was only kidding, and I told her that being a heavy smoker for over 15 years, contributed to the wrinkles on her face and her appearance in general. I'm not a doctor, but we all know that smoking affects the inner body, as well as the outer body as well.

And, Sabrina was right. Without taking a trip down Ego Street, people never guess my age...they never come close! People always guess my age to be 8 to 12 years younger than I am. And, I think that's because I don't smoke and quit over 35 years ago. I jog every week, quit smoking and lost 40 pounds...but, I don't do these things to look younger, I DO THEM TO STAY HEALTHY! So, if I look younger, it's just frosting on the cake, etc. I've seen people my age, who are drinking, drugging and smoking all the time, and they look ten years OLDER than they are!

Sabrina quit smoking before I met her, and after 15 years of heavy smoking, her body has taken a first-class beating! And, little did I know, and she didn't know either that her days were numbered! Sabrina and I were just acquaintances at work, and we did not date or hang around together. But, she was such a caring person. I was going through a lot back then, and she was there for me everyday About a year later, the company closed and everybody went their own way, and I never saw Sabrina again. But, when we parted our ways, I missed her, because she was so good to me.

My parents got divorced after 48 years of marriage...she was 66 years old and he was 72 years old. My father helped to produce ten kids and he didn't care about any of us! And, us kids hated him because he was sinister and evil. One day, my mother called me and told me that my father had died, and my response was, "Who cares!" (That's how evil he was!) She told my that his name was in the obituary section of the newspaper but I really didn't care!

But, what drove me to look at the newspaper at someone I never cared about, and neither did my brothers and sisters? I went to the newspaper, and I saw his name, and read the short piece somebody wrote that were lies! And, something told me to scan down the page...something there was waiting for me...I couldn't imagine what! As I scanned down the page, I noticed a name that is not very common, and that name was "Pettis!" THAT'S SABRINA'S LAST NAME...and, a chill quickly came over me! Oh my God, could this be Sabrina? I didn't want to look! I closed the newspaper, and just sat there wondering what I should do! After a few seconds of turmoil in my head, I decided to take a look to see if that was Sabrina or not. I was going to need a little courage to do this...courage I didn't think I had!

To my horror, it WAS Sabrina! I was in shock; numb; and I didn't want to believe it! With a lump in my throat, I found out that Subrina had died! Through my glassy eyes, I tried to read the fine print in the newspaper. Everything listed in the newspaper was correct. She worked for the Sheriff's Department; she had recently got re-married; she had a fourteen year old boy...this was Sabrina, and I didn't want to believe it! I put down the newspaper and was speechless! I didn't want to believe that Sabrina was dead! But, why? How?

THERE WERE ThREE TRAGEDIES HERE...THE FIRST IS THAT SABRINA DIED; THE SECOND IS THAT SHE LEFT A HUSBAND, FAMILY AND A 14 YEAR OLD BOY BEHIND; THE THIRD IS THAT, AT 38, SHE WAS SO YOUNG...AND HAD HER WHOLE LIFE AHEAD OF HER!

At the time, I didn't know if Sabrina died from an illness or an accident, so I called a mutual friend that worked with us, and she told me what happened. Sabrina caught a cold one day; the next day it turned to the flu; the next day it turned to pneumonia and the next day...SABRINA DIED! It all happened so quickly! I was astounded! FOUR DAYS!

The death certificate probably said the cause of death was "pneumonia," but in reality it was the heavy smoking she did for over 15 years. The smoking had to, at least, contribute to her death. After smoking for so many years, her body and her defenses were so weakened, that she couldn't fight back! There is NO doctor or NO medication that can save a person on this planet, without that person having the ability to fight back! Sabrina's lungs; heart; arteries; blood vessels; and everything else in her body were affected by heavy smoking, etc. It was the smoking that did her in!

For people who want to quit smoking, they have TWO gigantic tasks in front of them! First, they have to find a way to get that "mental toughness" it takes to quit smoking and quit and never start up again. Second, they have to give the body time to cleanse itself of all the pollution that the smoker has put into his or her body. The tar; nicotine; soot; chemicals and no telling what else! This is NOT going to be done overnight...it's going to take time! In Sabrina's case, I would think it would take between 5 and ten years to clean out her system, but that's only a guess on my part. So, when a person quits smoking...it's not the end, but only the beginning!

All of us get colds, the flu and so forth, and the same thing could happen to YOU (if you smoke) as happened to Sabrina during this cleaning out phase! YOU put the poisons in your body...and, YOU have to get those poisons out...and it's going to take some time! So, the earlier you get started, the better off you will be.

One day, I drove across town, and I had not seen that sign displaying the number of deaths due to smoking for a long time, so when I came upon it, I was a little surprised. But, when I saw that sign for the first time after Sabrina's death, I thought of her! And, I thought of how Sabrina had put her number on that awful sign! When I saw that sign, had a hollow feeling inside of me, and with glassy eyes, I would never drive to that part of town again. Sabrina died in 1996 and I think of her once in a while, and one thing is certain...I'll always have a place in my heart for her! She left a 14 year old behind for a stupid cigarette!

Old Glory affords everyone the freedom to express their opinion, and I have mine about smoking and smokers, which is as follows:

SMOKER: A dragon-like figure, such as "puff" the magic dragon, which is represented as having a reptilian body and breaths and emits smoke and fire!

STUPID: marked by a lack of intelligence.

FOOL: one who is deficient in judgment or understanding.

DUMB: conspicuously unintelligent.

DRAGON: something very formidable or dangerous.

Every time I see a smoker, it reminds me of a dragon, with smoke bellowing out of the mouth, nose, ears, and places where the sun don't shine! Every time my ex-wife and I would invite a few dragons over for dinner, the place looked like it was on fire, with smoke coming out of all the windows!

With a cloud of smoke inside, visibility was about 6 inches (or less), and I worried that someone was going to stumble over the coffee table or crash into a trashcan head first and injure themselves! While I was in the Air Force, I helped put out a house that was on fire one night, and I got a feeling for how powerful the hose is that fireman use, and the pressure behind it. We went into that house that night, and destroyed everything with the pressure of the water alone.

So, when a hand-full of dragons come over, and with all the smoke in the house, I always worried that a neighbor might call the fire department, and with those powerful hoses, the fireman would destroy the house!

* * *

There's always an amusing side of things in life, and there is a serious side of things as well. And, smoking falls into the serious side of things for sure. I have zero tolerance for smoking and smokers! I don't want smokers around me! With that attitude, and the number of smokers around, that pretty much leaves me out in the wood by myself, doesn't it? I know all about smoking, as I smoked for five years, and quit back in 1970, which was one of the best things I have ever done.

But, smoking is not only dangerous in a health sense, but it is dangerous to a relationship as well. I met my ex-wife in the 1970's, when smoking was fashionable and trendy, and she smoked the entire 19 years we were together. But, at that time, it didn't matter to me that much, and smoking wasn't an issue. But, as time went on, smoking started having an effect on our relationship. I think the anti-smoking movement started in the early 1990's, and that's about the time when our relationship started to go downhill.

For 19 years, I tried to help Wendy stop smoking, and all of it fell on deaf ears! She was always afraid to gain weight, but I told her if she gained weight, I would help her with that too. (in one ear and out the other). As time went on, she always seemed to have a cigarette in her mouth! After about 17 or 18 years of this, and I started to become annoyed, and smoking rose to the top of our priority list.

When I first met her, it seemed like she was a light smoker, smoking a cigarette here and a cigarette there...a casual smoker, so I didn't raise the red flag, etc. But, as the years went by, her smoking got worse and worse, and I naturally worried about her. First thing in the morning...a cigarette! Last thing at bedtime...a cigarette! And, if she woke up in the middle of the night...another cigarette! Every morning she woke up coughing and choking! I was getting very upset over this!

The cigarette became her constant companion. I would get so mad, when I went into the kitchen and, as she was preparing a meal...there was that damn cigarette hanging out of her mouth! Several times I went over to her, and grabbed that stupid cigarette out of her mouth, and put it in the kitchen sink and dowsed it!

Smoking was affecting our relationship, and we were arguing and fighting more and more, and not speaking to each other more and more as time went on. Our two boys, were 10 and 12 at the time, and I know that smoking was affecting their well-being as well. She had the attitude that she was going to get her little "fix" and/or "pleasure" no matter what. And, I had the attitude that we were having a big problem here, and we were going to have to find a solution for it, or we might not be together much longer!

When two people argue and fight a lot of the time, the relationship begins to sour and probably will die. It finally came to the point, when were talking to each other very little, and neither of us wanted to do that. Over the years, she probably wondered why I kissed her very little...who wants to kiss an ashtray? To make a long story short, we parted our ways in 1995, and smoking, and all the fighting that went with it, was one of the reasons for going our separate ways!

Pills for stop-smoking treatment flood the news as millions of smokers who want to quit search for a cure.

There is a new wonder pill that the newspapers are getting very excited about. And the highly-acclaimed clinical research says it worked for about 50% of the cases. Great!

Hold on a minute...

That's about a 50% failure rate!

Would you really call something that has only a 50/50 chance of working a Wonder Drug, a Miracle Cure?

Yet not only do many hapless smokers fall for this hype, but all these Wonder Drugs have side effects.

A newly-emerging field rapidly gaining recognition is that of Energy Psychology. This involves removing the psychological reasons why someone smokes plus re-balancing the body for a long lasting result free from side-effects.

So where are the figures, I hear you say?

Most stop-smoking Energy Psychology therapists are self-employed private therapists who simply do not have the financial means to run clinical research to prove their success rate. Nor the huge PR budgets of the pharmaceutical giants.

Many successful natural stop-smoking practitioners report success rates with the 70-95% range for ex-smokers staying stopped a year after the treatment.

And you do not have to believe everything they say. Let us say for the sake of argument, that these stop smoking practitioners were lying through their teeth. Let us assume that their figures were only 50%. Guess what? That would make their treatment better than the Wonder Pill because it delivered the same result without the side-effects. Interesting thought indeed.

Another thing that should alert the reader of Wonder Pill PR is the absence of guarantees. Many natural stop-smoking practitioners are happy to back their treatment up by a guaranteed support or full money-back guarantee. Now where do you see the pharmaceuticals doing the same?

There are many ways to stop smoking. Hypnotherapy, Energy Psychology (EFT being the most popular), NLP, pills, patches, gum, and acupuncture, to name the most popular. Whichever method works for you or those you care about is great. And if maximum results can be achieved with minimum disruption to your body, all the better.

The easiest way to quit smoking is a solution every smoker seeks. It is the holy grail.

The vast majority of smokers who try to quit go through a torrid time. They suffer from stress, anxiety, frustration, temptation, self-doubt and massive mood swings.

However, it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, it should be completely the opposite. Quitting smoking should be easy, relaxed and a lot of fun to do. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that hundreds of thousands of smokers can kick cigarettes with utter simplicity when they choose the easiest way to quit smoking.

The easiest way to quit smoking is using hypnosis. Don't be alarmed at that suggestion. Hypnosis does not mean having to go into a deep trance. In fact, you can be hypnotized from the comfort of your own home by simply reading a book or listening to a CD.

Hypnosis is widely misunderstood. In essence, hypnosis simply involves changing your belief patterns. For example, if you believe that you need a cigarette to fix your anxiety, then hypnosis will question why you believe that is the case. Ultimately the aim is to make you look at things in a different way and to change your belief patterns accordingly.

Understand this -- smoking is primarily a psychological addiction. Nicotine is not a particularly physically addictive substance…if it was, you wouldn't hear so many stories of people quitting the habit with ease. To this extent, hypnosis changes your psychology from an addictive personality to one which is free of its constraints.

Smokers don't need reasons to quit. Smokers need to demolish the reasons why they continue to smoke. Think about it -- if you have ever tried to quit smoking and failed, it is because you have convinced yourself that you need cigarettes for a particular reason. If hypnosis removes all your reasons to smoke, then you will not have the need.

The easiest way to quit smoking, in my opinion, is undoubtedly the use of hypnosis. Nicotine patches and gum don't solve the problem, but rather provide a quick fix. The underlying problem is your psychology, and if you don't smash the reasons you continue to smoke, then they will always linger in your head.

People that are suffering from acid reflux sometimes find that it is just as painful to find a remedy as it is to deal with this problem. If you are one of these people that are having a hard time controlling acid reflux, there are a couple of things that you can do to help.

First off, if you are suffering from severe acid reflux seeing a doctor may be the best place to start. They will be able to put you on the right track, while also running tests to ensure that you are actually suffering from acid reflux and nothing more serious.

There are a few medications that are commonly used to treat acid reflux. They are as follows.

1. Acid suppressants are a great way to control acid reflux. These are sometimes also known as H2-antagonists.

2. Proton-pump inhibitors reduce the products of acid in the stomach, which in turn reduces the amount of acid reflux that occurs.

3. Pro-kinetic medications can help speed up the stomach emptying process. This goes a long way in ensuring that acids do not stick around for too long.

4. Antacids can sometimes be used to treat acid reflux, but you should consult with a doctor before using them. The reason for this is because they are not recommended for use by people who are suffering from GERD.

The first thing you do is get a second opinion. Since you just paid good money for an entirely pessimistic diagnosis, the second one should be free. The second one should be much more upbeat. The second one should be your own. If there is such a thing as a mind - body connection someone just gave your mind a very bad idea. Just because it came from some professional does not demand you accept it. If you do not have your affairs in order do so. This event could have been a car crash with you dead and a diagnosis irrelevant. So take this negative diagnosis as a warning to be prepared.

There is no such thing as incurable. What there is, is little known cures. If it is little known that means: 1. Somebody knows about it. 2. If someone knows about it, it can be known. 3. If it can be known, it can be known by you. People of faith will assure you that death itself is curable. If they are correct how can anything short of death be incurable?

Now you might say, “I don’t know anything about any of this. I don’t know what to do.” And I say what you didn’t know probably contributed to your less than optimum health. That is you are very likely a victim of ignorance as most of us are, most of the time. But the cure for ignorance is as plain as the nose on your face. First, the odds that more than one cure has been published somewhere. You can read about them and decide if one. appeals to you or makes you nervous. If you make a choice here you can begin treatment immediately.

If you don’t like the sound of either keep looking. If you don’t find something right away, begin with prayer, meditation, visualization and affirmation. If these things do not cure, they will buy time. Do not panic. Do not be afraid. Both will accelerate degeneration. It’s time now to get familiar with your affliction. You can read the medical journals if you want. They will try to confirm the negative diagnoses. If you know that going in you will be less depressed by what you read. But the smart thing to do is go to alternative healers and literature. It will seldom be as pessimistic as medical journals.

Alternative sources may not expose a cure offhand but your reading itself will suggest further reading. If you learn either the cause of your affliction or the mechanism that makes it incurable by modern medicine, you are half way home to discovering a cure for yourself you could publish to help others. Helping others is that much more reason for you to succeed. Can you see how much you have already done to shift the odds in your favor? Most people have no idea how powerful personal expectation really is. It programs the subconscious to produce the expected result. Once you truly know this, you are smarter than most M.D.s.. Since you are now smarter than they are you have every right to expect better than they expect. Certainly you do not expect them to care more about you than you? That would be the definition of an unrealistic expectation.

The medical establishment has no use for unscientific data, so if your aunt Agnes cured the same affliction by eating raw egg yolks for two months, are you just going to blow it off? How much do eggs cost? On the internet there are alternative healing databases that gather testimonial evidence and publish it. No matter how improbable a thing might seem, if nothing else is working and you are dying, it could be time to grasp at a straw or two. One could save your life. So there you have it. Your affliction is ignorance and the cure is education. It can’t get any simpler than that.

There are several medications on the market today that can help to treat GERD. It is important to remember the age of the person that is going to be taking the medication. The reason for this is that GERD for children are not the same as they are for adults.

Here are some medications that can help to treat GERD in infants or children. In addition, they are also effective on adults as well.

1. Mylanta and Maalox are both effective antacids

2. Acid blockers such as Pepcid or Zantac

3. Medications like Nexium and Prilosec reduce the overall production of acid

There are also medications that are meant to help improve the gastrointestinal tract. These are different than the medications listed above.

1. Reglan can help reduce the symptoms that go along with GERD. This speeds up the digestion process and in turn cuts down the amount of time that food sits in your stomach.

2. To treat bacterial infections, Erythromycin is often times used. This can also help acid reflux, but is not a long term solution.

Overall, GERD can be treated with the proper attention. Look into these options today if you or your child is suffering from GERD.