Jason Kalivas, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   I don't actually have asthma. No doctor has ever looked at my lungs and noted any inflammation. I've never had what I could surely call an asthma attack. I don't have an inhaler. If I get smoke in my lungs, even from incense, I feel my throat close a little and I cough, but I don't really have asthma. Sometimes it's just easier to say that I do. Maybe it's cowardice. Maybe it's a cop-out. But it's so much easier than getting into... [More]

Jason Kalivas, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   A lot of the people I help on the phones have a social cue to smoke. If their friends or co-workers light up, there they go. Some people have a trigger so strong that even seeing someone smoke on TV or in the movies is enough to cause an urge. Though I’ve always had empathy, I never really understood an urge that strong until I watched Mad Men. A drama about the early 1960's New York advertising world, historical accuracy wafts over t... [More]

Jason Kalivas, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   I picked up some "conventional wisdom" when I was a teenager, which said that we replace the cells in our bodies every seven years - out with the old, in with the new; grow new muscle and bone and whole organs. Except the brain. For whatever reason, our gray matter was our gray matter, and we wouldn't get any more. A few seconds thought would've told me that this was wrong - if nothing else, children's brains get bigger as they ... [More]

Jason Kalivas, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:   A participant asked me recently how long it takes being quit before there are no more cravings for nicotine, at all, ever. "It's different for everyone," I said. "Some people never miss it; for some people it takes years; and for some those cravings never go away, but just become manageable." I'd learned it in Free & Clear University, while training to be a Quit Coach. I'd heard it from participants on the phone. I know that it's a true ans... [More]