I started smoking when I was 14 and gave it up at ..36 I think. I had two reasons - one was that I had said that if I had any negative consequences from smoking i would give it up, and I had started having some bronchitis trouble... it took me about six months from when I started having that little "bubble" in my breath until I really stopped.
But the main reason was laziness... it was getting harder and harder to be a smoker, smoking was prohibited in more and more areas and when I read that they were going to take away smoking departments from train I knew that it was better to stop before I was forced too... it was getting really uncomfortable to be a smoker, you had to walk outside and stand shivering in the cold and have that drug... not really worth it.

With drinking it was fear - I experienced that I was drinking more each year and knew that if it continued I might cross that line where I no longer could admit that I was worried. I hear a lot of denial but I am almost the opposite, I sometimes say that I am one of the very few alcoholics that has became sober before I even became an alcoholic.

I was helped by society -with smoking because society restricted smoking and made it hard to execute. Drinking the same - in Sweden there is a special store for alcohol and that during the eighties government decided that it should be closed not only sundays but saturdays as well (this was when most stores still was closed on sundays) I just had to hang in there until six in the afternoon on fridays - after that it would be very hard or expensive to get my hands on alcohol and as I am lazy.... since then they have changed again and you can buy alcohol saturdays again... or I am not sure as I have not needed the service for eight years.

Of course "fat explosion" is not only the decline of willpower in people, it is access and exposure of unhealthy food. As an example - about 20 years ago (or is it 25?) they started to sell candy in bulk, at first a modest exposure but nowadays it looks like this:



and the consumptions of candy among swedes has risen a lot since...

Fear of lunch cancer did not empower me to stop smoking, fear of heart failure and pains in my feet and all other symptoms overweight is giving me does not stop me from being overweight - what does that tell me? Partly that I am too deep in addiction - but I was a really addicted smoker as well but gave it up when it became too much work.

Fear is not enough to make me lose weight. neiter is the inconvenience and pains I get from being fat, I do believe that an optimal organized surrounding might help me - as little tempting foods exposed as possible, routines and habits that keeps me on the right side, supportive people, activities that is not connected to eating... it will help but I also need to have that "will power" - I think motivation is the wrong word because I have all the motivation I ever could have but when cravings attacks all that motivation goes out the window...

Just some random thinking on a tuesday morning...off to work!