Hi everyone, hope things are going well. One of my hobbies is to play in a rock band which very occasionally does a live show and tonight's the night! Now I'm well up for playing and I can happily deal with stage fright but I suddenly realised I have never done a gig without having plenty of cigarettes beforehand. Needless to say everyone else in the band smokes but as I've not been to any of the rehearsals, none of the guys know I've quit, so it will be a big shock to them. They are all typical rock musicians so I'm not expecting much in the way of empathy and plenty of ribbing. Also there will be a huge number of friends who I haven't seen since the gig last year so a fair amount of booze will be consumed which is always a danger. I'd seriously thought about not playing this year but it's for a cancer charity and we've done the gig for the last 10 years and do raise a fair bit of dosh on the night. Besides I'm not going to let the fear of smoking ruin a good evening! So I'm trying to anticipate what pitfalls I will face and have some plans to deal with them - I can imagine myself getting through without touching the weed but any other advice would be good.
Al
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The good news - I didn't have a cigarette or even feel tempted The bad news - the way I played :mad: Without the fags and booze, I was much more nervous than usual which isn't too surprising. Lots to go away and think about
I also play in a rock band but I was the only smoker in the band. Also there's no drinking as we have to drive to the gigs, rock 'n' roll huh??
For me the question simply flipped around, "why do I have to have a fag to go on stage when all my other band members are quite happily jumping about on stage both fag and booze free?"
The answer is, blindingly obvious, that I needed a fag because I thought I needed a fag, not because it calmed me down or anything.
Once you realise that the only anxiety a fag cures is the anxiety of not having a fag and the only stress it relieves is the stress of not having a fag, the only hole it fills is the hole it made etc etc the whole smoking thing becomes slightly embarrassing.
It's not a secret but every good time I had, every fab gig I did, my fellow band mates did it smoke free and just as fab.
Even Slash has quit, clearly he decided it didn't make him any cooler.
We constantly punctuated our lives with them and not a single one gave us anything. Every single fag we ever smoked prevented us from doing something better and more rewarding. Every smoking memory of a good time we had would have been just as good without the smoke and in fact it would have been slightly better.
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