Esta realidad no es del todo conocida. El fumador cree que fuma porque le “gusta”, “quiere”, le “da placer” o “no puede dejar”. Muchos ni se atreven a considerar la posibilidad  de abandonar el cigarrillo porque tienen miedo, o están convencidos de que no van a poder lograrlo. Como intentaron varias veces y reincidieron, se sienten incapaces, en inferioridad de condiciones. Están equivocados. Son adictos a la nicotina y hasta el momento no han conseguido superarlo.

El camino que hay que recorrer es casi inverso:

1. Primero hay que enfrentar el temor al fracaso y aceptar que lo que le pasa a cada uno es muy parecido a lo que les sucede a los demás. Desnudar sentimientos y fantasmas para reconocer las limitaciones propias y empezar a prepararse mentalmente para deja de fumar sin sufrir.

2. Asumir y tomar conciencia de que la verdadera enfermedad es la adicción: nadie es culpable de ser adicto y cualquiera se puede recuperar con ayuda.

3. Informarse sobre los mecanismos de la adicción, ese enemigo íntimo. El síndrome de abstinencia que provoca la falta de cigarrillo se puede contrarrestar con medicación específica. Entre los siete y los diez días después de haber dejado el cigarrillo, los neurorreceptores que piden nicotina se “archivan” y dejan de reclamar la droga. Esto reduce notablemente lis síntomas y el aspecto fisiológico de la adicción queda totalmente controlado. Desaparece el “hambre” de nicotina.

4. Informarse sobre las ventajas de encarar un tratamiento para dejar de fumar.

5. Tomar la decisión y dejar efectivamente. Luego, comenzar a comprobar los beneficios, tanto a nivel físico como emocional.

6. Mantenerse siempre alerta, en guardia, para evitar reincidencias. Esto es algo más que estar atentos o “recordar” permanentemente que no se fuma. Implica la “construcción” de un estado de alerta constante para evitar recaídas.

La decisión de dejar de fumar tiene que ser meditada y razonada; lo primero que interviene es el conocimiento: qué tengo, cuál es mi vinculo actual con el cigarrillo, para qué lo usé en in principio, para qué me sirve hoy.

Carola Sainz y Susana Reiznik, El placer de no fumar…nunca más.

Everyone one looks, there are signs of ignorance and indifference. What about that film Two Weeks Notice? Guaranteed to give slung along the sides of buses in letters four feet , with no apostrophe in sight. I remember, at the start of the Two Weeks Notice publicity campaign in the spring of 2003, emerging cheerfully from Victoria Station(was I whistling?) and stopping dead in my tracks with my fingers in my mouth. Where was the apostrophe? Surely there should be an apostrophe on that bus? If it were “one month’s notice” there would be an apostrophe (I reasoned); yes, and if it were “one week’s notice” there would be an apostrophe. Therefore “two weeks’ notice” requires an apostrophe! Buses that I should have caught(the 73; two 38s) sailed off up Buckingham Palace Road while I communed thus at length with my inner stickler, unable to move or, indeed, regain any sense of perspective.

Part of one’s despair, of course, is that the world cares nothing for the little shocks endured by the sensitive stickler. While we look in horror at a badly punctuated sign, the world carries around us, blind to our plight. We are like the little boy in The Sixth Sense who can see dead people, except that we can see dead punctuation. Whisper it in petrified little-boy tones: dead punctuation is invisible to everyone else- yet we see it all the time. No one understand us seventh-sense people. They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes we are often aggressively instructed to “get a life” by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves. Naturally we become timid about making our insights known, in such inhospitable conditions. Being burned as a witch is not safely off the agenda. A sign has gone up in a local charity-shop window which says, baldly, “Can you spare any old records” (no question mark) and I dither daily outside on the pavement. Should I go in and mention it? It does matter that there’s no question mark on a direct question. It is appalling ignorance. But what will I do if the elderly charity-shop lady gives me the usual disbelieving stare and then tells me to bugger off, get a life and mind my own business?

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

1. ELIMINACIÓN DE LOS PRIVILEGIOS DE LA CLASE POLÍTICA:

Control estricto del absentismo de los cargos electos en sus respectivos puestos. Sanciones específicas por dejación de funciones.
Supresión de los privilegios en el pago de impuestos, los años de cotización y el monto de las pensiones. Equiparación del salario de los representantes electos al salario medio español más las dietas necesarias indispensables para el ejercicio de sus funciones.
Eliminación de la inmunidad asociada al cargo. Imprescriptibilidad de los delitos de corrupción.
Publicación obligatoria del patrimonio de todos los cargos públicos.
Reducción de los cargos de libre designación.

2. CONTRA EL DESEMPLEO:

Reparto del trabajo fomentando las reducciones de jornada y la conciliación laboral hasta acabar con el desempleo estructural (es decir, hasta que el desempleo descienda por debajo del 5%).
Jubilación a los 65 y ningún aumento de la edad de jubilación hasta acabar con el desempleo juvenil.
Bonificaciones para aquellas empresas con menos de un 10% de contratación temporal.
Seguridad en el empleo: imposibilidad de despidos colectivos o por causas objetivas en las grandes empresas mientras haya beneficios, fiscalización a las grandes empresas para asegurar que no cubren con trabajadores temporales empleos que podrían ser fijos.
Restablecimiento del subsidio de 426€ para todos los parados de larga duración.

3. DERECHO A LA VIVIENDA:

Expropiación por el Estado de las viviendas construidas en stock que no se han vendido para colocarlas en el mercado en régimen de alquiler protegido.
Ayudas al alquiler para jóvenes y todas aquellas personas de bajos recursos.
Que se permita la dación en pago de las viviendas para cancelar las hipotecas.

4. SERVICIOS PÚBLICOS DE CALIDAD:

Supresión de gastos inútiles en las Administraciones Públicas y establecimiento de un control independiente de presupuestos y gastos.
Contratación de personal sanitario hasta acabar con las listas de espera.
Contratación de profesorado para garantizar la ratio de alumnos por aula, los grupos de desdoble y los grupos de apoyo.
Reducción del coste de matrícula en toda la educación universitaria, equiparando el precio de los posgrados al de los grados.
Financiación pública de la investigación para garantizar su independencia.
Transporte público barato, de calidad y ecológicamente sostenible: restablecimiento de los trenes que se están sustituyendo por el AVE con los precios originarios, abaratamiento de los abonos de transporte, restricción del tráfico rodado privado en el centro de las ciudades, construcción de carriles bici.
Recursos sociales locales: aplicación efectiva de la Ley de Dependencia, redes de cuidadores locales municipales, servicios locales de mediación y tutelaje.

5. CONTROL DE LAS ENTIDADES BANCARIAS:

Prohibición de cualquier tipo de rescate o inyección de capital a entidades bancarias: aquellas entidades en dificultades deben quebrar o ser nacionalizadas para constituir una banca pública bajo control social.
Elevación de los impuestos a la banca de manera directamente proporcional al gasto social ocasionado por la crisis generada por su mala gestión.
Devolución a las arcas públicas por parte de los bancos de todo capital público aportado.
Prohibición de inversión de bancos españoles en paraísos fiscales.
Regulación de sanciones a los movimientos especulativos y a la mala praxis bancaria.

6. FISCALIDAD:

Aumento del tipo impositivo a las grandes fortunas y entidades bancarias.
Eliminación de las SICAV.
Recuperación del Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio.
Control real y efectivo del fraude fiscal y de la fuga de capitales a paraísos fiscales.
Promoción a nivel internacional de la adopción de una tasa a las transacciones internacionales (tasa Tobin).

7. LIBERTADES CIUDADANAS Y DEMOCRACIA PARTICIPATIVA:

No al control de internet. Abolición de la Ley Sinde.
Protección de la libertad de información y del periodismo de investigación.
Referéndums obligatorios y vinculantes para las cuestiones de gran calado que modifican las condiciones de vida de los ciudadanos.
Referéndums obligatorios para toda introducción de medidas dictadas desde la Unión Europea.
Modificación de la Ley Electoral para garantizar un sistema auténticamente representativo y proporcional que no discrimine a ninguna fuerza política ni voluntad social, donde el voto en blanco y el voto nulo también tengan su representación en el legislativo.
Independencia del Poder Judicial: reforma de la figura del Ministerio Fiscal para garantizar su independencia, no al nombramiento de miembros del Tribunal Constitucional y del Consejo General del Poder Judicial por parte del Poder Ejecutivo.
Establecimiento de mecanismos efectivos que garanticen la democracia interna en los partidos políticos.

8. REDUCCIÓN DEL GASTO MILITAR

They didn’t mean it. Unintentional double-entendre titles.

“Games You Can Play with Your Pussy”
“Enid Blyton’s Gay Story Book”
“Penetrating Wgner’s Ring”
“The Big Problem of Small Organs”
“Queer Doings in the Navy”

We have a book on it. Atonishingly specialized subjects.

“Why People move”
“Shoe Bottom Costing”
“Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean”
“Selected Themes and Icons from Spanish Literature: Of Beards, Shoes, Cucumbers, and Leprosy”
“The Foul and the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Image”
“European Spoons before 1700″
“What to Say when You Talk to Yourself”
“The toothbrush: its Use and Abuse”
“A User’s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia”
“How to Write While You Sleep”
“Cannibalism and the Common Law: A Victorian Yachting Tragedy”

Bad hair day.

“Philosophy of Red Hair”
“The Unconscious Significance of Hair”
“Pro Sacertodum Barbis”
“New Views on Baldness”

Dirty books.

“Dirt: A Social History as Seen Through the Uses and Abuses of Dirt”
“It’s a Gas! A Study of Flatulence”

The wonderful world of nature. Weird books on plants and animals.

“Fishes I Have Known”
“Do Snakes Have Legs?”
“Rats for Those Who Care”
“Fish Who Answer the Telephone”
“Did a Hen or an Egg Exist First?or, My Talks with a Sceptic”

In sickness and in heatlh. Medical oddities and sick titles.

“Cancer: Is the Dog the Cause?”
“The Itinerary of a Breakfast”
“My Prostate and Me”
“The Abuse of Elderly People: A Handbook for Professionals”
“Syphilis:or, A Poetical History of the French Disease”
“The Prostate: A Guide for Men and the Women Who Love Them”

Love, marriage and… Encounters, exotic and erotic.

“Literature of Kissing”
“Be Married and Like It”
“Stop in the Name of Love: Ejaculation Control for life”

Bizarre Books, Russel Ash & Brian Lake.

‘Hatred is holy’, said Zola, who fought the enemies of Dreyfus not just from love of justice, but because he enjoyed fighting, and believed that he did not truly exist unless he was being attacked. So he rejoiced that he had made ‘pride and hate my two companions… I have felt younger and more courageous after each one of my revolts against the platitudes of my time… If I am worth anything today, it is because I stand alone and because I know how to hate.’ The more the two sides hated each other, the more they had in common, but that was ignored.

Anthropologists have found tribes which never fight, and which praise timidity, but they are not models to imitate, for they are obsessed by the fear of violence. Tribes have also been found which fights all the time, but which have to sustain their aggression by drugs or other stimuli; even cannibals are frightened by their own ferocity, and paradoxically drink the blood of their victims to calm themselves down, to liberate themselves from the feeling that they have become tigers.

Working onself up into a rage was once almost a form of art: ‘Sweeter by far than the honeycomb is wrath,’ said Homer. Divine fury used to be admired as heroic. In the last couple of centuries anger has lost its prestige; not that it is diminishing, but people are beginning to be ashamed of their anger. Nevertheless, an Australian enquiry- the only one of its kind- found that anger was experienced five times more frequently than sympathy.

So there has been little progress in the art of confronting enemies. Once an enemy is identified, propaganda now multiplies proofs of his depravity to reinforce the hostility, on the assumption that people find it gratifying to have their opinions confirmed. For example, John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State during the Cold War, when confronted with any new information about the URSS, systematically ignored anything that challenged his judgement of his opponent as an implacable and dishonest enemy. There is a firmly established tradition which encourages enemies to blind themselves to each other’s point of view. On this basis, war can continue for ever. And what helps it to continue is that private individuals are prisoners of attitudes of mind which make them seek out enemies, just like nations.

If you believed that there are people who despise you or wish you harm, if you have simmering inside you not just a fear of them, but a loathing and a disgust at the very sight of them, if you are convinced that they and you are totally incompatible, then it may be that your deepest roots stretch back into ancient Persia, and that you are an unwitting disciple of the prophet Zarathustra, who lived in the tenth century BC. His recommendations on how to react to enemies are still widely followed, particularly in the West, even if he is remembered only because his priests, the Magi, visited the Infant Jesus. Until Zarathustra had the idea that there was only one true god, and that all other gods were really wicked and hateful demons, enemies were different from what the have become. It used to be silly to imagine that one had implacable enemies, when what happened was believed to depend on whims of a large number of gods and ancestor spirits, and one’s no need to hate those who harmed one, because magic and sacrifice and prayer were more practical ways of dealing with them. the most ancient divinities were thought of as having the power to be either helpful or nasty, and much depended on how one treated them. Zarathustra replaced that with the belief that life was a perpetual battle, that every individual was surrounded by enemies ruled over by Satan-the arch-enemy who hated one irrespective of what one did, just for being human.

Zarathustra put all the blame for the opposition which his prophesying aroused on Satan. Only wickedness could explain that opposition, he thought. Satan refused to understand him, told lies about him: Satan was The Lie. That is how the all-purpose scapegoat was born, and nothing has paralysed intelligence more than the search for scapegoats. There was no need to probe the motives or the difficulties of on’s enemies, once one learnt to spot Satan in them, and so to hate them. Several great religions took up the idea that it was a duty to fight Satan, who hid behind the people one disagreed with. Cardinal Newman wrote, ‘One must learn to hate before one can learn to love.’ Zarathustra explained how to find the right object for one’s hatred, whom to blame for every misfortune. In other respects, he was a prophet of generous instincts, whose ideal was that people should be peaceful and neighbourly; but he could not understand those who rejected his ideas; he could not understand disagreement.

Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity.