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Marc F. Bellemare Posts

Published February 15, 2012

An All-Too-Little-Known Fact About Quitting Smoking

Last Thursday was an important day for me, for personal reasons: it was the third anniversary of my quitting smoking.

After about 15 years of heavy smoking — a little over one, but sometimes up to two packs a day — I finally managed to quit in February 2009.

That last attempt at quitting smoking was my sixth or seventh attempt at quitting smoking. The first time I tried to quit smoking, when I was 19, I lasted a few hours. The penultimate time, I did not smoke for about six months.

This leads me to the following little-known fact about quitting smoking:

“Most people who quit smoking for good only do so at their fifth or sixth quitting attempt.”

I had no idea until I walked in my colleague Don Taylor‘s office one day after yet another failed attempt at quitting and said: “Screw it, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to quit smoking.” Don, who is a health policy scholar and who blogs over at the Incidental Economist, responded by quoting the stylized fact above, which is apparently well-known among health policy scholars.

It might be well-known among health policy scholars, but I feel like it deserves to be publicized widely. Every failed attempt at quitting smoking is very disheartening, as it brings a real sense of failure. How many people might have given up on the idea of quitting because of that sense of failure? How many people would have kept going had they been told that most people who quit smoking for good only do so at their fifth or sixth attempt?

If you know anyone who smokes and wants to quit smoking — and what smoker does not want to quit smoking? — the best thing you can do for them is to tell them about the stylized fact above, and not to give up. There is definitely a learning process. And if they want an actual source, they can check out the 1990 report of the surgeon general on smoking cessation.

 

Published February 14, 2012

How Does an Economist Say “I Love You”?

She says it like this (click for a full-size image):

Click here for 13 more ways economists say “I love you.”

From our two-economist household, a Happy Valentine’s Day!

(HT: Maureen Dolan.)

Published February 14, 2012

On My Nightstand: Distrust That Particular Flavor

I have been a fan of William Gibson’s novels ever since my early teens. I was first exposed to his work in 1988 through the Neuromancer game that had been made for the Commodore 64, and which I had bought with my Christmas money when we visited my grandparents at their winter home in Florida.

The game made me want more of the world Gibson had created, so I began looking for a copy of the novel. When I finally found and read Neuromancer, I was hooked, and soon enough I had read the remainder of the Sprawl trilogy.

Since then, I have read almost every piece of fiction Gibson has written, but my interest in his work has somewhat waned over the last few years due to my focusing on nonfiction rather than fiction, and I have not yet read his latest two novels. When I saw his latest book Distrust That Particular Flavor — a collection of essays and speeches written over the past 25 years — at my local bookshop, I figured I could both make up for the last few years while still reading nonfiction.

I was not disappointed. In Distrust, Gibson discusses everything from his answer to why so much of his fiction takes place in Japan to his early obsession with buying vintage watches on eBay, and from the process of making “Johnny Mnemonic” into a movie to his visit to Singapore (which he likens to Disneyland, but with the death penalty).

Gibson’s essays are reminiscent of his novels. The writing is idiosyncratic and angular, and the man responsible for the quip according to which “the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed” offers plenty of other aphorisms throughout Distrust.

Ultimately, Gibson’s most interesting insights relate to his fiction. In Distrust, Gibson tells us that just as Orwell’s 1984 had more to do with Britain in 1948 than with any foreseeable future, Gibson’s own science-fiction novels are more about the present than they are about the future. This has already had me going back to my copy of Neuromancer, just to see what Gibson thought about the US in 1984.