3 days, no smoking. Quit, cold turkey. I think this is the only way to quit smoking. Especially if you've kicked the habit before, but like an idiot, took it up again. Why did I start smoking again? I was visiting San Jose, on business, and I thought I could have one or two cigarettes. I had not smoked in about 2-3 years. When I had that first puff, it was like I had never quit.
But later, smoking isn't so fun. I was coughing so hard in the morning, sometimes I'd get dry heaves, as my body tried to get the gunk out of my lungs. And it became expensive, at $8.75 a pack. You consider your mortality, too. Do I want to be dead by about the age of 52? For me, that will be 10 years from now. Do you want to slowly, gradually, suffocate to death, have to lug an oxygen canister around? No, I want to be around for a long time. For my kids, for me, for everybody.
I started smoking because it was a lazy, harmless thing to do. I was surrounded by smokers, we were all young, it didn't mean much (at the time) to smoke, or not to smoke. Nobody was seriously addicted to anything, we were high on life. Later, we were not so enthralled with life, but we had our addictions. This conversion is more common, and widespread, than you think.
4 comments:
Yeah!
Still not smoking!
I quit smoking in 1986. When I was getting ready to quit, I tried to imagine myself as a person who didn't smoke. What I realized was that the only word that described a person who didn't smoke was a negative form of the word that described a person who did smoke -- i.e., a non-smoker vs. a smoker. I decided to come up with a different word to describe myself after I quit smoking. What I settled on was "breather." So when I finally quit (cold turkey), I went from being a "smoker" to being a "breather," and I've been breathing happily ever since.
Good luck in your new life as a breather.
Still not smoking! Thanks for the comment. I almost lost it yesterday, but I stayed non-smoking.
Post a Comment