Ok... first and foremost, I smoke.
I'm not proud of it, I don't like it, yet I still do it. I've tried to quit several times, but it's very, very hard to do.
And perhaps we know why it's so hard now.
Why it's hard to quit smoking
They really are bastards. My smoking goes through phases. I've tried quitting several times as well, so I'm gonna quit quitting, I'm just gonna cut down and just smoke when I REALLY want one.
I'll have some if I go out and do some drinkin, but I'm gonna try to break out of the smoking every hour and a half like clockwork. When I'm doing that, I find myself smoking even though I don't really want a cigarette.
I mean, I enjoy smoking to a degree, and we're all gonna die some time. I'd rather die with a beat up body after enjoying life than die with a well preserved body after not doing anything I enjoyed. Just about anything in life that makes us happy or feel good is bad for us. Heck, even too much water is bad.
I'll have some if I go out and do some drinkin, but I'm gonna try to break out of the smoking every hour and a half like clockwork. When I'm doing that, I find myself smoking even though I don't really want a cigarette.
I mean, I enjoy smoking to a degree, and we're all gonna die some time. I'd rather die with a beat up body after enjoying life than die with a well preserved body after not doing anything I enjoyed. Just about anything in life that makes us happy or feel good is bad for us. Heck, even too much water is bad.
Peanut Butter Jelly Time! 
I never wanted to be a "reformed smoker" those were the people I hated. The people who need to tell you that smoking was bad for you. Oh really? Thanks you just saved my life pal. Where were you 10 years ago? Holier than thou pissants, I wanted to gouge their eyes out.
However (and you knew there was one coming) when I was a smoker I always told myself it wasn't something I was going to do all my life. Easy for many to say. My father who still smokes, dips, & chews to this day told me I was foolish to even think it. He said, "Son there will come a time when you want to quit but you can't." We all think we're better than that of course.
I haven't smoked in years, more than I can count. Really because I never counted. That was the first part for me was just understanding who I was. If I said to myself, "I've been smoke free for X days" at that point I might think to myself, "go ahead have one, you've earned it" or some bullshit like that. The mind is funny like that, we will do and say things so that our logic seems sound and clear. Who wants to leave a pretty corpse? Who cares if it takes 20 years off my life as long as it's 20 years at the end! so on and so on... The problem with that sort of logic is of course that it doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. But these things will never really sink in until you wake up one morning coughing and thinking, I don't want to live like this. But then you try to quit, hell you even crumble the pack up and throw it away. Five minutes later you're digging it out like a goddamn homeless person.
Part of what I did when I started smoking (I was 11, crazy I know) was tell myself that I was going to be a smoker because I wanted to be. Yeah I thought I was so smart. I smoked my first cigarette on an impulse, it was one of my mother's Virginia Slims left in the ashtray. I lit it up and took a puff. Contrary to many folk's first experience with cigarettes I wasn't under any notion of it being "cool" nor was I out to impress anyone. I only wanted to try it, and see if it was for me. Again, contrary to most I enjoyed it. It didn't make me cough and hack, probably because it was a very light cigarette (as we all know Virginia Slims are). But it wasn't long before I was sneaking my dad's KOOLS out of his basket (he bought two cartons at a time and dumped them in a wicker basket hanging over the kitchen counter) and he never noticed a stray pack missing or four. When I was 15 I was buying my own. It was around that time perhaps a little sooner that I became interested in being cool, and smoking facilitated that or so I thought. To the people who I wanted to impress at least. Anyway even though I smoked pretty regularly I made a point to never smoke at times when it is considered "time to smoke" not first thing in the morning, not "with my first cup of coffee", not with anything. I knew then that it was physically as well as psychologically addictive (my father had seen to that) and I knew that if I could keep myself from associating it with anything else it'd be easier to break when the time came to break it. That might have helped really, but again stupid of me to think I was so clever.
The sick part was that I had some bad bronchitis when I was a little kid. The lung scarring gave me asthma... I should not have smoked. But smoking deadens the little receptors in the lungs and can actually provide short term relief in some people. I was one of them and so I continued to smoke even though it was very bad for me in the long run. Then I got another bought of bronchitis and I admitted to my doctor that I smoked. He told me to quit and I said for how long. It was then that I knew that I was getting hooked, but by that point there wasn't much I could do. I quit for 8 months while I recovered but when the doctor said I was better I lit up. Stupid kid. Fast forward to my early twenties and I was quitting on and off for a few months at a time. Something would happen and I would start again. Drinking with friends, get the urge. Need a smoke, just buy a pack, I'll smoke one and give it away. What's this pack doing in my pocket this morning? Oh well, might as well smoke them. Just this one pack. Wow that felt good, this isn't so bad. Hey I can control this. It's my choice after all. I can always quit again...
Hah hah.
So a few years ago, again I don't remember how long, I want to say four or five? I saw a movie with Robin Williams, don't remember what it was. But he sees a guy eyeing a pack of smokes and he asks if he wants one and the guy says he quit. Robin says, either you are a smoker or you are not a smoker. Pick which one you want to be and then be it. Shit yeah. Is it that easy? Could it be? So I told myself, I am not a smoker. I am not quiting, I'm not an ex-smoker. I am just a non-smoker. Someone asks me if I smoke? I say no end of story. Not, oh I am an ex-smoker or oh I am quitting or I quit. Crazy thing it worked. Not sure if it is for everyone but it worked for me.
Now I don't even have the urge to smoke. Quite the opposite, one smell of it and I have an asthma attack, which is probably another good reason I quit.
The crux of this story is that despite all the rationales we tell ourselves, despite all the evidence we try to concoct we're really just addicted. Addicted to something more powerful than crack cocaine... I woke up one morning thinking, I am going to die. But I won't die in my sleep or from a car crash, I'm going to die hacking up a lung. I am going to die feeling like I am drowning. It's easy to say "the last 20 years of my life" until you are at the last 20 years and then what you wouldn't give to go back and do it differently. I saw my "life" flash before my eyes, my future. I got to go back. You can too.
tl;dr version: smoking is bad for you, don't smoke.
However (and you knew there was one coming) when I was a smoker I always told myself it wasn't something I was going to do all my life. Easy for many to say. My father who still smokes, dips, & chews to this day told me I was foolish to even think it. He said, "Son there will come a time when you want to quit but you can't." We all think we're better than that of course.
I haven't smoked in years, more than I can count. Really because I never counted. That was the first part for me was just understanding who I was. If I said to myself, "I've been smoke free for X days" at that point I might think to myself, "go ahead have one, you've earned it" or some bullshit like that. The mind is funny like that, we will do and say things so that our logic seems sound and clear. Who wants to leave a pretty corpse? Who cares if it takes 20 years off my life as long as it's 20 years at the end! so on and so on... The problem with that sort of logic is of course that it doesn't hold up under close scrutiny. But these things will never really sink in until you wake up one morning coughing and thinking, I don't want to live like this. But then you try to quit, hell you even crumble the pack up and throw it away. Five minutes later you're digging it out like a goddamn homeless person.
Part of what I did when I started smoking (I was 11, crazy I know) was tell myself that I was going to be a smoker because I wanted to be. Yeah I thought I was so smart. I smoked my first cigarette on an impulse, it was one of my mother's Virginia Slims left in the ashtray. I lit it up and took a puff. Contrary to many folk's first experience with cigarettes I wasn't under any notion of it being "cool" nor was I out to impress anyone. I only wanted to try it, and see if it was for me. Again, contrary to most I enjoyed it. It didn't make me cough and hack, probably because it was a very light cigarette (as we all know Virginia Slims are). But it wasn't long before I was sneaking my dad's KOOLS out of his basket (he bought two cartons at a time and dumped them in a wicker basket hanging over the kitchen counter) and he never noticed a stray pack missing or four. When I was 15 I was buying my own. It was around that time perhaps a little sooner that I became interested in being cool, and smoking facilitated that or so I thought. To the people who I wanted to impress at least. Anyway even though I smoked pretty regularly I made a point to never smoke at times when it is considered "time to smoke" not first thing in the morning, not "with my first cup of coffee", not with anything. I knew then that it was physically as well as psychologically addictive (my father had seen to that) and I knew that if I could keep myself from associating it with anything else it'd be easier to break when the time came to break it. That might have helped really, but again stupid of me to think I was so clever.
The sick part was that I had some bad bronchitis when I was a little kid. The lung scarring gave me asthma... I should not have smoked. But smoking deadens the little receptors in the lungs and can actually provide short term relief in some people. I was one of them and so I continued to smoke even though it was very bad for me in the long run. Then I got another bought of bronchitis and I admitted to my doctor that I smoked. He told me to quit and I said for how long. It was then that I knew that I was getting hooked, but by that point there wasn't much I could do. I quit for 8 months while I recovered but when the doctor said I was better I lit up. Stupid kid. Fast forward to my early twenties and I was quitting on and off for a few months at a time. Something would happen and I would start again. Drinking with friends, get the urge. Need a smoke, just buy a pack, I'll smoke one and give it away. What's this pack doing in my pocket this morning? Oh well, might as well smoke them. Just this one pack. Wow that felt good, this isn't so bad. Hey I can control this. It's my choice after all. I can always quit again...
Hah hah.
So a few years ago, again I don't remember how long, I want to say four or five? I saw a movie with Robin Williams, don't remember what it was. But he sees a guy eyeing a pack of smokes and he asks if he wants one and the guy says he quit. Robin says, either you are a smoker or you are not a smoker. Pick which one you want to be and then be it. Shit yeah. Is it that easy? Could it be? So I told myself, I am not a smoker. I am not quiting, I'm not an ex-smoker. I am just a non-smoker. Someone asks me if I smoke? I say no end of story. Not, oh I am an ex-smoker or oh I am quitting or I quit. Crazy thing it worked. Not sure if it is for everyone but it worked for me.
Now I don't even have the urge to smoke. Quite the opposite, one smell of it and I have an asthma attack, which is probably another good reason I quit.
The crux of this story is that despite all the rationales we tell ourselves, despite all the evidence we try to concoct we're really just addicted. Addicted to something more powerful than crack cocaine... I woke up one morning thinking, I am going to die. But I won't die in my sleep or from a car crash, I'm going to die hacking up a lung. I am going to die feeling like I am drowning. It's easy to say "the last 20 years of my life" until you are at the last 20 years and then what you wouldn't give to go back and do it differently. I saw my "life" flash before my eyes, my future. I got to go back. You can too.
tl;dr version: smoking is bad for you, don't smoke.
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bio
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Amen brother!
I quit every night.... I am just stupid enough to start up again every damn morning.
I didn't start because it was cool or because it was trendy. I didn't start as a kid (though I did try it once or twice just to see what it was like). And I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it at first. I went from firm non-smoker to smoker over night... and I did it on purpose.
I was in the Army (why, to this day, I have no damn idea). In basic training, we got all the speeches about smoking, how it was bad for you, how it would made you a bad soldier, etc. The drill Sargent took everyone's cigarettes away when we got there and rationed them out, 3 cigarettes a day to their owners.
But over time, that got lax, and the smokers were able to carry around a pack or packs if they wanted. I was still a non-smoker.
Then we started doing force marches in the South Carolina sun. You'd pack your ruck sack with 100 pounds of anything you could find (they weighed them, and if they came up light, they'd fill them to 120 pounds). Every 5 miles or so, the drill Sargent would shout out "Take a break.... smoke 'em if you got 'em!".
Everyone who smoked got to put that damn heavy bag on the ground, lean up against a tree, and spend the next 15 minutes or so taking it easy. Those of us who didn't smoke were apparently just being lazy, so the drill Sargents would hand us garbage bags and tell us to police the area (pick up any trash, pine cones, etc) until we were ready to move out again.
To me, that was what it was, pure bullshit. So, I thought I'd be clever. I purchased a pack of Marb Reds and a zippo that night and was ready for the next march. When they called out a break, I dropped that damn bag, leaned up against a tree, and lit my cigarette. The idea was to let it smolder while I gave my sorry ass a break, but the Sargent was a little too observant. "Smoke that damn cigarette or pick up trash!" he barked.
The rest is history.
If I had it to do over again, I would have married Heidi Klum instead of joining the Army (she begged me to stay and make babies, but I was determined to be all that I could be).
That would have been sweet!
I quit every night.... I am just stupid enough to start up again every damn morning.
I didn't start because it was cool or because it was trendy. I didn't start as a kid (though I did try it once or twice just to see what it was like). And I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it at first. I went from firm non-smoker to smoker over night... and I did it on purpose.
I was in the Army (why, to this day, I have no damn idea). In basic training, we got all the speeches about smoking, how it was bad for you, how it would made you a bad soldier, etc. The drill Sargent took everyone's cigarettes away when we got there and rationed them out, 3 cigarettes a day to their owners.
But over time, that got lax, and the smokers were able to carry around a pack or packs if they wanted. I was still a non-smoker.
Then we started doing force marches in the South Carolina sun. You'd pack your ruck sack with 100 pounds of anything you could find (they weighed them, and if they came up light, they'd fill them to 120 pounds). Every 5 miles or so, the drill Sargent would shout out "Take a break.... smoke 'em if you got 'em!".
Everyone who smoked got to put that damn heavy bag on the ground, lean up against a tree, and spend the next 15 minutes or so taking it easy. Those of us who didn't smoke were apparently just being lazy, so the drill Sargents would hand us garbage bags and tell us to police the area (pick up any trash, pine cones, etc) until we were ready to move out again.
To me, that was what it was, pure bullshit. So, I thought I'd be clever. I purchased a pack of Marb Reds and a zippo that night and was ready for the next march. When they called out a break, I dropped that damn bag, leaned up against a tree, and lit my cigarette. The idea was to let it smolder while I gave my sorry ass a break, but the Sargent was a little too observant. "Smoke that damn cigarette or pick up trash!" he barked.
The rest is history.
If I had it to do over again, I would have married Heidi Klum instead of joining the Army (she begged me to stay and make babies, but I was determined to be all that I could be).
That would have been sweet!
"That's What"
- She
- She
I quit about 2 years ago.
I didn't use a patch, I didn't chew any chemically laced gum...I just stopped.
For awhile, there was a half a pack of smokes in the chair on my patio. I threw them away after about 3 months.
I had tried in vain to quit before then, and it never stuck.
I firmly believe that you can't quit until you're really ready to do so.
I didn't use a patch, I didn't chew any chemically laced gum...I just stopped.
For awhile, there was a half a pack of smokes in the chair on my patio. I threw them away after about 3 months.
I had tried in vain to quit before then, and it never stuck.
I firmly believe that you can't quit until you're really ready to do so.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "good doggie" while looking for a bigger stick
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Rocketdork
- A.B. Normal
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Found a nicely related story...its easy to quit, all you have to do is carve out a silver dollar part of your brain.
"A man without a woman is like a statue without pigeons"
