How To Stop Smoking In One Easy Lesson

Easy, hah! Quitting cigarettes was the hardest thing I've ever done, including childbirth. I mentioned it last week and had quite the outpouring of replies. Readers asked me how I did quit, having tried to themselves with varying degrees of success.

Both husband Jim and I smoked for years. He started when he was barely out of diapers, according to his account, but he was probably a little older. I was 11. Just think! Eleven years old, a veritable child, and I was stealing cigarettes from my parents. It seems unthinkable now, but back in the bad old '50s everyone smoked: mommies, daddies, doctors, presidents, and all our favorite singers and actors.




From the late 1800s women turned to smoking as a way of announcing their independence and sophistication. That's what I've read anyway. I wasn't too sophisticated at age 11 so I don't know what I was thinking except all my friends smoked and I wasn't about to be left behind.

So, here's how I quit after three decades of smoking (I always quit during my three pregnancies, but the minute I got home with my little bundle of joy I'd celebrate with a cigarette).

It was 1991, January 10th to be exact. 5:05 p.m. to be more exact, when I had my last cigarette. I could probably lead you to the exact spot where I flipped my last cigarette out my car window. It was in Seneca, South Carolina where I was a reporter for the local paper. At that time journalists not only smoked at work, they kept bottles of booze in their desk drawers, but that's a different story.

Every time I tried to quit cold turkey I failed. I not only failed, I went crazy. Really! If I had gone a half a day without smoking I couldn't concentrate, couldn't write, couldn't drive even. I'd roll my car up onto sidewalks, and bump into anything in my way. I'd get dizzy and very, very, very grouchy. Everyone at work would beg me to either smoke or go home. I might have been just a wee bit of a drama queen.

So, when it got to where I couldn't breath very well I said, “Enough.” I made up a way to quit. I took a long weekend, throwing that last cigarette butt away on a Friday after work on the way home. I rented a dozen movies, got a pile of books from the library, three or four quarts of ice cream, and gave myself permission to do anything I wanted except smoke. Then I went to bed for those three days. I read, watched the movies, ate candy, and all the ice cream. Occasionally I'd slice a banana over the mixing bowl of Breyer's for my health's sake. Jim stopped smoking at home, and until he quit in 2000 I never saw him with a cigarette. Now that's a considerate husband. He said he was so proud of me, but just couldn't quit himself.

t was both harder and easier for Jim. He tried everything including hypnosis, patches, will power, and nicotine gum. He had been smoking for more than 50 years, he figured. Nothing worked until he was told he had to have open heart surgery shortly after the new millennium. He suddenly discovered he had a horror of waking up and finding himself on a ventilator. There was no way around it and he confessed to the doctor he couldn't stand the thought of that tube in his throat breathing for him. The doctor told him if he quit that very day, just a few days before the operation, his lungs would be clearer and he would be off the ventilator faster. Jim walked out of the doc's office and threw away his pack of cigarettes and never smoked again. Utter fright will sometimes work. Whatever works for you I offer my sympathy and prayers. Tobacco kills, and not in an easy way. I see more and more people wandering around the stores and malls with those oxygen backpacks. Those are the folks who grew up thinking smoking was actually good for you. Big tobacco advertised with real physicians saying they recommended one brand over the others.

Nicotine is as much a drug as heroin. It's just as or more addictive studies say. I can attest to the difficulty of quitting cigarettes, but I wouldn't know about the heroin. I don't think ice cream would touch that addiction.

So, if you're thinking of quitting smoking, don't try it while working. Pick a three-day period and go to bed with all your favorite things (I'm not going into details here). Air out your home, throw away the ashtrays, and pamper yourself. Tell the slimy bastards at big tobacco to go f**k themselves. I mean that in a Christian way.