Quitting cigarettes

Like most people my age I started smoking as a teenager. At first it was obvious that my body did not want that smoke in my lungs. The coughing, nausea, foul taste and eye irritation were worth putting up with in order to look grown up. Before long my body adjusted and the habit was formed.

In later years I decided to quit about forty times. I would quit buying cigarettes but keep bumming them until it irritated people. I would buy cigarettes but not carry them. Leave them in the car or in a drawer and then keep running out to the car or wherever they were. Brilliant. I quit verbally but kept rewarding myself for being a good boy. Telling myself I was doing fine, almost there, only smoking a few per day.

Cigarettes had become things I looked forward to like old friends who are fun to be with. I associated smokes with relaxation and happiness. A treat. Trying to quit was struggling to deny myself something I liked and wanted. I used the usual rationalizations. “millions of us smoke”, “it doesn’t seem to hurt most people”, etc.

The key to quitting was changing the “like and want” part. Trying to quit by chewing nicotine gum or wearing a nicotine patch seemed to be just putting off the problem. Is tapering off gum or patches different from tapering off cigarettes? Tapering never worked for me anyway.

Saying that cigarettes were messy, expensive, unhealthy, unpopular, was like saying the sky is blue. Nobody over the age of six was unaware of that. Was I trying to talk myself into quitting some day? Regardless of what I said said nicotine patches, replacement habits,new found iron willed determination or anything else did not work until I really made up my mind. When I did that I needed none of those things.

On a day when I drove two miles out of my way to get to a shopping center, waited in line to buy a pack and some breath mints and rushed through a smoke because I was late, the truth finally dawned on me. I am in stupid self imposed slavery. Tobacco executives are laughing and slapping each other on the back. People are feeling sorry for me because I am such a weakling. I was embarrassed, threw away nineteen cigarettes and never looked back.

After opting out of the habit that day do you know what happened? Nothing. No shakes, heart pounding or unbearable cravings. Nicotine in liquid form is an insecticide. Tobacco smoke and nicotine is not good for humans but it is not the dangerous physical addiction that opiates are. Quitting will not alarm your doctor.

My addiction to cigarettes was ninety nine percent mental. I can’t speak for others but the only negative I felt after quitting was the vague feeling of missing something I usually do.
When I stopped fooling around and quit I quickly forgot about the habit. I was shocked at how easy it was after all those years of struggle. Self esteem and physical benefits were a nice bonus. I have had no desire to smoke even one cigarette for over thirty years. Probably never will.

The experience convinced me of two things. One, the key to quitting is mental not physical. Two, advice from others is not enough. Until we personally face the truth about cigarettes we will defeat any quitting strategy. We quit when we decide to for our own reasons, not before.