Friday, October 3, 2008

How to Quit Smoking

In today's post, Pioneer Woman discusses her earlier smoking escapades and so, in the interest of public health, I have decided to share my successful method of quitting smoking. It has a 100% success record---me! Minimal (well, none, really) research on my part has not revealed any other uses of this method, so there may well be ZILLIONS of unreported success stories out there.

I smoked for one year, my senior year of college. When I decided that I didn't want to smoke any longer, I came up with my plan:

1. I would not "bum" cigarettes from anyone else; i.e., I would give up smoking all cigarettes, not just my own cigarettes.

2. Each and every time that I wanted a cigarette, I went down to the dorm basement where the cigarette machines were. I would buy one pack, take out one cigarette, and throw the rest of the pack in the chute to the trash. These chutes led directly to a bin in the bowels of the building and there was no way I knew of to retrieve anything from the bin. I would smoke that one cigarette, and that was that. When I wanted another, I would have to buy another pack. Even at cigarette prices in the 60s, this was a very expensive way to smoke and I was a poor college student. My smoking soon came to a screeching halt.

Now, before my daughters tell on me, when we lived in Florida, another neighbor and I helped each other wallpaper rooms. We drank coffee and ate coffee cake in the mornings; we had sandwiches and soda for lunch; and if we were still papering at dinner time, we had one cigarette apiece and switched to drinking beer. A good time was had by all and the wallpaper generally looked pretty good.

To this day, I sometimes really, really crave a cigarette. I am one of those few people who enjoy second-hand smoke. But I have convinced myself that one cigarette will cause me to have a heart attack or some other dire medical emergency, and I have resisted bumming one from any smokers I might be around. On my first trip to Paris, as I was standing in line to get in the Louvre, a very nervous young woman was asking if anyone had a cigarette she could have. I told her there was plenty of smoke in the air (the French do love to smoke) but she said that was not enough.

It is for me!

2 comments:

Keeffer said...

my highschool trip to France is where I became a second hand smoker. I still love second hand smoke, but have convinced myself that even occasional second hand smoke is going to give me lung cancer and I'll die. Like Superman's wife.

Unknown said...

When I finally quit my pack a day habit (14 years ago next month) I got a tattoo to celebrate and told myself If I ever start again I have to have it removed, which is way expensive.

I miss it a lot still but it will kill me (family history of brain cancer, high blood pressure, stroke etc) so I don't do it. If I am ever diagnosed with a terminal disease I will start again immediately. Might as well go out happy