I’m sharing my experiences of quitting smoking with you to save your life, and possibly your sanity as well. I hope to make this guide as brief and tightly written so that I can capture – and hold – your attention on what finally, finally worked for me. My hope is that it will work for me. I lived – and possibly could very well have died – by the cigarette.
I’d been a smoker for nearly half of my life, twenty-seven years to be exact. I had started as a teenager for two reasons: it looked ‘cool’ and make you appear to be sophisticated, and it seemed to be a great way to control my weight. When I was feeling hungry, I whipped out a cigarette, which took the edge off of my hunger until it was gone. Stupid, stupid me. I thought I looked pretty hot as a young woman, cigarette in hand, as I worked or I wrote.
My father was a heavy smoker who died from a heart attack in his late sixties. Our childhood home always reeked of smoke and these dainty, pink plastic ashtrays that were always full. My mother never smoked, nor did anyone else in our family, actually. But this was back in the ’50’s, before the real dangers of smoke on an individual – and the effects of second-hand smoke on others, especially in close quarters – were as widely known as they are now. The fact that my long-suffering mother never spoke up for herself or us, her children, didn’t help matters. But the past is the past – remember that phrase.
My first husband wasn’t a smoker, but his parents were. As long as I smoked outside of the house, my habit was okay with him. Again, I was very, very slim and active at the time. So long as I ‘looked good’, I honestly don’t think he gave a damn. My second husband was what you could call a ‘social’ smoker. He would have perhaps one, two at the very most, cigarettes a week. (I hate him for that. Actually, I’m more jealous than anything.) About five years ago, he just decided to up and quit – and he did. He hasn’t had a cigarette since. It does not bother him in the least. But once he had quit, the battle began for me to stop. And like all wars, the battle was really, really ugly.
He started to nag me constantly. I was not allowed to smoke in the house. I was not allowed to smoke in the cars. I was not allowed to smoke in social situations, even when smoking in a restaurant or party was still acceptable. If I managed to sneak outside for a smoke, he bristled at how I ‘stank’ and kept his distance. My hair, my clothing – all reeked of disgusting cigarette smoke especially to a reformed ex-smoker.
When the vigilante phase was over, he moved on to a different tactic. He offered to send me away to a long weekend or to a clinic for treatment. This was pretty impressive on his part, since’s he’s a fairly cheap person by nature. I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t succeed, even being away from home for an intensive crash course on quitting. My lungs may have been black, but my heart was pure. I couldn’t waste the money knowing that I wasn’t, frankly, ready to quit. My own daughters, now adolescents and teenagers, never smoked.
They had been educated in the schools about how bad it is for you and those around you. They certainly didn’t learn by example, something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. But their mission was to get me to quit smoking. They moaned, they groaned, they were very, very verbal and certainly not shy in telling me how disgusting it was that I smoked. They questioned my sanity and intelligence. They asked (actually, told) me not to smoke around their friends. It was becoming increasingly clear that they were ashamed of having a mother who smoked.
About six years ago, I was badly injured in a Florida boating accident. The injuries consisted of a burst lumbar fracture, which was corrected with a T-10 to T-12 bone graft, fusion and the implementation of a Pyramesh cage. My life hasn’t been the same since. I found myself smoking more than ever in the years following that injury. I was pretty angry at having my world turned upside down, and still am. My husband and kids were still on my case to quit. Oddly enough, my pain therapist, whom I still continue to see, suggested that with all of the physical pain I was dealing with, especially in cold and/or rainy weather, it might not be the end of the world if I stopped smoking. Perhaps, he suggested, cut back to half of what you smoke every day…
Last year, we visited northern Florida in the hopes of relocating there. Although we didn’t move there at the time, I had never, ever felt so physically good – and alive! – as I did when we spent a month there looking at schools and housing. I wanted to live there. I would do whatever it took to convince my husband to move us there.
And that’s pretty much exactly what it took. My husband said that we would never, ever move out of New Jersey if I didn’t stop smoking.
Everyone has their breaking point. Every one of you has your own personal ‘holy grail’. It may be failing health, brought on by tobacco. It may be a question of self-esteem: why has ‘everyone else’ been able to quit, everyone except for you? It may be in the form of a challenge from a loved one: if you won’t quit for yourself, please, please, quit for me. I’m sure that each and every one reading this has had – or is going through – their own personal ultimatum to quit smoking.
As for myself, I tinkered with the idea for a few days. I thought it through very carefully. At first I was really angry that my (well-meaning) husband had done this to me. I couldn’t live in the cold, wet, damp climate of New Jersey – and my sinuses had proved that years ago. My back and my side had been hearing the same message for several years as well. It literally and figuratively hurts for me to live here. I wanted out.
I have known my husband for decades. I know that when he says something, he always, always means it. I know that he does not speak offhandedly, rarely if ever. This was serious.
I tried to cut back, but after a few days, it became a real struggle. Cutting back (when I was smoking nearly two packs of menthol cigarettes a day) was only a game. I got angry because it wasn’t working – I wasn’t going to be able to quit this way. (My husband is the only person I know who was able to kick the ‘occasional’ cigarette habit literally overnight by ‘cutting back’ to zero.) The angrier I became at myself for my ‘failure’, the more I wanted to smoke. And I did.
I went to a hypnotist. This did not work at all. Apparently I am ‘difficult’ to put under hypnosis. I faked the session, the entire session, pretending to be ‘under’ when I was instead listening to the ticking of the office wall clock.
About two weeks after my husband’s challenge, I knew that I needed to do something. I went to our local drug store and bought a box of Commit lozenges. I don’t like to chew gum; chewing any kind, in particular nicotine gum, gave me a headache. I don’t like to wear patches. I’ve worn patches for pain control (honestly, they really do have medicated patched out that that you can apply to your back and other body parts) on and off since my accident. They were effective at first, but then literally wore off. The medication stopped doing its magic; the pads would start to fall off my body.
Armed with my Commit lozenges, I decided to quit smoking ‘cold turkey’ – the next day.
That evening, I didn’t spend much time thinking about it – and that’s a good thing. Keeping myself busy forced me to avoid the ‘enormity’ of what I wanted to do. I just woke up the following morning and DIDN’T have my usual ‘first thing in the morning’ cigarette with my coffee. I had my coffee in a different place – my home office, rather than the outdoor dining area.
The first few hours were the toughest. I lopped onto the Commit lozenges as if they were a life saver. I cut back on caffeine that day, in the hopes of not getting too jittery. But I was pretty jittery by mid day. I found myself pacing around the house aimlessly.
But I didn’t smoke a cigarette.
By the end of the day, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I had had six Commits in the course of the day. I drank diet green tea. I drank diet Snapple. I kept busy. And every time the urge for a cigarette came on – and it did – I ignored it and did something else. It’s like dieting, I guess. If you can hold off for three minutes, then five minutes, then ten minutes – the momentary urge really does go away. After ten or fifteen minutes, I was already busy doing something else – anything else that kept me away from where my cigarettes were (in my freezer, actually). I went to bed that night thrilled to death. I had gone an entire day without having a cigarette. And I didn’t die.
I didn’t sleep well or that much that evening. But I was so darned proud of myself. I kept my Commits close by. The next morning, I had a headache. But I kept busy, busy, busy again. And I made it through the second day. I proudly told my husband that I hadn’t had a cigarette for an entire day and a half. His response? He shrugged and said “That’s nice.” I knew what he meant: I made it through 34 hours without a cigarette. I was too weak to keep it up. I would cheat, not only on him, but on my promise to myself. I was really, really ticked off, to use a more polite phrase. I hung in there. It has been nearly two years since I’ve had a cigarette, and I haven’t looked back. I can’t allow myself to look back; the temptation to smoke is still there. I am still using my Commit lozenges, but am gradually weaning off of them and using Altoids instead.
What is the message I’m trying to send you? First and foremost, even a longtime, hardened smoker such as myself can quit once and for all. Two years, at least to me, is an amazingly long time to have stayed ‘clean’. If I can do it – going through all kinds of turmoil in my life like each and every one of us do – YOU can do it. Trust me. It can be done. You just have to want it badly enough.
1. You have to have set a goal or reason for yourself to quit smoking. Some of the more obvious ones are to improve your health. Others could be because you’re the last one in your immediate family who still smokes, and they are constantly on your case about quitting. It could be that you can no longer smoke in your work environment, and it’s the best thing all around to quit. It could be like mine: if I ever want to move, ever, I had to stop smoking first. Your reason has to be a good one (and God knows that there are enough of those out there). Whatever your reason, you must be passionate about achieving it. If you’re trying to quit in a halfhearted, “I’ll see what happens” attitude, you’re already doomed to failure.
IF YOU DON’T REALLY, REALLY WANT TO QUIT SMOKING, YOU WON’T. This is an exercise in tremendous willpower, in taking back your own life, in re-gaining control over your self. If you’re not 100% committed to quitting, you won’t.
2. Just do it. Just quit cold turkey. Tinkering around trying to ‘cut back’ on the number of cigarettes you smoke is a step in the right direction, and I encourage anything that improves your health. But it won’t work. You may not be smoking two and a half packs a day, but you’re still smoking a full pack daily. Keep it up, and you’ll never kick the habit. Think it through carefully, and get your game plan together. Make sure that you have enough ‘smoking cessation aids’ available. Rely upon Commit lozenges (if they’re too expensive – and heaven knows, they are not cheap), there are TONS of generic store brands that are frankly just as good. Treat yourself to a flavored brand (i.e., cherry) if you think that will help. Have at least one box on hand before you start. Included in the lozenges, gum and patch aids are brochures about helping you quit. There are groups listed that you can join for support. There are telephone numbers – free numbers – for you to use if you need to hear a helpful human voice uring you to not give up. There are at least a hundred online web sites in which you can study and enroll for support. I’d suggest you hit www.webmd.com , which has great links for stop-smoking help. Do whatever and all that you can in advance so that your support line is there. And of course, enlist your family members for their support. Unless they’re a totally heartless bunch (and they aren’t, they love you and want to see you healthy and happy), they’ll be there for you. They’ll be there when your mood is black. They’ll be there when you’re grouchy, listless, anxious and just plain mad. They, like me, want you to succeed.
3. Choose a date to stop. But don’t put too much thought into it. If you set it for a week from Sunday, you’ll have all that extra time on your hands to worry and fret about ‘how hard it’s going to be’. Once you’re ‘armed and ready’, why not start tomorrow?
4. Expect the worst. Deal with it. Your body is trying to shake off a terrible physical addiction. Treat yourself kindly: take a long bath, read your favorite book/magazine/newspaper/Associated Content producer. Go out for a healthy lunch with friends. Buy a new shade of nail polish, or have a manicure. Go to bed earlier. Without all of the nicotine in your system, you’ll find that it is so much easier to fall asleep – and stay asleep.
5. If you fail on your first time going cold turkey, accept that. You failed on your first try. Write down what went wrong: did a fight with your teenaged son throw you over the edge? A coworker gave you a hard time over nothing? Figure out exactly what it was that caused you to run for a cigarette for solace – and figure out what you could do instead. Did having that cigarette make the problem any better? Did it make it go away? Of course not. You’re human. Accept that.
6. You tried once, but it was hard and you failed. Start over again.
7. You tried four times, and it’s still not working. Review your goal for stopping smoking. Are you really serious about it? Would reaching your goal change your life? What’s wrong with the timing for your attempts to quit?
What makes this particular point in your life any different than any other? We all go through really bad patches in our lives. Smoking a cigarette is NOT going to make your life better. It will only lessen your self-esteem: you can’t deal with life’s everyday or even extraordinary problems without having that damned cigarette. And smoking it didn’t change one thing for the better. The only thing it did? It showed that you’re not capable of dealing with an issue without the crutch of a cigarette. Get over it. You’re human. Accept it.
8. And start to quit smoking going cold turkey again. Just because you failed before doesn’t mean you’ll fail this time. You’ve learned something about yourself every time you failed to stop before. You’re smarter now. You’re stronger now because of that knowledge. Keep at it because one time, maybe this time, YOU WILL SUCCEED.
If I could stop smoking after nearly a quarter century, YOU CAN DO IT TOO.
I feel so strongly about this that I’m offering my personal support via Associated Content to any of you out there who are trying to quit. Contact me. Believe me, I’ve been through the hell of trying to quit so many times, so many ways, there’s very little, if anything, that I won’t be able to share with you.
The important thing is that you try. You’ll never know what you can do until you try. And with determination, planning and sheer force of will, you too can quit.
