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Almost three weeks ago, I did something very important to better my life.  I quit smoking compulsively.   It had been something I wanted to do for a long time, but just didn’t for some reason or another.  I guess I thought it would be hard.  I thought it would change my life, and I wasn’t ready for a lifestyle change.  Now I wonder what took me so long.

I started smoking when I was about 16 years old.  That means that I have been smoking for about 16 years now.  I didn’t smoke compulsively at first, of course.  I can’t remember when that happened.  I guess it creeps up on you.  I would say it was probably around the age of 19 or 20.  Until three weeks ago, I don’t think a day has gone by since I was 19 in which I didn’t smoke a cigarette.  Before long, I was smoking a pack a day easy.  More if I was drinking or incredibly bored or something.  After all that, I stopped smoking compulsively in just one second.

Before I talk more about myself, though, I want to talk in general about quitting smoking.  Quitting smoking is easy.  Quitting smoking completely involves only one easy step.  Don’t light the end of a cigarette and then put your mouth on the other end and suck the smoke into your lungs. That’s the secret to quitting smoking.  That’s it.

If it’s that easy, you may ask, why is there a multi-billion dollar industry built around helping people do it?  There are books published.  There are articles written.  There is therapy for it.  There are hypnotists and voodoo parctitioners to help you quit.  There are numerous pharmacological products to aid you.  Why does all this exist if quitting smoking is that easy?  The answer is simple.  People want you to believe it is hard to quit smoking.  This isn’t some crazy conspiracy theory or anything.  There’s no organized conspiracy to make people believe this, but there are a lot of people who have something to gain by people believing it.

For starters, there are all the people making all that money off of aids to quit smoking.  They want you to believe it because if you quit smoking without them, they don’t get your money.  What about anti-smoking nazis?  They want you to believe it because if you’re not a helpless victim trapped by addiction, then they have to admit that they’re just persecuting people who have made their own choices.  What about smokers?  Oh they really want to believe it because then they can shirk all personal responsibility and blame someone or something else for their choice.  There are a lot of people who aren’t all working together or even have similar goals but all want you to believe that quitting smoking is hard.

Let’s examine the truth.  Nicotine is the easiest addictive drug to quit.  Why is that? Unlike other drugs like cocaine or heroin, nicotine induces a persistent amplification in the brain’s sensitivity to rewarding stimuli.  Because of this, it has incredibly mild withdrawal effects.  What? Some idiot told you that it’s more addictive than cocaine or heroin?  People like to spout this and it is based on a silly redefinition of the word ‘addiction’ which came about in the 80’s and basically puts everything that’s enjoyable into that category.  Why don’t you go get hooked on heroin then come try to make that argument after you’ve tried to quit.  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

And these quit-smoking aids that people are making so much dough off of?  Completely worthless.  People who try to quit smoking have around a 11-12% success rate.  No matter what method they use or if they use no method at all, it’s about 11-12%.  Get this into your head right now.  Stop smoking aids are as credible as astrology and psychic readings.  And the plethora of materials related to quitting smoking exists for the same reason as the plethora of material having to do with astrology and psychics does.  It’s profitable.

If you want to quit smoking, it’s really easy to do.  Why is the success rate only 11% if it’s so easy, you ask?  Because that is the success rate for people who try to quit smoking.  If you want to quit smoking, don’t try to quit smoking.  Quit fucking smoking!  Don’t light a cigarette.  When you try to do something, you have already built in the possibility of failure.  Many things in life are beyond our control and failure is something we have to deal with.  Writing a best-selling novel, for instance, naturally has a high possibility of failure.  When it comes to quitting smoking, however, it is completely up to you.  There is no possibility of failure unless you build it in yourself.  Do you really want to quit smoking?  Honestly, ask yourself that.  Do you really want to quit smoking?  If you do, then I’ll help you out.  I don’t know if I mentioned that I am a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, but I am and so I am going to perform some magic for you.  I will turn you into a nonsmoker, but only if you really want to become one.  Are you ready? *poof*!  You are a nonsmoker.  Don’t smoke another cigarette as long as you live.  Seriously, just don’t.  You don’t have to anymore because you’re a nonsmoker.  You can thank me later.

Now, the next thing I want to make clear here is that I did not quit smoking.  It was never my intention to do so.  I love smoking.  I made a decision years ago to start smoking, and I have never regretted it.  What I did want to change, however, is how much I smoked.  Smoking was affecting my quality of life.  My energy levels, my stamina, breathing, and overall well-being was being adversely affected by how much I smoked.  The health detriments of smoking are very real.  They are way overblown by the anti-smoking nazis, but it is clearly the case the smoking is not healthy.  Therefore, I wanted to cut down on my smoking considerably to even out the risk/reward ratio.

Therefore, I devised a revolutionary plan to cut down on smoking.  I decided to… are you ready for it?  I decided to only smoke when I wanted to.

Yep, that’s what I did.  I decided it one night as I was going to sleep and I implemented it first thing the next day.  I walked out the door to work without my pack of cigarettes which, up until that point, had become as mandatory as my wallet and cell phone whenever I left the house.  I didn’t smoke a cigarette on the way to work.  I didn’t take any cigarette breaks.  I didn’t smoke a cigarette after lunch, and I didn’t smoke when I got home.  Actually, it was easy during the day to not smoke, but harder at home.  Boredom and repetition made me want to reach for a cigarette while I sat at my computer, but I just had to think about it for a second to realize that I didn’t really want to smoke the cigarette.  I was just doing it out of habit or to ease a nicotine craving.  I didn’t smoke a single cigarette Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and it wasn’t difficult because I knew that if I ever wanted a cigarette, I could smoke one.  The time when I really wanted a cigarette just never came.

On Friday, it came.  I got into a big fight with my stupid boss (not the way everybody’s boss is stupid; she really is an embecile, but that’s another post) and stormed out of the office.  I really wanted a cigarette so I bought a pack and smoked two in a row.  Then I came back in and finished work.  That night, I went out with my friends.  I drank some alcohol which made me want to smoke.  So I did!  You know what?  The next morning, I woke up and didn’t light up a cigarette.  That’s when I knew that I had succeeded in quitting smoking compulsively.  I had smoked cigarettes and it did not throw me back into my old habits.  I didn’t feel guilty about it because I knew that I had wanted to smoke those cigarettes and that those were the kinds of situations that really made me fall in love with smoking to begin with.  Smoking had become an old nagging wife, and now she’s a young love again.  Every time I decide to smoke (which is very rarely these days) it’s because I want to, not because I am obligated to by my habits, and it feels great.

I smoke less than a pack a week these days.  During the week, I usually don’t smoke at all.  On the weekends, I smoke a lot less than I used to.  I feel great already and I can feel my health coming back every day.  I recommend this to every smoker, and I want to give you some tips to help you out.

• The first tip is much like the tip I gave to the non-smoker wannabes a minute ago.  It’s not hard.  You don’t have to prepare for it or set a date for it.  Just decide to do it right now.
• Don’t smoke at all for at least 3 days.  This is to help get you out of the daily routine of smoking so you can more easily tell the difference between feeling an urge to smoke and actually wanting to smoke.
• If you think you want to smoke, think about whether or not you really do for a couple minutes.  You may find that you really didn’t want to smoke after all.
• Whenever you deny yourself a cigarette, remind yourself that you have not quit smoking and that you will eventually smoke a cigarette just not right now.

Don’t you remember how great life was when you were a social smoker?  Let’s reclaim that.  Let’s make smoking work for us, not the other way around!

Tags: quit, smoking

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.