The Year I Quit Smoking

Some acquaintences have recently started the quitting process.  Quitting smoking, that is.  It has reminded me of many years ago when I quit smoking.  I had tried a few times before and lasted a month or two but when I really did decide to quit, I was determined. 

What made me decide was a couple of things.  First, we were going to paint our living room and thought it would be good to wash the walls first.  What came off the walls was a nasty brownish mess and it had only been a couple years since we had painted those sames walls.  I thought at the time, “If that’s what’s on the walls after a few years, what do my lungs look like after 17 years?”  That was the first real kick in the pants I needed.

The next ‘kick’ was deciding not to smoke in the house anymore because I didn’t want to keep repainting.  So, my husband and I would go outside to smoke.  Then winter came and we would smoke in the garage.  It was a single car garage with a car in it that just about completely filled it up.  Not much room for us both to stand there, sometimes hour after hour, to have our smokes.  Plus, it was pretty cold in the garage.  When I realized most evenings we were spending more time in the garage than in the house, I decided to take the big step and quit cold turkey. 

During a previous attempt to quit, we had ordered an audio tape from the Heart or Lung Association, entitled “21 Days to Quit Smoking.”  My husband used it with the one day at a time sequence that it was designed for–21 short segments walking you through the quitting process.  My technique was to listen to one side of the tape on my way to work and the other side of the tape on the way home.  I listened to all 21 segments each day.  It was good for me to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.  I could hear the problems with the initial stages of quitting, then, on the way home, hear about how much better it is to be 2-3 weeks along in the quitting process.  I listened to both sides every day for 21 days. 

Quitting wasn’t easy.  Things that helped were taking walks, getting away from my desk when I felt an urge to smoke, distracting myself with doing something that required full focus.  I know some people eat to compensate for the cigarettes, but I never felt like eating worked as a replacement.  There was nothing like inhaling nicotine.  The urge was always present.  It remained present for about 6 years.

When I finally felt like I had officially become smoke free, I knew that if I ever picked up one cigarette, it would start all over again.  I just couldn’t stand the thought of going through the quitting process again.

Because of all of the above and because it was so very difficult to quit, I always refer to 1987 as, The Year I Quit Smoking.