|
|
The Best Way To End Smoking Is The Natural Way
The writer of the article has been a life long smoker from Europe. After moving to the US, and being diagnosed with asthma, nearing her middle age, she was trying to stop smoking nearly on everyday basis, but all of the attempts unhappily did not succeed. Nicotine gum and patches didn't work for her, so she contacted her doctor, who enrolled her in a program and suggested medications, but that didn't her her quit smoking either. What she discovered was that a severe change of routine worked excellently in her case. Something funny approach to a very serious issue suggests that everybody wants to get what works efficiently for them, as well-known "one size fits all" approach never makes everybody happy.
In the first person: I was born 40 something years before in Europe, with a cigarette in my mouth. My parents smoked, my relatives smoked, my friends smoked. My father is 82 and still a chain smoker. Smoking is an unavoidable part of cultural habits, meeting people, and having fun. For a culture that lives on lanes full of cafes, smoking is not optional, it's almost necessary.
I was 13 when I got hooked on cigarettes, enough to start budgeting part of my everyday allowance for cigarettes. Mind you, I wasn't an outcast, a straight A learner, from a rich academic family, I was actually trying to fit in. At that point, and even many years later, trying to quit smoking was not even in the back of my mind. It will take me 30 more years to get to that point.
Novelist by profession, smoking was vastly a part of my everyday routine. It was precisely like it used to be in the old black and white movies - me, the typewriter, and the big ashtray with the cigarette butts heaped up high. Soon after I moved to the US, the problems with my smoking arised. They were not simply of social nature any more; they became a health concern also. Not only did I move to the Bay Area, California, which was the undeniable leader in the witch search for smokers, I was detected with asthma.
I may say from that moment on, 15 years ago, I was trying to quit smoking on a daily basis. There was by now a drastic change in place for me - I couldn't smoke at my office any more and I had to time my smoking habits according to the office schedule. It was tougher at home as my colleague, an American, was a smoker as well.
We decided to only smoke outside the home. That didn't work at all, as, alas, it's California, the weather is pleasant year around, so we both finished up only sleeping in the house, while living, eating, having friends over on the back yard patio. It's amazing with how much yard work you can invent - our postage stamp sized back yard became more similar to jungle with heirloom tomatoes, tea roses, sweet peas, and citrus trees.
I lastly quit smoking cold turkey. Two years later, with a new lease on life, I'm proud to say - I haven't had a cigarette ever since. I understand it very well: once an addict, forever an addict and I had my share of night sweats, nightmares, unstoppable shivers, unmanageable crying. But I can always say it was resulted by my divorce drama, not nicotine. Every now and then, during lunch break in the fiscal region, I stop by someone smoking in front of their office building. Second hand smoke still smells so nice.
|
More Articles
Blogroll
|
