Quitting Smoking: A Personal Account

I started smoking at my high school graduation. There was a school sponsored party to celebrate, and someone offered me a cigarette. I took it, because the person that offered it didn't expect me to. I didn't know how to smoke, but I tried. The next time I smoked was when I met a girl I liked, and she smoked. She made fun of the way I smoked, and showed me how a real smoker handled a cigarette. And so I smoked. And smoked. And smoked.

Along the way, cigarettes became more expensive, going from less than two dollars a pack all the way to five dollars. And lots of people that I smoked with when I was younger did a funny thing - they stopped smoking. I was left with a silly saying: "Quitters never win, and winners never quit," and a lot of time standing around by myself outside of buildings, holding cigarettes.

Now, I'm not saying that smoking was a bad experience for me. I was never someone who smoked two packs a day, and rarely smoked as much as a pack a day. I enjoyed my cigarettes. They were a great way to take a break, to step outside, and to leave everything else behind. Smoking also bothered a lot of people that I didn't particularly mind bothering. And I liked that.

And I wasn't addicted. I could stop any time I wanted to. No problem. I just didn't want to. I had this line of thinking down pat for years. From the time I was 25 on I had no doubt that there was no wisdom at all in smoking, and no appeal to others, but it was something I did and I didn't want to stop. It was part of me, and I didn't want to lose it. It was part of my youth. I was young and carefree and smoking couldn't hurt me.

But the years passed, as they must, and I passed with them, as the fortunate ones do. And one day last year I found myself in an extremely awkward position. For one thing, I was out of cigarettes. For another, I was having my 35^th birthday. There was no party going on, and there was no one else around with cigarettes, and I was starting to feel silly going outside and smoking and taking my little boy outside with me. He was only four months old, and I wondered if he was always going to associate me with cigarettes. That was a strange notion to me. I knew that smoking wasn't healthy, and I wasn't even smoking socially anymore - I didn't see anyone who smoked on a regular basis. It seemed like the time was right. I announced to my spouse that as a special birthday gift to myself, I was giving up cigarettes. The announcement was received with all due respect and a small amount of caution. It was actually the first time that I'd made such an announcement.

During the first week there were many times where I felt like a cigarette would have been appropriate. There were the times where I had smoked for years - with my morning coffee, before bed, after a meal, or whenever I wanted to take a break from work. And now I was doing without my cigarette. It left me with a kind of hungry feeling for the cigarettes.

The second week I didn't smoke, I was somewhat on edge, and likely to lose my temper with less provocation than usual. I didn't like that, and considered smoking again. I resisted the rationalization, though, and the ill-tempered phase passed. And I still wasn't smoking.

During the third week I started to have many hours pass in which I wouldn't notice that I wasn't smoking, and by the fourth week entire days were going by where I would forget that I was missing cigarettes. After the first month was over, I knew I didn't need the cigarettes any more.

Since then, I have had moments of temptation, usually when around some friend who smokes, while we're all drinking, and it seems like this is the time when a cigarette would be perfect. But I haven't smoked. I've had dreams where I'm out with friends, and suddenly I notice that I'm smoking and I feel terrible, and then think that a single cigarette isn't that bad, but I still feel guilty about it, only to wake up and find that I wasn't really smoking at all.

I should tell you that one of the reasons I quit smoking was because I had this awful cough every morning when I first woke up. This cough bothered my spouse more than it bothered me. The first few weeks after quitting, the cough was much worse, and I joked that I was healthier when I smoked. Now the cough is gone, except for a little bit of it some mornings.

I haven't been noticeably healthier since I quit smoking, and I haven't felt better than I did when I smoked. But somehow, it seems like it was time to stop, and I'm glad I have, and I don't see myself starting up smoking again. It's been almost a whole year now.