That saying is ridiculous. It implies that a bad habit is an
easy thing to “drop”. Truth is, that’s the toughest type of habit to drop. Have
you ever heard of someone having a difficult time quitting going to the gym? Or
quitting avoiding fast food or sweets? Yeah, me neither.
I quit smoking just over 10 years ago. I smoked for 20
years. Please don’t do the math. I was the type of smoker who loved to smoke.
When people asked me where I saw myself in 20 years, I’d describe something
akin to the old lady you see on the bus trailing her green portable iron lung
on wheels behind her. I was going to die from smoking and I knew it. And I was
fine with it. But at age 32, something clicked in my brain. I wish I knew what
it was so I could share it, but I honestly have no idea. Maybe it was
mortality. Maybe it was legacy. I always knew that if I ever did decide to
quit, it would have to be for me. It would be the most selfish thing I’d ever
done. I’ve never been comfortable with that but this particular need launched
me into a mission that I was more dedicated to than a dog trying to catch a
squirrel.
I spent day after day researching how other people quit.
Successfully and unsuccessfully. I needed to know everything including what
made a person go back to it and why.
My husband and I decided to quit on the same day. He went
cold-turkey. Successfully. I wasn’t the cold-turkey type so a month before our
decided quit date, I gradually cut down each week until I was down to 10
cigarettes a day. That was like nothing to me but at the time it was everything
to me. It was all I had left. And I knew that was the stopping point. Our quit
date was a Sunday. I vaguely remember
the morning. I distinctly remember crying. Five hours straight I cried. I
couldn’t stop. I couldn’t reason with myself. There was nothing my husband
could do; there was nothing my parents could do. They all witnessed my
unraveling that day. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. But my mental resolve stood
strong. No matter how it affected me, I was NOT going to have a cigarette. But,
how could I go to work tomorrow? I can’t be crying at work!
I don’t know how I got through the night, but the next morning,
on my way to work, I went to the store and bought the nicotine gum. At that
time they didn’t have all the flavors they have now, but that’s what I needed,
the utilitarian-ness of it. I wasn’t buying it because it was a tasty treat. I
was buying it because it promised to curb the withdrawal symptoms. Directions: Don’t continually chew it. Chew a couple
times to release the nicotine then hold it between your cheek and gum. It
tasted kind of peppery under the mint flavoring. I didn’t like pepper. That
didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that it helped. The rest of that day and every day after was a breeze. I was
able to relax. To me, the worst thing at this point was that I had to chew this
weird tasting gum the rest of my life and I was ok with that. It was cheaper
than cigarettes. And it wouldn’t kill me. Nicotine itself isn’t harmful;
tobacco and tobacco smoke are. I quickly began to tolerate, and then like, the
flavor of the gum. And after two months I tapered off of the gum and I’ve been
nicotine-free ever since.
They say that quitting smoking is more difficult than
quitting heroin. It’s THAT addictive.
Whoever “they” are, they’re not kidding. It was the single most difficult thing
I’ve ever done in my life. It’s also the biggest accomplishment I’ve ever made.
We all know the horrible ramifications of smoking and
tobacco use. We’ve seen the commercials of the woman smoking through the hole in her
throat or the guy who lost half of his jaw. But this drug is so powerful that
there are still over 45 million people in the US who smoke and over 400,000 of
them die every year because of it. It’s the #1 cause of preventable death in
the United States. If that’s not
addicting, I don’t know what is.
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