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The Excellent Way To End Smoking Is The Natural Way
The author of the article has been a life long smoker from Europe. After immigrating to the US, and being diagnosed with asthma, nearing her middle age, she was trying to stop smoking almost on daily basis, but all of the efforts unhappily did not succeed. Nicotine gum and patches didn't work for her, therefore she consulted her surgeon, who registered her in a program and prescribed medications, but that didn't her her quit smoking either. What she found was that a severe change of schedule worked good in her case. Somewhat amusing approach to a quite serious matter suggests that everybody have to get what works best for them, as popular "one size fits all" approach never makes everyone satisfied.
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 excitement. For a culture that lives on lanes full of cafes, smoking is not optional, it's nearly compulsory.
I was 13 when I got addicted on cigarettes, enough to begin budgeting part of my everyday allowance for cigarettes. Mind you, I wasn't an outcast, a straight A student, from a wealthy academic family, I was really trying to fit in. At that point, and also many years later, trying to quit smoking was not even in the back of my mind. It will take me 30 more years to reach to that point.
Novelist by profession, smoking was very much a part of my everyday routine. It was accurately like it used to be in the old black and white movies - me, the typewriter, and the big ashtray with the cigarette butts piled up high. Soon after I moved to the US, the problems with my smoking resulted. They were not only of social nature any more; they became a health concern also. Not only did I move to the Bay Area, California, which was the undisputed leader in the witch look for smokers, I was analyzed with asthma.
I could say from that moment on, 15 years ago, I was trying to quit smoking on a daily basis. There was by now a severe change in place for me - I couldn't smoke at my workplace any more and I had to time my smoking habits according to the office agenda. It was tougher at home since my associate, an American, was a smoker too.
We decided to just smoke outside the home. That didn't work at all, since, sadly, it's California, the weather is lovely year around, so we both finished up merely sleeping in the house, while living, eating, having friends over on the back yard terrace. It's astonishing 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 afterward, with a new lease on life, I'm proud to say - I haven't had a cigarette since. I know it very well: once an addict, always 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 financial district, I stop by somebody smoking in front of their office building. Second hand smoke still smells so good.
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