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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 everyday basis, but all of the attempts miserably did not succeed. Nicotine gum and patches didn't work for her, so she contacted her surgeon, who registered her in a program and suggested tablets, but that didn't her her quit smoking either. What she found was that a severe change of schedule worked best in her case. Something humorous approach to an extremely serious matter recommends that everybody needs to get what works efficiently for them, as well-known "one size fits all" approach never makes everybody contented.
In the first person: I was born 40 something years ago 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, socializing, and having fun. For a culture that lives on avenues full of cafes, smoking is not optional, it's nearly compulsory.
I was 13 when I got hooked on cigarettes, enough to start budgeting part of my daily allowance for cigarettes. Mind you, I wasn't an outsider, a straight A learner, 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 get to that point.
Writer by profession, smoking was vastly a part of my daily routine. It was exactly 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 arised. They were not only of social nature any more; they became a health concern too. Not just did I move to the Bay Area, California, which was the undoubted leader in the witch search for smokers, I was analyzed with asthma.
I can say from that moment on, 15 years ago, I was trying to quit smoking on an everyday basis. There was already a drastic 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 difficult at home since my colleague, an American, was a smoker too.
We decided to merely smoke outside the home. That didn't work at all, because, sadly, it's California, the weather is pleasant year around, so we both ended up merely sleeping in the house, while living, eating, having friends over on the back yard patio. It's astounding 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 at last quit smoking cold turkey. Two years afterward, 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, always an addict and I had my share of night sweats, nightmares, inevitable shivers, uncontrollable 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 area, I stop by someone smoking in front of their office building. Second hand smoke still smells so nice.
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