I smoked cigarettes for 10 years, a typical pack-a-day smoker. The brand I quit on was called Merit, not sure that matters, not sure if they make them anymore as I quit in 1981 after a bout with pneumonia.
I was hospitalized at the time, this time actually, November, 30 years ago. I remember two things about my hospital stay that can help you quit smoking.
1. The doctor showed me an x-ray of my lungs, which it didn’t take a trained eye to see, were problematic.
2. I tried smoking in the hospital. Someone brought me a cigarette (such an accommodating family at the time) which I lit in the restroom stall. The whole experience lasted less than 20 seconds as I hit the floor on the first puff. You don’t smoke with pneumonia.
Consequently, my stay being 3-4 days in hospital, I ended up not smoking for that amount of time. And here’s the key to how I quit.
When I got out, while the temptation was definitely there to feel better enough to have a cigarette, I did something else. Something radical.
I critically thought through what had just happened to me and came to a singular conclusion:
I went 3-4 days without a cigarette. That means, I don’t smoke. Had I even only gone one day without a cigarette, I could have used this logic: If I don’t smoke in a day, that makes me a non-smoker. Then that phrase becomes applicable for each successful day thereafter.
Now, if you’ve tried this and it didn’t work, it is not that the logic or method did not work, it is that you did something to make it not work. You either let the temptation get the best of you to start up again or you thought, what the heck, I’ll have just one. And that, dear reader, is why you cannot quit. No true desire or incentive.
If you ever really want to quit smoking and this method does not work for you, I suggest you ask your doctor to see your lung x-rays. The most important thing with my quitting smoking was that the pneumonia did not allow it. All I did afterwards, daily and perpetually when required, was change my perspective with affirmation from a smoker dying for a cigarette, to a non-smoker who had evidence of day after day without smoking, evidence that would continue the rest of my life.
