Do you want to die? Stop Smoking Now!

Read about nicotine addiction and do the work to change the way you identify cigarettes. They are instruments of death. They deserve nothing more than your disdain. I’m sure you’ve heard about people who still struggle years and years after quitting.

They are the ones who say they “still miss smoking” 20 years down the road.

That’s a fearsome thing to hear, but do not let it throw you. The reason they are in that position has to do with the fact that they never did the work to change what cigarettes meant to them. I’ve found myself doing things I’m not proud of, like, say, digging through the trash for a butt.

Or smoking through bronchitis.

Or telling people who try to bum a cigarette that I don’t have any left when actually I do.

Are you ever try to understand that your visits to doctor are connected with smoking?

You know that smoking is dangerous for your lungs, but your whole life is worse due to oxygen starvation, and total impact upon your energy level. This influence is very gradual and unnoticeable, but when you are going to light up next cigarette, try to understand that exactly the same one will be your last cigarette soon.

If you think that smoking isn’t bad for your health and for the whole life, you get no chances to quit. You see, I hate smoking in front of my niece and nephew. When it comes to my smoking, they both seem to have developed psychic abilities: No matter where I sneak off to fire up, I eventually hear, midpuff, the scamper of their approaching little feet.

Not only do I not want to be that weird, smelly, smoky aunt who sets a bad example, but at this point, I figure the tension of trying to quit can’t be much worse than the tension of trying to hide my habit. I stood in front of the hospital next to patients attached to IV poles who were also smoking. I thought, look at those poor bastards - as if I had no experience with that same lack of self-control. I took my first drag off a cigarette at the ripe old age of eight.

My grandmother went to the bathroom, and I stole one of her butts from the ashtray. I lit it, took a quick puff and snuffed it out before she even returned.

When I was about 13, my best friend, Adra, and I started smoking at her house after school. Both her parents worked, so we basically had two full hours every afternoon to smoke our heads off.

In 2003 New York enacted the Clean Indoor Air Act, which prohibits smoking in bars and restaurants. I didn’t mind, actually: It forced me to smoke less, at least when I’m having dinner with friends. At times it feels that smoking runs my life. During a five-minute break at work, I’ve had to make the decision: Should I pee or should I smoke? I’ve tried doing both at the same time, and it’s not very satisfying.

I hate stepping outside from any indoor occasion to get my fix. I hate that I’m one of the few who hasn’t come to her senses. Every day I see young women smoking, and I want to go over to them and say, “Listen, please don’t smoke - please!” But they won’t listen. The phrases “child safety” and “secondhand smoke” didn’t get much play in my house.)

This blithe attitude wasn’t particular to my family. My high school, an all-girl’s Catholic school in a suburb south of Boston, had its very own smoking lounge. To successfully quit smoking you need to know more about smoking addiction; why smoking cigarettes never helps you, and have clear-cut understanding why you are smoking. These are very simple tasks for non-smokers and very hard for smokers. Smokers believe that smoking helps them, when they need to concentrate or to relax; non-smokers know that smokers are just feeding their addiction. We can now sit with complete confidence upon our three-legged stool and focus all our attention on our letter because we no longer have the fear of falling over (failure).

How does this metaphor relate to quitting smoking? Well, like the one legged stool, if you attempt to quit smoking on your own with no other support, it will be that much more difficult to stay focused.