How Dare I Suggest... Part II

So with the help of Allen Carr's book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" I became a non-smoker for the first time since I was an acne-plagued teenager. Two things I can't stand being called are "stupid" and "sucker"; Carr called me both.

I was stupid for doing something that I knew was killing me

...and sucker for believing the propaganda the tobacco industry had fed me.
I began to internalize the reality that the cool, suave and rebellious high school boy with the cigarette dangling from his lips would not look nearly as cool lying on a hospital bed with a catheter attached and an oxygen tube dangling from his lips.
I also began feeling stupid for believing that quitting was as painful as water-boarding.

The myth promised three agonizing days to withdraw from the nicotine addiction, then countless years of pining for a reunion with a dearly beloved friend. What I got was three days of withdrawal pangs that hurt as bad as being kinda hungry and reminders 10,000 times a day that it was time to light up. But I didn't want to; I was a non-smoker now!



The reminders began diminishing by about 2 per day and now that I’m two years smoke-free I think about cigarettes only occasionally. But I still have no desire to smoke one. On my one week anniversary something occurred to me that eight days ago I would have thought impossible. I turned to my wife as the lightbulb lit and said, "Holy cow! I quit cold turkey!" And you know what? It was easy!