Becoming a smoker was easy. Giving cigarettes up was anything but. It was the longest and hardest breakup of my life. It only took one puff of my first cigarette. When I took that initial drag, I sealed my need to keep inhaling those lethal sticks. Looking back, I'm certain I had become addicted long before then.
I gave up Booze, Seconal, Xanax, Valium, Percocet, Cocaine, etc. etc., in 1985. I quit my two-pack-a-day love affair a few years later. It was hard, but I'd made a deal to quit smoking and was too afraid to back out. I rarely think about drinking or drugging, but I sometimes daydream about smoking while driving and listening to Led Zeppelin. The thing is, drugs and booze kicked my ass and kept kicking until I couldn't take it any longer, but the very smooth Mr. Marlboro never kicked, never even tapped.
I smokes for 35 years. At least 1 pack a day. That is 20 cigarettes a day, 140 cigarettes a week, 560 cigarettes a month, 6,720 cigarettes a year, and 35 years of smoking, that was 235,200 cigarettes.
Now isn't that enough to make you gag?
My father smoked for years as well. It wasn't until I was visiting him at an independent living facility, after his meal, we walked back to his room when he could not catch his breath, and passed out in my arms.
We got him into his room and I performed CPR on him, he had pulse but was not breathing, I gave him mouth to mouth until medi-vac arrived then they took over. He lived for another 5 years and passed at 86 years old. My dad had lung issues, so at that time I made up my mind that I was done with smoking.
I used the patch, large, medium, and then the small one to wean myself off smoking.
I had gone into work one day forgetting to apply a patch in the morning, and at that point i knew that it was mind over matter. I had kicked the habit.
A very interesting story of both the horror of addiction and the success in eliminating it, Ginni.
I, also, grew up in a cloud of smoke. I hated that I smelled of smoke all the time—I had to ask my mom to please not smoke in the car when she was driving me to high school because I didn’t want to smell like that in front of the other kids. Both my parents died pretty young of coronary issues I believe were probably brought on & exacerbated by smoking.
Consequently, and maybe different from others, I never smoked a day in my entire life because I hated it sooo much! But, nonetheless, my lungs were ruined anyway by 2nd hand smoke. I have had diagnosed COPD ever since I was 24–I’m 77 now.
What a truly awful and debilitating addiction with far-reaching consequences! Kudos to everyone who has been able to overcome it!
I started smoking at the beach when I was 14. I walked from my house early in the mornings during summer to meet a group of kids, mostly surfers at our favorite spot in Redondo, Ave I. It was dunkin’ donuts, awful coffee and cigarettes to take the early morning chill off. The warm smoke filled my chest and smoke rings were the way to look cool. At first, I snitched a couple from my mother’s open pack. They were menthol and didn’t burn my throat. She only smoked two per day, morning and evening ritual.
I remember becoming bolder about smoking and foolishly smoked one of mom's menthols in the bathroom while taking a bath! In spite of opening the window, clouds of smoke hung in the steamy air and I could get it out with no cross ventilation. There I was, waving a towel around trying to diminish the aftereffects, to no avail. I was busted. Mom began counting her cigarettes.
Later, as became old enough to go on an occasional date, my boyfriend took me to Lion's Drag strip. Everyone smoked there, especially in the pit. My boyfriend smoked unfiltered Pall Malls. I loved the way he tapped one on a hard surface to pack the loose tobacco before lighting it. They soon became my brand of choice too.
I continued to smoke after I left home around 18 and in those days it was the first thing in the morning, then in the bathroom while dressing for work, again starting the car and all day at work. I worked in a bank and the ashtray always had a smoldering Pall Mall until it grew to two packs a day! I told myself that most of them burned up while I was doing something, but never considered the fact that I was still breathing it as it burned on my desk.
One morning while getting ready for work, I had such a violent coughing spasm, I coughed up what looked like grayish pinkish flesh! I was certain it was a piece of my lungs.
That was when I quit.
Years later, I would sometimes wake from a dream in which I was smoking again, and I swore I could taste it.
Oh my gosh, I was cracking up with the toaster oven. I used to put them in the microwave after I had doused them with water so I couldn't smoke them. I used to buy a pack, smoke one, tear the rest up so they were unusable, throw it away and say I was gonna quit the next day and then wake up and buy another. Or sometimes, I shamefully SCOTCH TAPED the parts back together and was smoking TAPE! The insanity of spending ten bucks to smoke one cigarette a day in my crazy treadmill finally made me realize I was gonna go broke if I didn't just keep the damn pack and smoke it all. I LOVED cigarettes. I have learned recently that nicotine does something soothing to the ADHD brain which came as no surprise to me .... I was self-medicating. Like you, I can't think of having another one because I know my addiction is still there and too strong. I've cross-addicted to green tea and coffee and tiny super food fruit candies with vitamins.
Both of my parent smoked for years, but quit before I did. I tried and then tried again but no luck. My wife didn’t smoke so I was hurting her body with my ugly habit. Never-the-less, I kept sucking on those wretched things.... until we got a dog. My wife was flying around the world for work, so the dog became my best friend. When constant itching of his little body caused concerns, we took him to a dog allergist. He was allergic to “Mold Mix” number three and SMOKE. The one thing that might help was injections in his neck every few days. I hated getting shots myself, but to help this little fellow, I stuck the needle in his neck. After a couple months, he didn’t seem to be getting better. The mold was on the trees on our walk and I couldn’t change that, BUT I could stop smoking. So, on November 26, 1988, I threw the pack away and that was it. After that, I had two creatures licking my face: the doggy and my wife. Both appreciated that I came to terms with a killer.
My parents both smoked. I’m sure my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me. It was the thing to do. It was glamorous and sophisticated.
I didn’t start smoking until my second semester of college. I remember my grandmother asking me when I was going to start smoking. I tried my first cigarette with my roommate in the dorms. I was them bumming cigarettes off of her regularly. After a while I was embarrassed to ask her so I bought a pack of my own.
I continued to smoke after I graduated and after I meeting my non-smoking husband. There is a photo of us boarding the plane to Hawaii for our honeymoon with me holding a carton of Marlboros. After three years of marriage I got pregnant with our daughter. I quit cold turkey for her when I couldn’t do it for myself. My next door neighbor smoked and I bummed a cigarette off of her while we watched our children at play. As Ginni described, one puff and I was again a smoker. I quit for the last time two years later when I became pregnant with our son. I have never touched another cigarette. If I did I know for sure what would happen.
Dad smoked Lucky Strikes for many years. When he ran out, he'd give me a quarter and I'd run down to the corner drugstore and get him a pack for 20 cents, and a penny was tucked in the cellophane wrapper (that was in 1950). He quit smoking before he retired, I never did ask him why, but he hardly ever smoked (always in the backyard) at home all during his work years.
My smoking history started when I was 16. King Sano? One of the first filtered cigs. But I got in big trouble in school, when in a high school class, smarty-pants me pulled out a pack of Vogue multicolored cigs (just for show) thinking I was so "cool." I wasn't. Almost got myself expelled!
I never smoked during my pregnancies. Never wanted to. I was a part-time smoker. And over the years, the part-time became a longer time. Never ever smoked in the morning. Smoked at work though in the early 70's, 'cause my boss did, too. Never smoked at work after that, though. Parliament cigs were my favs.
We could smoke in theaters, (smoke in airplanes, buses and trains even), and ads showed doctors with a black eye who said they'd "rather fight than switch." Smoking in a bar or nightclub was almost mandatory! (In 2004, when Ireland banned smoking in pubs, there was almost an insurrection!)
When I retired in 2006 and had time on my hands, I was consistently going through a half-pack a day, and switched to American Spirit, which I thought was better for me, with less additives. But then the price of those cigs went up to $10 a pack in 2018 and kept going up! Time to quit!
So for me, I have to say, it was the cost of cigs that finally made me quit. And to this day, I still miss a cig with a glass of before-dinner wine. When I'm stressed, I think "I wish I had a cigarette!" They say the urge never goes completely away.
And now when I look in the mirror at my wrinkles, I think, "Well, you did this to yourself, lady!" And that's the truth! Along with the cost, an abject fear of getting even MORE wrinkles made me finally ditch a life-long habit. I hope more readers share their stories, too.
Two years ago I decided to lose some weight. I took it one day at a time. I spent each day telling myself that I was only changing my eating habits on that day, one day of eating less and eating smarter was not as big of a challenge as thinking of changing these habits for a long time. When I felt hungry in the evenings I told myself that being hungry for a little while one evening was no big deal, after all, I wasn't going to die from hunger. The weight came off slowly and consistently. I think there's a lot to be said for setting daily goals, which then turn into habits. Still haven't regained the weight and now I put more thought into what I eat. Congratulations on your success!
Started smoking in elementary (early 70s) school. Picked butts out of the gutter if I had to. 2007 posed the question to myself, “why am I still doing this?” Stumble upon a website, Whyquit.com. That night I started reading and educating myself on the addiction and of a way to quit cold turkey. Terrifying, but I was ready. When I read how the tobacco companies put broncciodialators in tobacco to open up the lungs to get you further addicted to nicotine, that was it! Haven’t had a puff since. Uncomfortable at first until I reprogrammed myself through each use cue. I’ll never regret quitting.
Bravo Ginni! Quitting and staying quit! Honest and brave sharing here, and how you gently invite others to do the same! I admire you so much in presenting this as if we were sharing a cuppa and convo at my kitchen counter! Great writing, great story! ❤️😊
Ginni, I'm so proud of you. Quitting smoking and quieting one's neuro-net to the addiction is like a miracle. It's magical! I hope your story inspires others to find ways to design their very short visits to planet earth in exactly the manner they want them to be! What if we all just woke up? xoxo
One day, my friend Wayne and I were walking to junior high school when we noticed the glass cover on a cigarette machine at the Shell gas station was broken. We removed aka stole a pack of Marlboros. That was my first time. I became more of a smoker in my early thirties when I worked in the San Francisco financial district. Smoking in the office, bars, restaurants, autos, airplanes, etc. There were even young ladies on street corners in the financial district handing out free sample packs of various cigarette brands. My uncle Ken, whom I adored, was a chain smoker. He died of a massive heart attack while playing golf. Did smoking caused his death? I assumed it did and that’s when I stopped!
I gave up Booze, Seconal, Xanax, Valium, Percocet, Cocaine, etc. etc., in 1985. I quit my two-pack-a-day love affair a few years later. It was hard, but I'd made a deal to quit smoking and was too afraid to back out. I rarely think about drinking or drugging, but I sometimes daydream about smoking while driving and listening to Led Zeppelin. The thing is, drugs and booze kicked my ass and kept kicking until I couldn't take it any longer, but the very smooth Mr. Marlboro never kicked, never even tapped.
I smokes for 35 years. At least 1 pack a day. That is 20 cigarettes a day, 140 cigarettes a week, 560 cigarettes a month, 6,720 cigarettes a year, and 35 years of smoking, that was 235,200 cigarettes.
Now isn't that enough to make you gag?
My father smoked for years as well. It wasn't until I was visiting him at an independent living facility, after his meal, we walked back to his room when he could not catch his breath, and passed out in my arms.
We got him into his room and I performed CPR on him, he had pulse but was not breathing, I gave him mouth to mouth until medi-vac arrived then they took over. He lived for another 5 years and passed at 86 years old. My dad had lung issues, so at that time I made up my mind that I was done with smoking.
I used the patch, large, medium, and then the small one to wean myself off smoking.
I had gone into work one day forgetting to apply a patch in the morning, and at that point i knew that it was mind over matter. I had kicked the habit.
A very interesting story of both the horror of addiction and the success in eliminating it, Ginni.
I, also, grew up in a cloud of smoke. I hated that I smelled of smoke all the time—I had to ask my mom to please not smoke in the car when she was driving me to high school because I didn’t want to smell like that in front of the other kids. Both my parents died pretty young of coronary issues I believe were probably brought on & exacerbated by smoking.
Consequently, and maybe different from others, I never smoked a day in my entire life because I hated it sooo much! But, nonetheless, my lungs were ruined anyway by 2nd hand smoke. I have had diagnosed COPD ever since I was 24–I’m 77 now.
What a truly awful and debilitating addiction with far-reaching consequences! Kudos to everyone who has been able to overcome it!
I started smoking at the beach when I was 14. I walked from my house early in the mornings during summer to meet a group of kids, mostly surfers at our favorite spot in Redondo, Ave I. It was dunkin’ donuts, awful coffee and cigarettes to take the early morning chill off. The warm smoke filled my chest and smoke rings were the way to look cool. At first, I snitched a couple from my mother’s open pack. They were menthol and didn’t burn my throat. She only smoked two per day, morning and evening ritual.
I remember becoming bolder about smoking and foolishly smoked one of mom's menthols in the bathroom while taking a bath! In spite of opening the window, clouds of smoke hung in the steamy air and I could get it out with no cross ventilation. There I was, waving a towel around trying to diminish the aftereffects, to no avail. I was busted. Mom began counting her cigarettes.
Later, as became old enough to go on an occasional date, my boyfriend took me to Lion's Drag strip. Everyone smoked there, especially in the pit. My boyfriend smoked unfiltered Pall Malls. I loved the way he tapped one on a hard surface to pack the loose tobacco before lighting it. They soon became my brand of choice too.
I continued to smoke after I left home around 18 and in those days it was the first thing in the morning, then in the bathroom while dressing for work, again starting the car and all day at work. I worked in a bank and the ashtray always had a smoldering Pall Mall until it grew to two packs a day! I told myself that most of them burned up while I was doing something, but never considered the fact that I was still breathing it as it burned on my desk.
One morning while getting ready for work, I had such a violent coughing spasm, I coughed up what looked like grayish pinkish flesh! I was certain it was a piece of my lungs.
That was when I quit.
Years later, I would sometimes wake from a dream in which I was smoking again, and I swore I could taste it.
Chris Cressey, January 31, 2023
Oh my gosh, I was cracking up with the toaster oven. I used to put them in the microwave after I had doused them with water so I couldn't smoke them. I used to buy a pack, smoke one, tear the rest up so they were unusable, throw it away and say I was gonna quit the next day and then wake up and buy another. Or sometimes, I shamefully SCOTCH TAPED the parts back together and was smoking TAPE! The insanity of spending ten bucks to smoke one cigarette a day in my crazy treadmill finally made me realize I was gonna go broke if I didn't just keep the damn pack and smoke it all. I LOVED cigarettes. I have learned recently that nicotine does something soothing to the ADHD brain which came as no surprise to me .... I was self-medicating. Like you, I can't think of having another one because I know my addiction is still there and too strong. I've cross-addicted to green tea and coffee and tiny super food fruit candies with vitamins.
Both of my parent smoked for years, but quit before I did. I tried and then tried again but no luck. My wife didn’t smoke so I was hurting her body with my ugly habit. Never-the-less, I kept sucking on those wretched things.... until we got a dog. My wife was flying around the world for work, so the dog became my best friend. When constant itching of his little body caused concerns, we took him to a dog allergist. He was allergic to “Mold Mix” number three and SMOKE. The one thing that might help was injections in his neck every few days. I hated getting shots myself, but to help this little fellow, I stuck the needle in his neck. After a couple months, he didn’t seem to be getting better. The mold was on the trees on our walk and I couldn’t change that, BUT I could stop smoking. So, on November 26, 1988, I threw the pack away and that was it. After that, I had two creatures licking my face: the doggy and my wife. Both appreciated that I came to terms with a killer.
My parents both smoked. I’m sure my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me. It was the thing to do. It was glamorous and sophisticated.
I didn’t start smoking until my second semester of college. I remember my grandmother asking me when I was going to start smoking. I tried my first cigarette with my roommate in the dorms. I was them bumming cigarettes off of her regularly. After a while I was embarrassed to ask her so I bought a pack of my own.
I continued to smoke after I graduated and after I meeting my non-smoking husband. There is a photo of us boarding the plane to Hawaii for our honeymoon with me holding a carton of Marlboros. After three years of marriage I got pregnant with our daughter. I quit cold turkey for her when I couldn’t do it for myself. My next door neighbor smoked and I bummed a cigarette off of her while we watched our children at play. As Ginni described, one puff and I was again a smoker. I quit for the last time two years later when I became pregnant with our son. I have never touched another cigarette. If I did I know for sure what would happen.
Dad smoked Lucky Strikes for many years. When he ran out, he'd give me a quarter and I'd run down to the corner drugstore and get him a pack for 20 cents, and a penny was tucked in the cellophane wrapper (that was in 1950). He quit smoking before he retired, I never did ask him why, but he hardly ever smoked (always in the backyard) at home all during his work years.
My smoking history started when I was 16. King Sano? One of the first filtered cigs. But I got in big trouble in school, when in a high school class, smarty-pants me pulled out a pack of Vogue multicolored cigs (just for show) thinking I was so "cool." I wasn't. Almost got myself expelled!
I never smoked during my pregnancies. Never wanted to. I was a part-time smoker. And over the years, the part-time became a longer time. Never ever smoked in the morning. Smoked at work though in the early 70's, 'cause my boss did, too. Never smoked at work after that, though. Parliament cigs were my favs.
We could smoke in theaters, (smoke in airplanes, buses and trains even), and ads showed doctors with a black eye who said they'd "rather fight than switch." Smoking in a bar or nightclub was almost mandatory! (In 2004, when Ireland banned smoking in pubs, there was almost an insurrection!)
When I retired in 2006 and had time on my hands, I was consistently going through a half-pack a day, and switched to American Spirit, which I thought was better for me, with less additives. But then the price of those cigs went up to $10 a pack in 2018 and kept going up! Time to quit!
So for me, I have to say, it was the cost of cigs that finally made me quit. And to this day, I still miss a cig with a glass of before-dinner wine. When I'm stressed, I think "I wish I had a cigarette!" They say the urge never goes completely away.
And now when I look in the mirror at my wrinkles, I think, "Well, you did this to yourself, lady!" And that's the truth! Along with the cost, an abject fear of getting even MORE wrinkles made me finally ditch a life-long habit. I hope more readers share their stories, too.
Two years ago I decided to lose some weight. I took it one day at a time. I spent each day telling myself that I was only changing my eating habits on that day, one day of eating less and eating smarter was not as big of a challenge as thinking of changing these habits for a long time. When I felt hungry in the evenings I told myself that being hungry for a little while one evening was no big deal, after all, I wasn't going to die from hunger. The weight came off slowly and consistently. I think there's a lot to be said for setting daily goals, which then turn into habits. Still haven't regained the weight and now I put more thought into what I eat. Congratulations on your success!
Started smoking in elementary (early 70s) school. Picked butts out of the gutter if I had to. 2007 posed the question to myself, “why am I still doing this?” Stumble upon a website, Whyquit.com. That night I started reading and educating myself on the addiction and of a way to quit cold turkey. Terrifying, but I was ready. When I read how the tobacco companies put broncciodialators in tobacco to open up the lungs to get you further addicted to nicotine, that was it! Haven’t had a puff since. Uncomfortable at first until I reprogrammed myself through each use cue. I’ll never regret quitting.
Bravo Ginni! Quitting and staying quit! Honest and brave sharing here, and how you gently invite others to do the same! I admire you so much in presenting this as if we were sharing a cuppa and convo at my kitchen counter! Great writing, great story! ❤️😊
Ginni, I'm so proud of you. Quitting smoking and quieting one's neuro-net to the addiction is like a miracle. It's magical! I hope your story inspires others to find ways to design their very short visits to planet earth in exactly the manner they want them to be! What if we all just woke up? xoxo
One day, my friend Wayne and I were walking to junior high school when we noticed the glass cover on a cigarette machine at the Shell gas station was broken. We removed aka stole a pack of Marlboros. That was my first time. I became more of a smoker in my early thirties when I worked in the San Francisco financial district. Smoking in the office, bars, restaurants, autos, airplanes, etc. There were even young ladies on street corners in the financial district handing out free sample packs of various cigarette brands. My uncle Ken, whom I adored, was a chain smoker. He died of a massive heart attack while playing golf. Did smoking caused his death? I assumed it did and that’s when I stopped!
Really great. Thanks for sharing!
Leslie