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Friday, April 11, 2008

JC Skinner's guide to quitting smoking

1. Pick a day to quit, preferably within a week.

2. Two minutes before midnight the day before you quit, smoke your last cigarette.

3. Throw out all the rest of your cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters and matches.

4. Don't smoke any more cigarettes, ever.

Simple, really. I don't know why I didn't do it a long time ago. Now you know how it's done, it's your turn next. Don't give the feckers in Phillip Morris and Reynolds your hard-earned cash and your health.

What finally gave me the courage to quit the addiction was watching an old Michael Moore TV show from the Nineties, where he took a bunch of laryngectomy patients to Reynolds' HQ to serenade the board members of that firm with Christmas carols. All the singers had voiceboxes, and all had smoked Camels cigarettes, made by Reynolds.

If you're still not motivated, why not have a look at this. It's the very segment I'm referring to.

The longer episode that was broadcast was even better. The company's directors came down the stairs and it was evident from their pearly whites and barrel chests, not to mention tailored suits, that they enjoyed a fantastic quality of life at the literal expense of the lives of their customers.

If tobacco firm directors aren't smokers, wtf am I doing feeding their profits at the cost of premature death? WTF are you doing still smoking?

So I quit. In 50 years time, people will look back incredulously and wonder how it took so long to ban such a blatantly and irredeemably negative product.

That's got nothing to do with Nazis, health or otherwise. Even guns and nukes have a peacekeeping purpose. Heroin is a useful painkiller. But tobacco has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Let's ban it entirely and consign it to history.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi JC.
I've found it helps to have an 'immediate' reason to quit eg. take up running or cycling - something you can enjoy and see immediate benefits from quitting. General health can be a bit abstract, but training for a race or something similar can really push people past the cravings. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

As we have discussed many times before. When I quit the one thought that kept me from going back was the image of a fit and tanned tobacco executive cruising around the Med/Caribbean on his 40 foot yacht with his lovely wife and 2.4 children (all non smokers of course)living the life on the back of other peoples misery. They should show that on the television ads instead of a pus filled artery. Millions of people would quit out of pure rage alone.

JC Skinner said...

The prime continuing motivation for me is the lumpy brown sputum emanating from my lungs this week.
Each time I hoick up another rancid lump of brown lung butter, I breathe a little easier.
It may take some time to rid my lungs entirely of the filth, but that's motivation enough for me.
But whatever works for people is good.
Training for a marathon works for some. Hating Phillip Morris execs works for others (including me.)
Wanting to save money and live longer and not be enslaved to a substance most likely would work for most people though.

JC Skinner said...

Anyone interested in hearing about the effects of cigarettes should check out the podcast of Marion Finucane's interview with Nuala O'Faolain that was broadcast earlier today.

Anonymous said...

How about the fact that I spent an hour and a half playing Junior Monopoly with my 6 year old yesterday...without once wondering if I could take a break to have a smoke. Invariably in the past I would have taken a break...then washed my hands furiously to get the stench out, found something to eat to remove the taste, then started to play again...within minutes the question of when I could take another break would start to creep into my mind. I am 5 weeks into quitting and grateful that my day feels so much longer..and I am not tied to my addictive timetable.

Anonymous said...

The smokers and the tobacco chewers residing in the district of South Carolina would pay additional taxes amounting to about $25 a month to the state health insurance. This law would come into affect from 2010. http://www.chantixhome.com

Anonymous said...

Smoking can hook you because cigarettes contain nicotine which is highly addictive. But being hooked is not an excuse why you cannot quit smoking. Smoking has been proven by several researches to be great threat to one's health that is why there is no reason why one who is already hooked to it should not quit smoking. http://www.besthealthmed.com/quit_smoking.html