Quitting smoking was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I tried most of the conventional methods of quitting and they didn’t work for me. After many years of trying and failing, I finally had a flash of inspiration and it helped me to actually quit smoking. What follows is how I got started, and how I stopped smoking.

My high school had a smoking lounge and that’s where all the cool kids hung out. Nick was a cool kid. I wasn’t.

Nick was such a hunk that I just HAD to find a way to meet him. I didn’t know anybody who knew him. He wasn’t in any of my classes but he did hang out in the smoking lounge. He was cool, he was gorgeous, and he didn’t have a girlfriend. I intended to change that. None of my friends hung out in the smoking lounge. They didn’t smoke. I’d look like a jerk just standing out there unless of course, I had a cigarette…

Cigarettes were great! I got a buzz every time I smoked one and for once in my life, I looked COOL. Maybe I’d even meet some of the other cool kids! I was only using the cigarettes as a prop. I wasn’t hooked on them and I didn’t intend to be. I just wanted to meet The Hunk.

I never did meet any of the cool kids but I did finally meet The Hunk through one of my neighbors (I hadn’t needed the cigarettes after all). Nick, however, was not interested in me and he disappeared a couple months later in the wild blue yonder of graduation. The only thing I had accomplished in the smoking lounge was to start smoking. The cigarettes didn’t disappear. I liked smoking. I liked the freedom of being able to go anywhere I wanted and look COOL, leaning up against a wall with a cigarette.

I was seventeen.

By the time I turned nineteen I didn’t want to smoke cigerettes any more. I wanted to quit smoking but I couldn’t. For the next eight years I tried all kinds of ways to quit smoking and never made it past 48 hours. I had it bad!

I tried to quit cold turkey. I tried gradual withdrawal filters. I bought these minty-tasting drops that you put on your tongue that made your mouth taste great and made cigarettes taste awful. I smoked them anyway. Foul tasting as they were with those drops I still had to have that cigarette! They didn’t have the nicotine patch back then so I don’t know if it would have worked for me. Somehow I doubt it.

I was one of those cigarette junkies who’d run out of smokes in the middle of the night and go rummaging through my car, feeling down in the seats looking for one that got away. I’d go through ashtrays pulling out old butts and relighting them. I had it worse than any heroin addict.

By the time I turned twenty seven I was totally fed up. Cigarettes were expensive. Cigarettes were unhealthy. People everywhere were quitting, why couldn’t I? Whereas once almost everyone smoked now it seemed that nobody smoked. Cigarettes weren’t cool anymore.

My boyfriend didn’t smoke. I always felt so guilty when we kissed. He tasted so clean and fresh and I didn’t. I really wanted to quit. He really wanted me to quit. As much as I wanted to start smoking to meet Nick, I wanted to stop smoking to stay with Ryan. It’s really hard for a smoker and a non-smoker to be together.

I wanted to quit for myself, too. I couldn’t forget all the pictures I’d seen of cigarette smoker’s lungs. I didn’t want to die 10 or 20 years ahead of my time. And just think of what I could do with all that extra money!

The plan was simple. I used a daily chart that divided each day into half hours. Every half hour I’d log how many cigarettes I’d smoked in that time. If I didn’t smoke that half hour I’d fill in that block with a bright orange marker. The object was to cut down and keep cutting down until I wasn’t so addicted to nicotine anymore. Then maybe I could stop.

The first couple days I just kept a record of my smoking. I didn’t really try to cut down. I did feel really great when I got so busy I didn’t smoke and could color a square bright orange.

After a couple days I starting trying to go a half hour just so that I could color in a square. Every bright orange square was a huge accomplishment. I’d find myself watching the clock and waiting an extra five or ten minutes for a cigarette just to be able to color in a square.

As the days went by I was able to color in more and more squares. My body was gradually beginning to withdraw from nicotine.

I didn’t put a time limit on myself. That was too much pressure. I figured a half hour at a time was pressure enough. I don’t remember exactly how long it took but I finally got to where I was smoking only three cigarettes a week. THREE cigarettes in a whole WEEK! I was so proud of that!

Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? I mean, why bother to smoke at all if you’re down to only three cigarettes a week, right? Most of the time my body didn’t crave cigarettes anymore. I’d get a twinge here and there but nothing I couldn’t handle. But about three times a week I’d get this major urge. It would hit me BAD. That’s the only time I smoked and I’d only smoke one just to get past those last few big urges.

After a couple of weeks of smoking just three a week, I quit. I finally quit smoking, absolutely and totally. The major urges had faded into twinges and I could handle twinges.

So after 8 years of trying to quit, I made it! I really and truly made it!

When it comes to quitting smoking there’s only one rule: Don’t stop trying to quit. Every stop smoking method does not work for everybody. Some people CAN quit using filters, gum, breath drops, acupuncture, nicotine patches or even cold turkey. We’re all different.

If you try something and it doesn’t work, don’t give up. Wait awhile, let go of that feeling of failure, then try again. YOU are not a failure. That particular method failed for you. So wait awhile and try again. Try something else. Sooner or later something will work. Just don’t ever stop trying!

Believe me, it’s worth the wait!

Tags: cool kids, don't give up, how to quit smoking, how to stop smoking, never give up, never stop trying, quit smoking, quit smoking story, quitting smoking, smoker's lounge, smoker's lungs, smoking lounge, stop smoking, try again, what's in a cigarette

Category: Pay It Forward

I was on my knees crying, candy scattered all around me while the Crewboys laughed. Every time I tried to get up they pushed me to the ground again. I was surrounded. Four boys and a girl had me pinned down. I didn’t stand a chance against them.

Across the street my cousin Abby stood frozen, watching in horror. Afraid to come and help lest they get her too, afraid to run home and leave me alone with them, Abby stood staring openmouthed in terror.

The Crewboys had been terrorizing us for months. We had to pass thru their territory to get to the candy store. If we were unlucky enough to be spotted the chase began, us running as fast as our eight year old legs could carry us, the Crewboys hot on our tails.

There were five of them, four brothers and a sister. The boys ranged from nine to thirteen years old. They had crew cuts, a rare sight when most boys had shaggy hair in honor of the Beatles. Hence the nickname “Crewboys”. The girl, Sarah, was fifteen. She was their leader.

Two little kids walking home with bags full of candy, Abby and I were easy targets for the Crewboy Gang and many a day had us gasping for air by the time we reached the safety of our block. The candy store was a lure we couldn’t resist. A quarter would fill a small bag with penny candy from the colorful candy jars at Pinky’s.

We had always managed to get home before the Crewboys caught us but our luck ran out on this ill-fated day. Abby was faster than I and in the lead as the Crewboys chased us. They caught me and pushed me to the ground. My bag of candy flew open and all the candy scattered in the street. I had hoped they just wanted the candy and would grab it and run but they had no interest in the candy. They wanted to bully me. That’s how they got their kicks.

Abby kept running until she was far enough away to escape them and then stopped to watch helplessly as they tormented me. The Crewboys towered over me with big feet ready for kicking. It wasn’t looking good.

Then out of nowhere came a tall, raven haired man with a long, lean face and piercing black eyes. He came charging in waving his arms and hollering like a madman and the Crewboys took off like the devil incarnate was after them. But he was no devil, he was my guardian angel straight from heaven come to save me from these neighborhood bullies. My hero helped me up and asked if I were okay and walked us safely home.

More than forty years later I still remember this man. I never knew his name or saw him again or even had a chance to thank him. But I remember him and in sharing our story, send him many thank you’s. His good deed never went forgotten.

What happened to the Crewboys? Abby’s big brother took care of them after that incident and they never bothered us again.

Tags: bullies, bully, bullying, bullys, childhood bullies, childhood bully, good deed, guardian angel, knight in shining armor, my hero, neighborhood bullies, neighborhood bully, random acts of kindness, to the rescue, white knight

Category: Pay It Forward

It was a glorious summer day with the sun shining brightly in a clear, blue sky. My cousin Abby and I were playing in a creek bed. We were six years old. The trickle of water that flowed gently over the smooth, round stones felt good against my bare feet. Birds chittered and chirped and the sound of faraway voices were merely a tinkle on the breeze. As long as our parents were “over there somewhere” they wouldn’t know that we were in the creek bed.

Suddenly a cloud passed over the sun, darkening it. The air took on an ominous heaviness. Abby and I looked up with foreboding. It was her father standing on the ridge up over our heads glowering down at us. Uncle Henry towered over the other adults and he stood at the front of the pack. My heart took off running though my feet were glued to the spot. Uh oh. We were in trouble again.

I grabbed Abby’s arm. “Let’s run!”

We ran about two yards when she pulled back. “No! It’ll be worse if we run!”

Uncle Henry was an frightful man. A giant of a man who could freeze you with one look. He knew how to twist your innards into excruciating knots with merely a stare. He knew how to strike terror into the hearts of wayward youngsters.

Many a time had we earned his wrath, giggling together as we hid outside while the sun sank down beyond the horizon and Uncle Henry called for us to come in. Sometimes we explored an empty field, one that housed a myriad of tiny toads. Catching toads was one of our favorite pastimes. But there was one small dilemma: the toad field was off-limits to us. It was a rule we blatantly ignored.

In the other direction was the nuthouse. An insane asylum that scared us even worse than Uncle Henry. The crazy people dressed all in white lunging at us as we walked past scared us so badly we never walked past it again. Looking back I realize there were no crazy people threatening us, just the staff having themselves a good laugh scaring a couple of little kids. It worked.

Abby and I were notorious for hiding out especially when we knew we were in trouble. Our favorite hidey hole was a tiny room that only a kid could get into. Abby’s bedroom closet had an unfinished attic at the back of it where Christmas decorations and doodads were stored. Behind the boxes of decorations down along the floor was a tunnel just big enough for Abby and I to scramble into. After a few feet the tunnel narrowed and we had to inch along on our bellies like snakes to continue onward. At the end of the tunnel was a room, a tiny room with pull string to turn the light bulb on.

Abby and I spent a lot of time hiding out in that little room, often to the sound of Uncle Henry’s voice bellowing in anger at our sudden disappearance. That room was our safe-house, the place no adult knew about or could get to.

Outside the hidey hole we knew we’d find Uncle Henry’s scowling face, ominous with its implication of dire consequences. It didn’t matter that he’d never actually DONE anything to be frightened of except for one whooping I heard Abby get. He still scared the dickens out of me. Why did he strike such utter terror in the hearts of us mischievous kids? I have no answer for that.

On the verge of adulthood I moved far away and I didn’t see Uncle Henry again. Years passed and Uncle Henry remained in my memory as this frightening personage, towering over us like an angry giant, striking abject terror into our young psyches.

When I saw him again many years later, I discovered a man with an incredible sense of humor and a ready smile. Not the formidable man of memory, but a man whose blue eyes twinkled in merriment as he described a little room he’d built over thirty years earlier, a room with tunnels leading into it and a light bulb which never seemed to burn out.

Tags: bedroom fort, crazy people, hidden room, hidey hole, ideas for playroom, insane asylum, kid playroom, kid's fort, kid's playhouse, kid's playroom, kid's room, kids play room, memories that last, nuthouse, play room, playhouse, playroom, precious memories, secret rooms

Category: Pay It Forward