Reply #9: I quit 24 years ago. It was one of the hardest things, and one of the best things, [View All]

[Jackpine Radical]

I have ever done.

As it happened, I had some time on my hands when I did it, so on the morning I quit I decided to go for a walk in the hilly country where I then lived, just to get myself away from easy access to my dreaded drug. I discovered that I could walk much further than I used to, so I kept going. I later figured out that this first burst of energy was due to my body having cleared itself of its chronic carbon monoxide load, thereby giving my hemoglobin a significant boost in oxygen carrying capacity. Also, the walking caused my body to increase its endorphin production. Part of your cigarette addiction is actually an endorphin addiction, so exercise causes your body to produce endorphins without the cigarettes.

I started riding my old clunker bicycle a lot, and shortly bought myself a new 12-speed, which I started riding obsessively.

Another thing I discovered was that I didn't have a smoking habit. What I actually had was a thousand little smoking habits. The first-one-in the-morning habit. The cig-with-coffee habit. The reach-for-one-while-answering-the-phone habit. The light-up-in-the-car habit, the what-do-I-do-with-my-hands habit, etc. I had to invent a strategy to combat each of these habits.

I remember following smokers down the street, trying to get a couple of whiffs. Over time, though, cigarette smoke became more repulsive. Now I get annoyed at the slightest trace of cigarette smoke. There is nobody on earth who is quite as self-righteous as an ex-smoker.