Dalton Roberts

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READERS SHARE HOW THEY QUIT SMOKING
5-6-05

In case my column on quitting cigarettes wasn’t particularly helpful to you, let me share some ideas that came in from readers.

Gael Stahl hit the most important point mentioned by several readers when he said, “Really wanting to quit no matter what – that’s the prime method.” A conscious, definitive choice is always required to get the ball rolling. The problem is getting to that place.

Fear of death can take some people there but it doesn’t work with others. One reader talked about talking to a man smoking a cigarette while waiting for his radiation treatment. He discovered the man had lung cancer.

A musician friend told me about visiting a friend who was dying of emphysema. He was walking around the house with oxygen feeding into his nose from a tank on his back. In one hand he had a cigarette and in the other hand, a joint.

It reminds me of Freud saying we have a death instinct as well as a will to live. We don’t have to look at smokers to see this. We can observe it in all the ways we flirt with death (overeating, over-stressing, taking risks, speeding – need I say more?).

Another reader says her desire to quit stemmed from the aggravation factor. She said, “I wasn’t happy to have to go outside and stand on a window ledge for a quick fix.”

Maybe a fridge list of reasons you want to quit would help. One reader says she told her daughter she would quit when she had a reason and her daughter said, ”Mother do you know what you are saying? How about breathing? How about avoiding cancer?” So she started a list on the fridge and kept adding to it. .

One reader talked about getting cancer of the larynx and dreading “to get one of those spine-chilling, mechanical voice boxes that sound like Garth Vader.” He said, “I had used creams, suckers, mints, Red Man, nicotine gum and everything but witch doctors. Chattanooga had no witch doctors listed in the yellow pages.”

He decided to make smoking a taboo. “A taboo is something you absolutely cannot consider because it is totally unacceptable. I could no longer consider tapering off, smoking one at night or all the primrose path dead ends. I saw it will kill you as dead as a slow possum on the W Road. I never smoked one again and never considered it.”

One idea I had not heard of is taking the drug Welbutrin (aka as Ziban). I hate to sound like one of those drug pitchers on TV but if one of my readers is right, you might want to talk to your doctor. He says, “I had tried almost every addictive substance known to man but I had always been able to lay them down. I could not shake loose from cigarettes. My doctor had been a 35-year smoker and he prescribed Welbutrin. This drug is normally prescribed for mental patients but what it did for me was suppress my cravings. I took it a month while I was smoking, two months after I quit, and then tapered off the drug. I wish everyone who smokes could know there really is an easy way to quit.”

This idea of taking a drug to quit is news to me and I admit my bias against taking a lot of prescription drugs. But I do know this old boy. He is of sound mind and judgment and not one inclined to beg doctors for pills.

Tony Smalley sent a comment that cranked up my desire to proselytize. He said, “I have developed a sense of smell to rival any bloodhound in Hogjaw Valley.” Hey, Tony, I have you an application for membership in the International Bluetick Society. We need a good bloodhound. This motley kennel can’t smell limburger cheese when their jaws are a’ flapping.