The Best Way To Give Up Smoking Is The Natural Way

The author of the article has been a life long smoker from Europe. After moving to the US, and being diagnosed with asthma, nearing her middle age, she was trying to stop smoking nearly on daily basis, but all of the efforts sadly failed. Nicotine gum and patches didn't work for her, therefore she contacted her surgeon, who registered her in a program and recommended pills, but that didn't her her quit smoking either. What she found was that a drastic change of schedule worked good in her case. Somewhat funny approach to a very serious matter recommends that everyone needs to find what works best for them, as well-known "one size fits all" approach never makes everybody contented.

In the first person: I was born 40 something years before in Europe, with a cigarette in my mouth. My parents smoked, my relatives smoked, my friends smoked. My father is 82 and still a chain smoker. Smoking is an unavoidable part of cultural habits, socializing, and having excitement. For a culture that lives on lanes full of cafes, smoking is not optional, it's almost obligatory.

I was 13 when I got addicted on cigarettes, enough to start budgeting part of my daily allowance for cigarettes. Mind you, I wasn't an outcast, a straight A student, from a rich academic family, I was actually trying to fit in. At that point, and even several years later, trying to stop smoking was not even in the back of my mind. It will take me 30 more years to reach to that point.

Novelist by occupation, smoking was greatly a part of my daily schedule. It was precisely like it used to be in the old black and white movies - me, the typewriter, and the big ashtray with the cigarette butts piled up high. Soon after I moved to the US, the problems with my smoking ensued. They were not only of social nature any more; they became a health concern as well. Not just did I move to the Bay Area, California, which was the undoubted leader in the witch look for smokers, I was diagnosed with asthma.

I may say from that moment on, 15 years ago, I was trying to quit smoking on a daily basis. There was already a drastic change in place for me - I couldn't smoke at my workplace any more and I had to time my smoking habits according to the office timetable. It was harder at home since my colleague, an American, was a smoker also.

We decided to merely smoke outside the home. That didn't work at all, because, alas, it's California, the climate is pleasant year around, so we both ended up merely sleeping in the house, while living, eating, having friends over on the back yard terrace. It's amazing with how much yard work you can invent - our postage stamp sized back yard became more akin to jungle with heirloom tomatoes, tea roses, sweet peas, and citrus trees.

I finally quit smoking cold turkey. Two years later, with a new lease on life, I'm proud to say - I haven't had a cigarette since. I know it very well: once an addict, always an addict and I had my share of night sweats, nightmares, inevitable shivers, uncontrollable crying. But I can all the time say it was resulted by my divorce drama, not nicotine. Every now and then, during lunch break in the financial area, I stop by someone smoking in front of their office building. Second hand smoke still smells so nice.