The Benefits When You Stop Smoking
Thursday June 30, 2005
We all expect our health to improve, but that is just the beginning of this wonderful journey. The positives listed in this article were collected from people who have recently quit. The return on our efforts to kick the habit far outweigh the work it takes to achieve this goal. The benefits truly are unlimited!
Comments
It you knew me you would say that I am the last person in the world you would expect to say, I Stopped Smoking. You see, I am 63 years old and have been smoking since I was 14 years old..and not just smoking, but enjoying it so much that I proclaimed for years to family and friends that I would never stop smoking. Well, most of my family has passed away, my Mother, Father, Sister, Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts. All gone and none ever saw me without a cigarette in my hand. My wife, of 28 years, did not know I had stopped smoking for two weeks after I stopped…she had always just assumed I would die with a cigarette in my mouth. Why did I quit? How did I quit?
One night while writing (I am a writer) I could not see my word processor for the smoke…I was smoking one after the other, trying to be creative, pushing my mental capacity to the max while coughing and hacking and straining to see through the smoke. Frustrated, I crushed the lit cigarette out, turned a fan on to clear out the smoke in the room and sat back down to write, my vision clear, my thoughts more lucid and my throat happy for the rest. As I thought about the whole senerio later, I saw for the first time in my life what a disgusting and dangerous habit smoking was. I was shocked at myself that I would allow the addiction of a small white stick of poison to dictate my life. I suddenly felt betrayed by my own smoking habit and wanted no more of it. That is why I stopped!
How did I stop?
After that experience I knew that whatever I was lacking in my life that caused me to be addicted to smoking was the problem, not the pleasure that I had always assumed smoking gave me. I simply told myself, yeah I might need something in my life to keep me interested or in tune with my feelings, but smoking isn’t it!
To this day I have never picked up another cigarette. The pack of smokes I had the night I stopped smoking is still where I left them, the lighter right beside the package, a constant reminder that I choose not to smoke and that I will continue to choose not to smoke for as long as I leave that package laying there….alone and untouched….just how I left them three years ago!
John Pouch