Quitting Smoking Isn't Tough

© 2004 - Lane Baldwin
All Rights Reserved

When I quit smoking four years ago, I never in a million years thought I'd ever be counting the years since my last cigarette. And yet, here I am celebrating four years of smobriety. (For those of you who don't know, I quit after promising my father that I would...as he lay in bed, dying of cancer. Read Why I Quit Smoking.)

In the beginning, I thought quitting was tough. I was wrong. There are many things far tougher than quitting. Since I quit, I've gone through some serious stuff, and never needed to smoke:

My favorite dog of all time died, my closest friend. I didn't smoke.

I relocated to West Virginia. I didn't smoke.

My wife of almost nine years demanded a divorce the day after Christmas. I almost killed myself twice (and, yes, that was weak) but I didn't smoke.

I discovered my wife had been cheating on me for months. I didn't smoke.

I relocated to a remote town in Colorado, knowing exactly three people there and having no job to look forward to. I didn't smoke.

I met the most wonderful woman in the world. She doesn't smoke, and neither do I. I can't be with her right away, but I still won't smoke.

There were many other occurrences, but these are the lowlights - and one major highlight. The point is, you can learn how to survive darn near anything without smoking.

Can you do this? Of course you can. I'm no superhero...although My Sweet Baby tells me I'm her hero. I'm just an ordinary schmuck doing his best to be a true human being - and often falling short. But now I'm a schmuck that doesn't smoke at the drop of a hat. You can be, too. All it takes is commitment and a determination to honor your commitment.

Be all you can be. Be a non-smoking Army of One. For awhile, be a complete ass, a belligerent jerk, a Brain-Fogged idiot. But be a non-smoker fercryinoutloud. Look, it ain't all that hard. Yeah, I had some tough times, and maybe you're going through a tough time, too. Suck it up, instead of sucking up a bunch of cancer-causing chemicals. Stick it out, instead of sticking a smoke in your mouth. Because what you're going through isn't really all that tough when you think about it. You want tough? Let me tell you tough:

Tough is dying from cancer. Tough is knowing that if you don't make the doctors pull the plugs, you're going to be a drooling, unconscious, clueless piece of meat until the life support machines can't keep you alive - knowing that, as you lie there in bed, a veritable vegetable, your family will be tearing itself apart from the grief, the misery, the pain of watching you die in the most undignified manner the medical profession can heap upon you, while your savings are merrily drained away, leaving nothing to support your wife after you're gone.

Even tougher is finding the courage to tell the doctors to pull the plugs, and then meeting death head-on, with a smile on your face and a twinkle in your eye, telling jokes to keep your family from crying, singing songs to your wife so she won't cry, asking your son to look after your soul-mate of decades, even though you've never asked for anyone's help for any reason your entire life, because you won't be around to do your job any longer. Tough is consoling your youngest daughter when she's upset that her children will never really know their grandfather when you're the one dying, dammit!