DOCTORS GIVE a common advice to smokers on how to quit this terrible habit. They say, “If you could avoid three cigarettes a day, for some it is four, you could quit smoking.” Though it sounds strange, it is true. There are skeptics who doubt the veracity of this claim. They doubt it, because they have doubts about their ability to quit it. Anyway, the first requirement to quit smoking is that you should want to quit it.
By the way, what are those three/four cigarettes? The first one is lit right after you leave your bed and before you enter the toilet. Your breakfast, lunch and supper is followed by the second, third and fourth cigarettes. If you can skip these three or four sticks, you can quit smoking.
It will be too hard in the beginning, say for two to three days. These days will really test your will. The withdrawal syndromes will be so compelling and maddening that 95 out of 100 would succumb to the temptation of a smoke. But those five per cent, who remain determined, would never quit smoking.
We men get really annoyed when our strength is questioned, but we have no scruples in failing in this ‘quit smoking’ exercise for hundred times. The justification we have is - habits die-hard. It is true that habits die-hard but the positive thing is that they do die as well. The need of the hour is that we have to kill this habit before it kills us.
So how can we cope up with a smokeless regime? It is easier said than done: skip four sticks and sit back and rest. How about those chain smokers who cannot do anything without puffing out a draught of smoke? There is another trick for that. When you want to compulsively smoke, do not force your body to adjust without nicotine. Take a cigarette, light it, inhale four or five puffs and abandon it. Continue it for two days, and on the third day, reduce the frequency of lighting and the number of puffs; say inspite of having had six cigarettes on the third day, take only four on the fourth day, three on the fifth day, two on the sixth day and one on the seventh day.
Once you are able to adjust with one cigarette a day, try to enjoy that one to the maximum. On the eighth day, go for this one cigarette, enjoy one third of it, and on the ninth day, abandon it when it is half way through. The tenth day - the D-Day of your smoking career - is very important. This day is going to be the best day in your life. The benefits you are likely to reap out of this quitting spree will be much more precious than whatever you have earned in your life because what you benefit is the rest of your life itself.
Let us come to the last phase. How can we celebrate this single-cigarette day? I call it a celebration because this is going to make your life a real celebration from day eleven. As a pre-celebration arrangement, you need to do a few things. Arrange someone to keep you fed for two continuous days: food, water, recreation etc need to be there. Take a cigarette, go to your room or a private place where you are most comfortable, and take a last look at the cigarette, smell it if you want, and take a solemn resolve, “This is the last stick, and after smoking it, I will stay in this room for two days enjoying anything other than smoking.” Stay there for 48 hours. Watch TV, read books, write about your quitting exercise, make telephone calls, listen to music, eat well and sleep well. Forget the fact that there is a world outside, for two days.
The following week is very crucial. Avoid smokers’ circles and places where smoking sticks are sold or displayed. After this week, go straight into all types of circles and companies and check if you are able to resist the temptation of smoke. You have resolved not to smoke, and no one can change that resolution. If you could manage a handful of such companies, let me tell you, you are free from smoking forever. A fifteen-day affair will make you a different man.
You will start looking good, eating more, feeling stronger and breathing fresher. Your eyes will shine, skin will glow, breath will smell good and your lips will look fresh and teeth will brighten up your face.
You will save a lot of money too. Do you know one thing? Habits have no holidays, harthals and bands. These eat out your money on a daily basis. So if you could save Rs 25 a day, it is Rs 750 at the end of the month. You may manage a loan of one hundred thousand with this amount. It makes great business and common sense.
And coming to the past damages? Your body will take care of all the damages caused by smoking. Human anatomy is the best of mechanisms, and it has the rarest faculty to rectify even the worst of damages caused by bad habits like smoking, drinking and chewing. The best thing you could do to your body is: love it, feed it with good food, give it enough healthy time and let it evolve to health. The rest is life, not history.
On the contrary, if you feel like smoking again even after these fifteen days of rigorous efforts, I am sorry to tell you that the rest would become your history. And that would happen much sooner than you might think. This is a to be or not to be situation. Either you quit smoking or let smoking quit you.
And finally, for those who are not able to go through this 15-day long ‘mission redemption’, there is yet another way to quit smoking. It is quite simple. Just quit it on a fine morning. Never go back to it. If you can do it, just do it. You would then belong to the rarest group of quitters. If you look at these two possibilities objectively, you will understand that it is you only who is going to quit it. No external agency can make any internal change in you when it comes to quitting.
Let me tell you that I also quit my more than 20 years long smoking habit in 15 days by following the above course. Now I have no smoking related ailments. It is almost four years since I quit it. Can I not say, a little haughtily, that I get the best of amusements when I see a man smoking? It is really funny to see a man smoking? I do not forget the fact that I was such a funny man once. Still, I am glad to record here in this platform of common men that I do not smoke. Quit it gentlemen, quit if for you, your immediate friends and family, the society, the nation and the environment at large.
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