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The Best Way To Quit 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 detected with asthma, nearing her middle age, she was trying to quit smoking approximately on everyday basis, but all of the efforts unhappily did not succeed. Nicotine gum and patches didn't work for her, therefore she contacted her surgeon, who joined her in a program and suggested tablets, but that didn't her her quit smoking either. What she found was that a drastic change of schedule worked best in her case. Somewhat funny came to to a quite serious matter recommends that everybody needs to get what works best for them, as popular "one size fits all" approach never makes everyone happy.
In the first person: I was born 40 something years ago 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, meeting people, and having excitement. For a culture that lives on streets full of cafes, smoking is not optional, it's almost necessary.
I was 13 when I got addicted on cigarettes, enough to start budgeting part of my everyday allowance for cigarettes. Mind you, I wasn't an outsider, a straight A student, from a rich academic family, I was actually trying to fit in. At that point, and also several years later, trying to quit smoking was not even in the back of my mind. It will take me 30 more years to reach to that point.
Writer by occupation, smoking was vastly a part of my everyday schedule. It was exactly 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 arised. They were not simply of social nature any more; they became a health concern too. Not only did I move to the Bay Area, California, which was the undoubted leader in the witch search for smokers, I was diagnosed with asthma.
I may say from that moment on, 15 years before, I was trying to quit smoking on a daily basis. There was by now a severe change in place for me - I couldn't smoke at my office any more and I had to time my smoking habits according to the office agenda. It was tougher at home as my partner, an American, was a smoker also.
We decided to only smoke outside the home. That didn't work at all, as, unfortunately, it's California, the weather is lovely year around, so we both ended up only sleeping in the house, while living, eating, having friends over on the back yard terrace. It's astonishing 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 afterward, 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, forever an addict and I had my share of night sweats, nightmares, inevitable shivers, unmanageable crying. But I can always say it was caused by my divorce drama, not nicotine. Every now and then, during lunch break in the monetary area, I stop by somebody smoking in front of their office building. Second hand smoke still smells so nice.
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