It Can Happen to YouFeb 10 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Find a compelling reason to quit, and you can do it.
Today, my husband had a heart attack. He is only 41 years old, a young man. Although he probably doesn't eat as well as he should, he eats well enough. He is not overweight, he is not a heavy drinker. He is an active outdoorsy kind of guy. He is also a smoker. Or perhaps I should say he was a smoker. He quit this morning at about 10:30 AM when the chest pains kicked in. After hours in the Emergency Room, multiple IV lines, multiple nitro glycerine sprays, an angiogram, an angioplasty, an arterial stent and several hours in the Intensive Care Unit the doctor told him that smoking did it to him. No hemming, no hawing. Smoking cigarettes. Period. End of story. This is one way to quit smoking. Lay in a hospital bed, clutching your chest, while the doctor tells you "Quit or die". From my personal experience, I don't recommend this method. It is effective, but the clutching your chest in pain part kinda sucks. GET MOTIVATED I am also a smoker. Not any more. Not ever again. I looked potential Death in the eye today, and Death could have been wearing my husbands face. Being killed by cigarettes at the age of forty one would be stupid and totally preventable, and did I mention stupid? My husband and I have our motivation to quit. What is yours? Does Cancer or Heart Disease run in your family? That's a no-brainer. Is your personal appearance important to you? Smoking causes yellow teeth, premature aging, wrinkles, and is just plain ugly. Do you love your partner, and want to grow old with them? Do you want to dance at your granddaughters wedding? Do you want to live to see tomorrow? These are important questions for any smoker, but most especially for a young smoker. YOUNG PEOPLE CAN GET SICK Young people, contrary to popular belief, are mortal. They can and will die. It is better if, when you die, you didn't do it to yourself. Smoking is a form of slow suicide. When we are young, we think that 'things' cannot happen to us. That, the evidence aside, cancer and heart attacks and strokes happen to other people. People like, say, my husband. Well, quess what? We never guessed that we were 'other people' until today. We thought we were the people to whom this could never happen. The longer you smoke, the harder it is to quit. All of you young smokers out there (and all of you old smokers, too), STOP NOW. GET HELP Call your doctor and get a prescription for Zyban, or go down to WalMart and buy some patches or nicotine gum. Soak your cigarettes in the sink, and throw them out. Zyban or the patch costs too much money? If you can afford cigarettes, you can afford the patch. Beg, borrow or steal if you have to in order to buy what you need to quit. Remove every ashtray from your home, clean every surface, every bit of cloth that may contain lingering cigarette smoke. Change your habits. Take a walk after dinner instead of smoking that cigarette. If you chain smoke when online, avoid the computer for a while, or move it to a new location. Stay away from the bar for a while, get someone else to drive if you light up whenever you drive. Call your smoking friends and tell them you can't see them for a while. Call your non-smoking friends and tell them you need their help. If your partner is a smoker, beg your partner to quit with you. Make them see the error of their ways. Tell them about that young man in a hospital bed, clutching his chest. Tell your partner that you don't want to see Death wearing his or her face. No one ever said that quitting smoking was easy. It is not. It is hard. Both my husband Jerry and I have made multiple quitting attempts, and failed. We tried to quit because we knew we should, because it would please our parents, not because we really wanted to. We should have tried harder to find a motivation, because the motivation that we got this morning was not a motivation I would wish on anyone. I said it before, I'll say it again: GET MOTIVATED If you try hard enough, you can and will find a compelling reason to quit smoking. Motivation is the single most important aspect of kicking the cigarette habit. If you really don't want to stop, deep in your heart, you won't. You have to find the compelling reason, before it finds you in the form of a heart attack, cancer or a stroke. Remember-it not only can happen to you, but it will happen to you if you don't stop smoking. And whatever "it" is, I can guarantee you it won't be pretty. Get Motivated Get Help Get on with your life; I sincerely hope it's a long healthy one.  |
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