HOW TO QUIT SMOKING?

BIKASH CHOUDHURY

A few years after I have started working, I get into habit of flying off a cigarette or two from the cigarette pack of our altruistic boss, just to show off that I am no longer a kid; can smoke like adult men; though, I did not relish the taste or even distantly liked the whole process of smoking. My benevolent boss, though, strictly warned me not to get into such stupid habit; which would be very difficult to get out of it, later; rather, it will make an unnecessary big hole in your purse. I did not listen to his sage advice then and suffered immensely for over 15 years becoming a mild version of a chimney--chain smoker, who will need a cigarette after tea, after a good meal, after closing a great deal, after loosing a order to competition, while meeting an old friend, while traveling in a train, before going to sleep and in the hotel room while alone or listening to music after dark; so as reader would have noticed that the excuse for a smoke went on adding which unknowingly killed a huge amount of time and money-in my last count I would have spent about Rs.3.5 Lakhs on cigarettes alone which is a huge amount of money in today’s date. In 15 years many family members, friends, neighbors and kids requested me to quit cigarette; one of them was very emotional and poignant one; as a little niece of mine after a discussion in her class room about the dangers of smoking; designed a special card herself and presented me to leave cigarette for good; I promised her but could not leave the habit in spite of my best efforts. There after I made many attempt to leave this killer habit; so much so that I organized a party by calling friends and family for dinner and boldly announced that I am quitting cigarette from today; some appreciated my boldness while others were critical about spending good money over bad money; nevertheless I quit cigarette for about 3 months; however, there was a strong urge to return to smoking as I was missing the process of smoking after a drink or a meal. One of those unfortunate days one shop keepers inadvertently offered me my brand of cigarette and I could not resist the temptation and smoked that cigarette and many more after that incident and returned to my old habit of chain smoking once again. I distinctly remember one cold evening in December 2014 sat down with myself in my study to figure out the New Year resolution for 2015; after spending a few hours over a few mugs of chilled non-alcoholic beverage and swirling a few cigarettes, jotted down on a piece of A4 paper, couple of things including “to quit cigarette” which was on the top of the agenda; I filed that paper very religiously in my box file. I again reminded myself again and again by reading and re-reading those resolution till 31^st December 2014 and took a cigarette after dinner before the “0” hour and stopped smoking for about two weeks in the new year and returned to the old habit once again during one such delayed celebration of the New year-2015; but, with a very heavy heart and great remorse for breaking the sacred resolution taken earlier. However, I continued to revisit that piece of paper containing New Year resolutions many times during the day while genuinely intending to leave smoking for good; however, the urge to smoke while getting up in the morning was too powerful to resist. And, the crime continued unabated during the day and even night. This bad habit of mine was also complicating my family life to an extent; but, still the magnetism of nicotine was drawing me to this and holding me in its grip with intoxication and also suffocation. This went on till December 2015; when I decided enough is enough and I shall Quit Smoking without wasting another piece of paper for New Year resolution and actually, crudely writing down 2016 on that old paper mocking at myself. However, before that I sat down alone with self and went deep into the recesses of the mind to figure out those temptations for smoking and erasing any thing written on those soft tissues about cigarette or smoking. This time I started early and benignly reduced the intake of cigarettes by half from 23 December 2015 and when there was an urge to smoke I replaced cigarette with an Amla mouth freshener; however, on 27^th December 2015; I completely stopped smoking cigarette much before the clock stroked the new year 2016 and even stopped taking the mouth freshener since 1^st January 2016 and I live today on the sixth month of 2016 to tell my story how I have managed to stay away from cigarette completely so many months; even daringly visited those same places where I used to smoke for a cup of tea and refused taking cigarettes from the smoking pals politely. Having conquered over the bad habit, on 31^st May 2016(World No Tobacco Day) I along with my spouse campaigned against the dangers of tobacco smoking in Bhubaneswar in which we counseled about 17 persons while they were smoking and handed over a leaflet prepared for the purpose. The campaign took us to Budha Park in the city where we met many people while jogging and educated about the danger of tobacco from the perspective of a reformed person like me. I only hope those who are struggling to leave tobacco can be inspired from my story.