I quit smoking as of 5 minutes from now...Sure hope I can hold to my promises to myself...
With that attitude you simply aren't ready.
Quitting is easy once you have the right attitude.
About 30 years ago, while on a love boat cruise to the Mexican Riviera, sitting by the pool one day, I met a man with a huge scar down the front of his chest; the fresh scar was from him being cracked open like a chicken for open-heart surgery. He was traveling with his drop-dead gorgeous daughter who was in her mid-20's.
One night, while half in the bag, playing blackjack and smoking my 40th or 50th cigarette of the day, I saw his daughter across the room; she was talking to friends and lighting up the room. I thought to myself: "Damn, it would be nice to be in love with a beautiful woman again." Then I thought: "If she ever kissed me she would probably throw up from the taste of stale cigarettes." Then I thought: "It would be nice to live long enough to share my life with a beautiful woman again." And I also thought: "My life is worth saving so I could actually have a chance of doing that."
When I went to bed that night I left a nearly full pack of Camels on the nightstand, knowing
I could never have another puff, as I would be a smoker again. That next morning we were pulling into Puerto Vallarta and I just left the cigarettes on the nightstand as I left to tour PV. Drinking a glass of tequila after lunch that day, I thought: "God....DAMN a cigarette would be good right now." And I realized that, if I wanted to stay off cigarettes, I HAD to quit drinking. So I did, right then and there.
Though I went back to drinking within a year or so, it was only social drinking, never to the excess I once had. Yet I never again touched tobacco.
Decades later I quit drinking and have been sober for years.
Anyone can quit. You just have to decide that your life is worth saving.
