Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Well, that's it...

I can still remember the first time I smoked a cigarette. I was six yers old and one of the neighborhood kids swiped a pack of smoke from his dad. Got dizzy as hell but in some way it felt good. After that I smoked whenever I could sneak one from the smokers in the family. By the time I was 14 my folks knew I smoked and never did anything about it. I was going to a Catholic school at the time and one day my two buds and I were waiting for the streetcar to go home when Sister Mary Jane shows up. She asked if our parents knew that we smoked and of course we all said yes. That was on a Friday as I recall and on Monday, first thing in the morning Sister says that on her way home she caught my buds and me smoking. She then said we told her out parents knew we smoked and were OK with it. Upshot was my two buds were hauled off the the boys lavatory and the yells from them were heard throughout the school. In 1975 I was a three pack a day smoker with a cigar or pipe or two thrown in. My wife had been trying to get me to quit off and on and frankly, I did try only to fail Then one day she says the Seventh Day Adventist are in town and are giving free classes on quitting smoking. I was thinking it'll be a futile gesture but I agreed to go. Interesting three evenings. First they said a prayer for the Lord's help and then interesting lectures. At the end of the first class as we were leaving, they were standing at the door and asking us to throw out smoking materials, matches and lighters in the waste baskets. I asked to keep the lighter because it was a gift from the detachment I was in when I left Korea, suitably engraved. Funny thing I didn't smoke that night nor the next day nor any day after that until about three month after the classes. Just no desire. While at work, at the time three month later I bummed a smoke from of coworker. I wanted to be sure I'd really quit. Sure as hell I got that same dizzy sensation that I'd had way back when I was six. Two drags and I put it out. Haven't smoked since. I then realized that in some way tobacco had a stoning effect. Rather mild but that how it felt to me. I'd literally carried a buzz on for 31 years. I had that first smoke in 1944. I thought it was cool. Now I realize I was fool for not quitting sooner.
One thing that was good in that system was each one of us had a buddy. If the urge came on we could call our buddy, day or night and talk the urge away. My buddy turned out to be the father of one of my hunting partners so we paired up. He had lung cancer but he never said what stage. He never stopped smoking was dead about six months after the class. He told me shortly before he passed that he just could not stop.

Two things I got from that class. One is I found that deer hunting at the higher elevations was a lot easier. I could keep up with my buds instead of gasping like a fish out of water. Second, I found out I could get it done. Quit cold and stick to it. If I can do it, so can the OP
PJ.