Seven years ago Dec 3rd I lost my father to a smoking related disease. It was a slow, unpleasant death. Please, if you smoke, spare yourself from this death, give it up now.
When he was young he said “Its my body, I’ll do what I want”
In the early part of his disease he said “I know men who smoked until they were 80, smoking doesn’t cause this.”
As his disease progressed and he was gasping, struggling for breath he said “This isn’t life, its not living. I’m just waiting to die.”
It was horrible to watch.
One of the worst moments of my life was when he lay in his hospital bed gasping for breath and he looked me in the eyes and said: “I’m scared.”
Someone else close to me, a good friend, died more than 14 years ago of lung cancer. In the end, he was begging God to take him because it hurt so much.
I’m sure I’ve linked to this in previous years’ versions of this thread, but one reading of Alan Carr’s book and my 25-year habit was kicked without a problem. Going on five years now without a puff…
I did! Last night! 15 whole hours (it’s longer than I’ve gone without a smoke in uh, 4 years I think). I was only on a half pack a day habit but that’s still like 90 dollars a month and I need the money really bad. SO! here we be, ye?
I am feeling so scattered. and a bit hyper. It is weird and I’m trying to find out if it’s normal.
I’m trying, dude. Soon. I’ve promised myself and my wife that I would quit after I pass my oral qualifiers for my PhD. I intend to have them done in the next couple of weeks, so you do the math.
My father-in-law, after almost two weeks laying in the pallative care ward waiting to die from a smoking related cancer, woke up, looked at me with the clearest eyes I’d seen through his drug induced fog and the pain that no drug could touch and asked, “Am I dead yet?” and when I told him No, he looked at me with complete sorrow and said, “Oh please. Please. Please, yes”.
Seven years later, his voice, his pain and his request…it makes me weep.
I quit 3 months ago. Long after the above happend but it was one of the many reasons I finally did it.
I could have written this post. May 20, 2005 was the last day I smoked. I’m so much happier as a a non smoker. Looking back at it, it wasn’t that hard to quit once I got in the right mindset.
Another vote for Allen Carr’s book. I started smoking at age 18, and I’m 25 now. Through the years, I had tried to quit multiple times, but always ended up caving within two weeks.
A while back, I was having the same types of issues I’d always have when I decided I wanted to quit. I’d go a week without smoking, then I’d smoke a pack while drinking. I’d go another 3 days, and smoke another.
So, I strategically brought nicotine patches into the mix. Now, I’ve heard some people say that these are bad because they keep you addicted to nicotine. That may be true, but they keep 95% of the cravings away while you break the psychological habit of actually smoking a cigarette.
I had a couple relapses here, and another there, but for the most part, I was relying on the patches instead of cigarettes. About 5 weeks ago, I got a good 3 days of no smoking on my side, but I was feeling antsy. Knowing that I was about to blow it, I decided to read Allen Carr’s book over the course of a couple of nights. As soon as I finished, I vowed to myself that I would never use nicotine again and ripped my patch off.
I pale in comparison to you guys, but I am 34 days smoke free, and 29 days nicotine free. And it was so much easier this time thanks to “Easy Way to Stop Smoking”. I’ll even admit that I thought the book was repetitive and boring, but it really flipped a switch in my head. It made me actually want to quit smoking, instead of feeling like it was a sacrifice.
My parents quit in 1990. They’re 65 and 63 years old now. I’m grateful to still have them around and I think the quitting smoking has something to do with it. Dad did some timer-thingy that he set and could only have a cigarette when it told him to, and was so weaned electronically. Mom went to a hypnosis seminar that didn’t work the first time but did the second.
It all came down to wanting to quit, not trying to quit because they had to or were supposed to.
Four years ago I noticed many Dopers extolling the effectiveness of this book in a similar thread. I kinda sorta wanted to stop, so I ordered the book online. $12.95 or thereabouts. The book arrived and sat untouched in the magazine basket for the next 12 months. Having, at the time, no real desire or intention of quitting, I read the book anyway on November 15, 2007.
I finished the book, and have not used tobacco in any form since. I smoked 2 packs of American menthol cigarettes daily for nearly 40 years.
That’s it. Read book, didn’t want to smoke anymore. Haven’t smoked since.
My father died in 1983 at the age of 52, of cancer. He’d started smoking around 15 years of age, and did it all the way until the end, with a respite of 2 years once, when I was a young boy. He was a slave to the cigarettes, they controlled his life, and he just couldn’t get out from under their grasp.
He went from being a pretty normal guy (although he coughed and wheezed like hell every morning for a while after he woke up), to being a wasted-away ghost of himself in a couple short months.
He had attended the ceremony in celebration of my being taken into the National Honor Society in my sophomore year of high school on crutches, moving so slowly it took him 10 minutes to take a seat, just a few days before he died. He was so proud of me, the first of his 5 sons to get recognized for any sort of academic achievement. And then 3 days later he ended his life on 10 acres of land we held, in the front seat of our car, with a gun to his head.
He’d been in such severe pain caused by the cancer that he would practically jump up out of a chair in pain when it hit. He died miserable, and knowing that he’d caused it himself (aided by the evil cigarette-pushers). I remember when I was a boy, trying so hard to get him to stop. I used to leave little facts I’d written, lying around the house, like, ‘Every cigarette you smoke takes away 7 minutes of your life’ (or something like that, anyways), and he tried like hell, but he just couldn’t do it. I can only imagine that it was annoying as hell having a 7 or 8 year old kid nagging you about it, but I so wanted him to stop, as I saw the effect it had on him.
Argh. A good friend of mine just started smoking again, at age 53, after something like 15 years without. It’s bugging me no end. I’m glad I never smoked, so I don’t have to face this particular struggle.
I quit a week ago after 20 years of smoking. I read Carr’s book and it definitely helped. It also helped that I had some motivation on my side called scary high blood pressure. Damn stuff is poison and it is addictive as all hell. If you are thinking about quitting, read Alan Carr’s book. Even if you have not yet decided, go ahead and read the book. You might just make your decision right there.
My dad quit smoking for good, after many failed attempts in previous years, on New Year’s Day, 1997. He says it was because he started having chest pains going up stairs, but I think it was the move from L.A. to the Upper Midwest and the misery of smoking outside on a -20 degree day that did it.
I’m so grateful that I’ll get to spend more time with him, even if he does drive me crazy.
You can do it, for yourself and for your loved ones!