This isn’t for me - I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life and never plan to - but for my father…
I’m really worried about him. He is 53 and has been smoking since he was (I think) 13. That’s FORTY years of smoking to overcome. He has tried a couple things in the past to quit, but I guess he gave up… I am terrified for him, every morning he gets up and goes in the bathroom and hacks and coughs and spits up gobs of nasty shit… I honestly don’t know if he’ll live 5 more years (even though he’s never been hospitalized for it or anything…) and that really terrifies me… I lost my mom a little over a year ago to cancer and heart disease – I’m 19, my older sister is 21, and my little brother is only 16… I’m really scared to lose him, and I just don’t know how to get him to stop… any advice, guys?
Have you told him exactly that? If I were a smoker, that itself would work on me.
As far as actual methods are concerned, I’ve heard from friends who smoke (and since quit) good things about Zyban. There is information at Zyban.com although there probably won’t be information on side effects as it’s the company website.
I also have had a few acquaintances quit smoking using the patch.
Let my Mom talk to him! She was a 30 year smoker who I thought would never quit. Turns out she did, but not by her own choice.
Smoking, along with all of its Cancer-causing risks, also weakens your blood vessels. My mom didn’t know this, and it probably wouldn’t have made her stop even if she had known. Anyway, December 2001, just a few days before Christmas she had an unknown brain aneurysm rupture. This is about as serious & life-threatening as they come. 2 Helicopter rides and 3 hospitals into it she had brain surgery. She was knocked out for the better part of two weeks so she missed the normal withdraw symptoms of quitting smoking.
Her doctors have told her that smoking that much for that long probably had a huge part in her rupture.
I knew the test would come when she left the hospital. She has happily surprised me & is coming up on smoke-free for a year. She now is an “obnoxious ex-smoker” as she calls it. She lectures at smoking cessation classes and about any other chance she gets.
She was a hardcore smoker, like 2 packs a day - I never thought she would quit. Tell your Dad about her. She or I would be happy to e-mail about it. I can tell him from the prospective of a child watching you young parent in INCU, with the Doctors giving her grim prospects. Not fun at all.
I smoked two packs a day for 20 years – finally quit when prices went up again in March of '99 (did the math and realized I was spending damn close to $2,000 a year for cigarettes).
What everyone has been saying is true:
He won’t quit till he’s damn good and ready. He knows it’s a bad idea, stinky, dangerous, expensive, disgusting – and he is addicted.
Your telling him your fears, as you so eloquently told us, really might make a difference, esp. because of your mom. Tell him how you’re feeling and ask him to think about quitting – because, again, he has to decide for himself he’s ready to quit.
I used to work with a guy who was a heavy smoker, and he decided to try quitting by figuring out how many cigarettes he smoked every day, and smoking one less cigarette each day. It seemed to be working- he was weaning himself off the cancer sticks gradually with no nicotine withdrawls, no crankiness, he was doing well. He got down to two cigarettes a day.
Then his girlfriend, who he had been having problems with for a long time, left him. He got incredibly depressed and started smokng heavily again. I left the job shortly after that, but I think he was planning to have another go at it once he got over the breakup.
Anyway, not exactly a success story, but I think the dude was on the right track, and if the other circumstances hadn’t intervened, he would have been smoke free in another forty-eight hours. Try suggesting this idea to your dad.
This sounds flippant, but it’s not. I was a two-pack-a-day smoker and quit cold turkey seven years ago.
The Secret to Quitting Smoking is: Not smoking.
Like all addicts, smokers trying to quit are very good at coming up with a perfectly rational reason why it’s OK to have just one cigarette right now and then they’ll never have one again. Always remember, any thought process that ends with “so now I’ll light up, and it’s OK!” is wrong.
If he isn’t motivated enough to save his own life, you might want to mention the hazardous effects of second-hand smoke on the people around him. I didn’t quit until I realized I was seriously endangering the health of someone I loved.
You might also go the hard route, if it becomes necessary. Tell him you love him, and you can’t bear to see his health go to hell and lose him. If he won’t stop smoking you’ll just have to stop spending time with him, because you’d rather remember him as he is than as he will be.
Harsh, I know, and hopefully unnecessary, but it might at least drive the point home.