Three years ago this week I gave up cigarettes. I’d smoked for twenty-six years, so quitting was a pretty momentous event, and a challenge. Modern chemistry helped: I had pretty good luck with the drug Chantix — it only made me a little bit moody — but it rendered smoking a cigarette about as pleasurable as smoking a carrot. That was just the help I needed.
I’m told I should expect that I’ve added six months to my lifeline, so far. And quitting has saved me about ten thousand bucks for the 25,000 cigarettes I haven’t smoked. I’ve been able to up my fitness level in very spiffy ways: I’m running, bicycling and rowing my way to still better health, and I can do that because I can breathe.
There’s been a heap of other benefits, too. I like the fact that I no longer stink like a stale ashtray, I don’t need to invent reasons to take breaks in meetings, and I don’t get anxious if I’m running low on cigarettes. That sucked. A lot.
After three years, I feel pretty confident in saying cigarettes don’t own me any more. Now bacon… that’s another matter.
