QUITTING CIGARETTE

QUITTING CIGARETTES
Cigarette smoking has become a presidential topic lately because Benigno (Noynoy) Aquino III, the president elect is a chain smoker. Many are nagging him to quit the habit and there are as many suggestions as there are letters in the alphabet.

I myself have tried about a dozen of those suggestions and have also failed a dozen times. Every time I tried I failed and ended up smoking more sticks until I became monstrously addicted to it that for about twenty years I was smoking four packs a day.

I was already expelling out rusty phlegm every morning and I knew the bad effects and all the detrimental complications of the habit but still I continued smoking because I simply couldn’t quit. Besides my bed was a huge clay pot (palayok) serving as my ash tray. When I run out of cigarette I pick again the already crushed butt and light anew.

I used to smoke three sticks before going out of bed on waking up in the morning. One uneventful day when I was about to light my first stick, I unceremoniously told myself: “What if I smoke after my bath?” and so it happened that after taking a quick shower my urge to smoke was even stronger and so again as if playing with myself I said “What if I smoke after breakfast?” It was my second victory that morning and I felt simply heroic having successfully conquered myself.

After breakfast the urge to puff cigarette was triple stronger but again I told myself “I will smoke after evacuating my vowels”. This time I felt truly triumphant so I bravely promised myself: “I will not smoke today!”. I was overwhelmingly successful. In the afternoon I was feeling uneasy as a result of withdrawal possibly. I didn’t take up any substitute like gums and candies. I just drank half glass of water whenever I have the urge. The next morning I again teasingly told myself: “I will not smoke today” I didn’t promise to quit smoking. I just challenge myself on waking up in the morning.

On the third day the withdrawal syndrome was already actively felt. I was afraid of something I couldn’t explain. The eerie kind of fear was felt the whole day so I just continued with my half glass of water therapy that on the fourth day I was totally disoriented but at the same time I felt stronger to fight all the discomforts brought by withdrawal.

On the second week I knew I have already conquered the habit. To continue overcoming the challenge I regularly put my favorite pack on my vest pocket and a working lighter on my pants pocket. Whenever I have the urge to smoke I take out the pack from my pocket and whispered to it: “You are only a pack of cigarette but I am a human being. You cannot be stronger than me” then I returned the pack to my pocket.

At the end of the second week I bought a whole cartoon of my favorite unfiltered brand, crushed all the sticks in my huge clay pot ash tray and burned them. While burning I cursed it as I would curse a criminal with instructions never to bother me anymore.

That was in 1978 or 32 years ago. Since then my appetite was improved and although I grew a little bigger I became healthier and happier if not handsomer.

Psychologists said that cigarette was the extension of our mother’s nipple. When we were babies we seek and connect to our mother’s nipple when we were hungry, afraid, in pain, or whatever negative emotion we were experiencing at the moment. The nipple was our security and now that we were weaned from the nipple we look for a substitute whenever we felt insecure. The substitute could be thumb sucking, smoking or other more abnormal and more disgusting mouth activities.

For whatever reason, smoking habit could willfully be controlled without any untoward side effects except for the withdrawal syndrome. Since the habit could be a sub-conscious need for security, hypnotic sessions could be very, very helpful.