Butt Out

Today is the start of the Quit Smoking Canada Campaign. Yah! Yah! I know.... stop nagging.


Well folks I have been there before and I have succeeded. But it was not easy. I was one of the dirtiest and most determined smokers you will ever meet. Yes folks I devoured  90 to 100 plus cancer sticks per day. At the time we lived in Riverview New Brunswick. It was 1986 and I had been smoking from a very young age.... too young to post here.


I was sitting in our living room when I finished my pack. It was November 16th 1986. I was about to go buy a new pack when out of nowhere I decided to quit...... cold f#@%ing turkey.


Now folks I was one of those people who always said he had "will power"........ "I will smoke" ... "nobody will make me quit" ....... nobody did ..... I did it on my own....


On November 16th 1986 I threw my empty package into the fireplace..... I never told anyone what I was doing..... nothing annoyed me more than to have the family support me in my attempt to quit.... some two or three hundred times..... WHATEVER


The following day I made my usual visit to Tim Horton's for the bullshit meeting. While there I announced my intent to quit.... an acquaintance at the end of the counter said that I couldn't do it.... afterall I lit one cigarette with the last...... really?? so we bet..... as a perennial failure I did not have high expectations of myself.


Dave Chase, a friend was sitting with me. He said "Bob, my dad told me that if you survived the third day, the third week, the third month and the third year you had it licked".


Let me tell you something folks..... "the third day was hell" .... but I knew I could survive the day


"The third week was hell" but I knew if I got past this trial I would be OK


Oh Yeah! The third month..... I had never got past that obstacle before....in hundreds of attempts. But I remembered what Dave Chase told me ...... and I made it...  or did I


As time progressed not smoking became easier. Suddenly the third year was upon me and ... yes it was hell .... but I had Dave's encouraging voice in the back of my mind ..... and I passed the test


The desire and habit never really leaves you but it does subside and you can say NO.... In 2000 I was standing on a roof when the foreman offered me a cigarette.... out of habit I reached out... then thought???? WTF I don't smoke.