Cold Turkey

I was a heavy smoker for 20 years in1986. I had been trying to quit for about 18 years. It took my two beautiful daughters to finally motivate me to get the job done. This story describes how they did it.

Cold Turkey

 

In May of 1986, I was a heavy smoker smoking more than two packs of Winston cigarettes every single day. I had tried to quit smoking many times in the past and I was never able to give it up. My two daughters had been studying the effect of smoking in school. One day they came in and said “Daddy we need to talk to you.” I said OK let’s talk. They looked up at me with those beautiful eyes of theirs and said “Daddy, did you know you are killing us.” This got my immediate attention and I asked them to explain. They told me they had been studying the effects of second hand cigarette smoke on people and they said “Daddy, you smoke around us all the time and we’re breathing in your second hand smoke, so you are killing us.” I thought about it for a while and and decided they were right. We were fixing to go on vacation in South Fork, Colorado for two weeks so I decided that would be the beginning of the end for my smoking. I knew from previous experience that if I did not have cigarettes available to me when I tried to quit, the craving would be ten times worse. If you’ve ever run out of cigarettes at home, I know the craving has driven you to do the same thing I did and survey all the ashtrays in the house and pick out the longest butts and smoke them. So, I bought a new carton of Winstons and kept them in my suitcase on the trip. It was tough, but I made it through the trip without slipping. I put the carton of cigarettes in the bottom of our grandfather clock when I got home. After about a month, I started coughing up a lot black stuff out of my lungs. I continued coughing up the black stuff for a full year. I have never smoked again and my oldest daughter is 40 years old this year. A couple of years after I quit, I found the old dried up carton of cigarettes and just grinned and threw them in the trash.

 

After I quit, I felt much better, I could taste food again, the continuous coughing was gone, I could do activities without huffing and puffing, and the house smelled much better. If you’re still smoking, you have a lot of good things to look forward to when you quit.

 

 

The test: I’m right here in you suit case Bill, light me up Bill

 

Thank you for reading Cold Turkey,

Hawg Jaw Bill