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by M. C. Mathupala

Smoking is bad and dangerous. Everybody knows this and they see the U.S. Surgeon General's warning everywhere. Yet, there are some unfortunate persons among us who are unable to stop this addictive habit. This article is meant to help them Nine 'sure fire' methods that have been successfully tried by some of my friends are briefly described below.

Method # 1. Just give up. Throw that cigarette away if you are smoking one now. If you have any more cigarettes on your person or at home throw them to the trash can. Don't look at them any more. Forget about smoking totally. This requires a strong will power and I hope you have it. If you can do this and resolve not to touch another cigarette hereafter - whatever the temptation - your future life will be healthier and happier. You need not read the rest of this article. It has been said that you have to give up only one cigarette to give up smoking; that is the next cigarette!

Method # 2. Gradual reduction. If you do not have a strong will power to give up smoking immediately, try to reduce the number of cigarettes you smoke. If you are smoking 20 cigarettes a day (on the average) resolve to reduce it to 15 tomorrow. Decide on the 15 occasions you will smoke tomorrow. Keep a count of the cigarettes you smoke and stop at 15 or less. The next day reduce it to 10. But keep up to your resolve and prevent yourself getting into a relapse. Smoking is addictive. Abstinence is the best way of curing yourself of any addiction. As the days go by and you totally give up smoking you will feel better, your appetite will improve, your clothes will smell fresh and your family members and friends - sincere friends - will be happier.

Method # 3. Give up stimulants like tea, coffee etc. For most people who are addicted to smoking, it is a stimulant like tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc., that triggers the urge for a puff. The severity of addiction may be such they feel that bodily functions like bowel motions and digestion will stop without a smoke! These are myths. Resolve to reduce or eliminate the stimulants for week. Then you will feel much healthier. Once you rid yourself of the useless and dangerous habit of smoking in this manner you can get back to your tea drinking without allowing it to trigger an impulse for an immediate puff.

Method # 4. Study and observe what happens when you smoke. Give up through your own realization. Think of the first day you smoked. Most probably it would have been due to the insistence of a juvenile friend or due to sheer curiosity. Can you remember the coughing and the irritation in the throat that you suffered at that time? Your body was telling you in many ways not to smoke. But your insistence made your body surrender. It will soon be subjected to the vagaries of smoking like cancer, tuberculosis, emphysema and whooping cough, if they have not already affected you. Observe what happens when you smoke. The lungs are there to provide you with a clean blood supply through the oxygen in the air you breathe. Filling them with poisonous smoke makes your lungs struggle for fresh air. That is why you must be getting occasional bouts of severe coughing or why you feel short of breath now and then. When you go to bed today think of the harassment you give your lungs. They are the only pair you have. Help them to help you live a healthy life.

Method # 5. Think of your family members. Do you want them to suffer? Your smoking bothers your family members. They may not express their dissatisfaction directly and openly. You subject them to passive smoking that can cause cancer in them eventually. The whole house and the rooms they live in smell of tobacco smoke. The clothes they wear also smell like ash trays. They are not comfortable. They will have to visit you in hospital and spend a lot on medical attention for you without any hope. You can easily get them to avoid such future suffering by giving up smoking now.

Method # 6. Study the lives of your smoking colleagues. Decide. Compare the health of some of your colleagues who are addicted to smoking. Aren't they miserable? Their money is wasted. They are easily irritated and become angry. Some of them have lost their appetite and are poor eaters. Most of them may be addicted to drinking as well. They are wrinkled and look aged. Their strength has gradually weakened. Study what has happened to them and assess the part that smoking has played in making them and their families miserable. Make a decision not to be one of them. You have the intelligence to lead better and healthier life. You owe it to yourself. Do not sacrifice the life you cannot spare.

Method # 7. Read medical literature. Ask any medical doctor. He will say that smoking is dangerous. Read journals where eminent persons have explained how smoking can lead to cancer and other diseases mentioned in method # 4. Discuss with your family doctor. An addiction is like a an illness. Smoking does not help improve your health in any way. It only devours the healthy tissues in your body starting from the throat and lungs. Learn for yourself the dangers of tobacco smoking and resolve to protect your body and health from such dangers.

Method # 8. Meditate. Consider all the information you have collected on methods 1 to 7. Get to a quiet place and focus on the lessons that information is giving you. Meditate and concentrate on all the information you have collected. Take life seriously. Perhaps you started smoking when you were an adolescent. Now, grow up. Learn what harmful things that smoking can do to you and your loved ones. Give up.

Method # 9. Visit the terminal ward of a cancer hospital. If your will power is so weak that you have not given up smoking even at this point, arrange to visit a cancer hospital. Once you go there find out the terminal ward. That is where cancer patients go before they are sent to the mortuary and eventually to the cemetery. If you continue smoking you will soon end up at this terminal ward. Look at the colleagues and co-sufferers you will have there. Talk to some of them and see what devastation smoking can cause to a human being. If this does not make you give up smoking try the next method which I do not recommend unless you want to give up only at death! 

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