Believe me, I had all the standard smart-ass answers to justify my smoking over the years:
- Something will kill me someday, so why not keep smoking?
- Getting a serious lung disease won't happen to me....it will happen to someone else.
- I really enjoy smoking! Why should I quit doing something that I really like to do?
- Etc.
Believe me, nobody was more addicted to smoking than me!
Bottom line.....sadly, you have to want to quit before you will.
Do you want to know what finally made me quit (too late, by the way)?
After being involved in an auto accident that totaled my car and nearly killed me, I wound up in a local emergency room. That night, I was placed in intensive care and wasn't released for a week. It turns out that I had passed out in the emergency room and the hospital's chief surgeon on duty (who happened to be running the ER that day), ordered a "Doppler" test on me in an attempt to determine why I passed out in the ER.
The results of the "Doppler" test indicated that I had a 96% - 99% blockage from plaque in my L/H carotid artery. Once the surgeon saw the results, he told me that I "had a BIG problem" and, leading me by the hand, introduced me to a vascular surgeon that would take care of the blockage immediately. As I was standing there talking to both of them, I still remember saying to them while standing there, "It's a good thing I had a wreck!", meaning it was a good thing I had an auto accident or they wouldn't have discovered the blockage in the first place.
I decided to take all my charts and medical records to my own doctor (who happens to be a Pulmonary Specialist) the very next day. Once he saw the results of the "Doppler" test, he immediately ordered a carotid angiogram to verify the results of the "Doppler" test.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-carotid-angiogram.htm
Sure enough, the angiogram verified the results of the "Doppler" test.....a 96% - 99% blockage in my L/H carotid artery. My doctor immediately referred me to a vascular surgeon who told me the same day that if I didn't have surgery to remove the blockage right away, I had an 85% chance of having a stroke and dying. After I had the surgery, I would have a 5% chance of having a stroke and dying. Needless to say, the decision was a "no brainer".
As I was being prepped for the surgery the very next day, a downright nasty nurse told me, in no uncertain terms, that smoking was the only reason that I had such a severe blockage of my carotid artery because every time I took a drag off a cigarette, the rush of nicotine would cause my blood vessels to constrict, which eventually resulted in the formation of plaque (actually cholesterol). She went on to say that the blockage could have killed me.....and that, if I had any sense, I would quit smoking immediately!
Within an hour, I had a Carotid endarterectomy:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/carend/
I was released from the hospital the next day. I went home with a big bandage around my neck that had to be changed every day for about a week.
The very day that I was released from the hospital, I threw away all the cigarettes I had, and have never smoked another cigarette again since then. That was over 11 years ago.
To help me cope with the nicotine addiction and the sudden ceasing of smoking cigarettes, my doctor gave me a month's supply of a "branded" drug called Zyban from his "stash" of samples.
http://www.quitsmoking.com/zyban/index.htm
In addition, he wrote me a script for a month's supply of Welbutrin for when the Zyban ran out.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000970/
Not taking any chances, I took all of the Zyban, then had the prescription filled for the Welbutrin and took it all. I'll never really know whether or not the Zyban and/or the Welbutrin helped me to quit smoking. It could have been all mental. All I know is.....I was highly motivated to quit smoking and I have never had the desire to smoke another cigarette since I quit smoking over 11 years ago.
The problem is, I quit too late! By the time I quit, there was already way too much damage done to my lungs from smoking. My doctor (the Pulmonary Specialist) conducts an expensive (over $1,200) PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) every year to evaluate my lungs. Unfortunately, he had to start prescribing oxygen a little over 3 years ago. He's had to slowly increase my oxygen intake (in liters per minute) every year and there's not a thing I can do about it, nor can I stop the progress of this insidious disease called COPD, the fourth leading cause of death in America.
As I sit here typing with the cannula to an oxygen hose in my nose.....is it any wonder that I said in an earlier post that taking up smoking (at the age of 12) is at the very top of the list of the dumbest things I've ever done?