How I quit smoking

How did I quit smoking? I did it cold turkey.

In my last blog I talked about why I quit smoking. When you tell people that you have quit smoking, they never ask you why you quit smoking, but they always ask you how. To most people, you quit because smoking is bad for your health, that’s what the mass propaganda machine says all over the world.

To me, it is the why I could not get around it. I was stuck with why I have to quit. Once the why becomes clear, the how comes naturally.

It might be helpful for those who try to convince themselves or their loved ones to quit smoking to look at how I arrived at my conclusion in quitting cigarette smoking. Nobody can ever convince me that smoking less than 10 cigarettes a day is critical to my health and longevity any more than our daily consumptions of fat, sugar and carcinogens.

However, it is quite obvious to see that cigarette smoking (nicotine) is highly addictive. When that addiction is being overlooked and smoking is considered fashionable, such as in the 50s, I would never have needed to quit. Now the addiction is being looked down and people think you are retarded if you smoke. Therefore, even if cigarette smoking is good for your health, the benefit will be canceled out due to the negativity you encounter every time you smoke a cigarette.

Austrian philosopher Hans Kelsen believes that although law is separate from morality; we ought to obey it. That is how I feel about smoking. Although the effect of cigarette smoking on health is not clear cut, one ought to quit, just because the society demands it.

Imagine my first three days of not smoking. I felt totally bullied into doing it even though it was my own decision.

I still crave for a cigarette; I will be o.k. without one.