January 1982: “How long have you been smoking Brian?”
“Twenty-five years,” I replied.
“Have you ever tried to quit?”
“Many times.”
“Well then, would you agree that you really haven’t spent twenty-five years smoking. It would be more like you’ve spent twenty-five years trying to quit smoking?”
"Yes, it would,” I told him as the lights went on. I thought of that line from the old Eagles song - Already Gone: "Just remember this my friend, when you look up in the sky, you can see the stars and still not see the light."
“Good answer!" he said. "Now here’s something that you and every smoker should think about:
“What would that be?” I asked.
“The only good thing that could possibly happen to you as a result of your smoking is that nothing at all would happen to you. That’s because, if anything at all does happen to you as a result of your smoking, it’s a safe bet that you are not going to like it… one little bit.”
The next time you smoke a cigarette you are actually betting that nothing will happen to you as a result of your smoking that cigarette.
Now then...
And it’s all coupled to the sad fact that you will never be able to live your dream.
But… some tobacco executive, stockholder, politician or media executive will live their dream. And… they’ll be doing it with your money!
They win… you lose!
That hit me like a ton of bricks!
Over the next 18 years, it was constantly on my mind as I wondered what consequences of my smoking lay ahead of me. I was also freaked out by the realization that the more I smoked, the worse it was going to be.
I tried to quit smoking on a regular basis, but I always got to the point where I just could not resist the urge to smoke, “Just one. Only one.” The junkie who lived inside my head kept telling me, “Come on man… it won’t kill you. Just smoke one lousy rotten cigarette and then we’ll get back to this quit smoking forever thing you’re in to.”
Yeah… sure.
I remember things getting to the point where I was asking myself that question with every cigarette: I lit.
That’s not a very pretty picture, is it?
But… if you don’t think about what is going on inside you every time you light and smoke a cigarette, then you my friend are not living in the real world and that is going to cost you… big-time. If you're a little bit lucky all it will cost you is a lot of money but, if the price gets higher you will instantly become a very unhappy person.
Half of the people who smoke will die because of it.
The next time you are having a cigarette with a friend ask yourself this question: "Which one of us will it be? "
Kind of wrecks the fun of smoking, doesn’t it?
“From the day you were born everything you did was because you wanted something for doing it.”
With that thought in mind, every smoker should ask themselves these two questions:
Now ask yourself,
Some possibilities…
“Now that you know this, what are you going to do about it?”
