Will your next cigarette be “the one”?

“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?”

“I sure as hell would,” I told him as the lights went on.

“Good answer! Now here’s something that you and every smoker should think about:

There is only one good thing that can happen to you as a result of your smoking.”

“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.”

Here’s the bet every smoker makes

When you think about it, the next time you smoke a cigarette you are betting that nothing will happen to you as a result of your smoking that cigarette. If you lose that bet here is what the losing side of that bet could cost you:

1. Your heart,
2. Your lungs,
3. 7 to 15 years of  your life,
4. A lot of pain,
5. A lot of your hard-earned, after-tax dollars.
6. Some really tragic combination of many or even all of the above.

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!

Whoa!

That hit me like a ton of bricks! Over the next 15 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.

Will the next cigarette be the one?

I remember asking myself every time I lit up a cigarette:

“Could the next cigarette you smoke be – the one!”

• “Is this cigarette the one that if I hadn’t smoked it, it would not have set the lung cancer  process on it’s tragic, painful, irreversible course?”
• “Will this cigarette be the one that gets the emphysema going so that I’ll spend the rest of my life breathing through a straw that doesn’t allow me enough air to ever be comfortable and gets smaller every day?”
• “Will this cigarette be the one that will cause my arteries to clog up so that the blood can’t pass through and cause the big one – the heart attack that will kill me before I hit the floor – 7 to 15 years before my time?

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.

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?

Dale Carnegie said,

“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:

1. What is it that you really want from smoking?
2. Are you getting it?

Now ask yourself,

“What will I get if I quit smoking?”

Some possibilities…

• good health
• a lot of money
• a longer life
• self-respect
• a great sense of accomplishment
• all of the above

The BIG question then

“Now that you know this, what are you going to do about it?”

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