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From: jla@inuxd.UUCP (Joyce Andrews)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: re: quit smoking postings
Message-ID: <815@inuxd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 10:43:50 EST
Article-I.D.: inuxd.815
Posted: Thu Nov 14 10:43:50 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 01:24:10 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
Lines: 37

I smoked for more than twenty years.  After the Surgeon General's
first report I tried to quit.  I failed over and over again.  I
thought I was destined to smoke forever.

When my two children started hearing about smoking and health in
their school (starts about grade 3, I think) they started getting
after me.  Everytime I opened a pack of matches I would see a
childish scrawl that said "Don't smoke, Mommy," or "Please don't
smoke.  We don't want you to die."  (This was before they became
teenagers, you understand.  Now I'm not sure they would care.)
Messages were rolled up and stuck into my cigarette packs--in
short, they didn't let me forget that I was ruining my health.

At some point my desire to quit became greater than my desire
(need?) to smoke, and I was able to quit, almost easily.
Something "flip flops" in the brain, I think.  It had always been
so difficult as to be impossible before.  Suddenly it wasn't all
that hard.  That was almost five years ago.  I haven't touched
the weed since.   

My point is this:  my children did for me what the anti-smoking
postings may do for somebody else.  It's not enough to say it
once.  They had to drill the message into my thought processes.
Quitting smoking had to become a desire so important to me it
over-ruled the desire to smoke.  When that happens, it's almost
easy!  If this is as true as my experience suggests, let's "n"
the anti-smoking postings if we don't smoke and let those
that do absorb the negative-smoking thoughts.  Most smokers want
to quit, no matter what they say.  Because they are afraid of
failure, they either don't try, or even say they don't want to
try.  Until they REALLY want to quit, it may be impossible for
them.  But not forever.  A person isn't a worthless piece of trash
just because he/she hasn't reached the point where quitting is
possible.  Let's help them reach the point without condemming
them.  And we non-smokers can overlook a little ugly information
if it helps someone else.