The diary of a woman who quit smoking for good: why should I quit smoking?

Part 1: Quit smoking date
Part 2: Denial of a smoker
Part 3: Why I chose to live
Part 4: Day one
Part 5: Day two



I received a phone call that my uncle had a stroke and was not doing very well. I was devastated. He suffered a major stroke and heart attack that almost took his life away. He was immediately taken into surgery to clear as many of the clots as they could. The surgeons managed to keep him alive, but he had a long road to recovery ahead of him.

He was in the hospital for many months before he was moved to a long-term rehabilitation facility for stroke patients. My uncle was having a difficult time recovering. My uncle had a trachea tube for breathing, unable to move from his bed, and unable to recover. He was a heavy smoker for over fifty years of his life. The damage that his body sustained over the years made recovery impossible and unfortunately my Uncle died six months later.

When I attended the funeral, my cousin told me more details about my Uncle’s stroke. Every opportunity to save him was prevented by the damage from smoking. There were many procedures that could have saved him, but the surgeons were unable to perform any surgeries because of the damage to his body from smoking. All the years of smoking destroyed any chance that he had to live and unfortunately took his live.

The details I heard over the months and at the funeral was overwhelming. My dear Uncle died from smoking. This unfortunate end to a great man was caused by smoking cigarettes. Everything hit me at the funeral. I lost a wonderful uncle to cigarettes and I was heading in the same direction. This was the moment that I decided to make my quit smoking date one week from my Uncle’s funeral.

The death of my Uncle brought me to reality and made me start thinking about my cigarette addiction. I was slowly dying for a cigarette, literally. Everywhere I went, everything I did, involved a cigarette. What was I doing to myself? Why did I start smoking? Why am I still smoking? I could not believe that I smoked cigarettes for almost two decades and did not realize the damage I was doing to my health, the damage I already have done to my health, and the possibility that I could be in the same situation as my Uncle.

It was time to quit smoking. This time, I needed to make sure that I would quit smoking for good and never touch a cigarette again. I needed to make sure that this time I succeeded and would not start smoking again. I have tried many times before, many methods of quitting that failed in the past. I needed to research the best method to quit smoking for good that would work for me.

I had everything that I needed to quit smoking for good and I was ready for the challenge. All of my supplies were ready for Saturday’s quit smoking date, ready for me to become a non-smoker for life. I was a little nervous because I failed many times in the past. I did not want to fail again, but I knew that this time would be different than the past attempts. This time, I was the one who wanted to quit smoking for good.

When Friday arrived, I knew this was my last day to smoke cigarettes and I took full advantage of this day. I smoked one cigarette after another, all day long, every chance I could get, until I went to sleep. Every chance that I had, I smoked a cigarette. After all, this was the very last time I would smoke the cigarettes I enjoyed for almost two decades.

I wanted to enjoy the cigarettes one last time before I finally quit smoking for good. So I smoked and smoked until I was ready to call it a night. Right before I called it night, I took every ashtray, lighter, and cigarettes that I had and threw them away. I wanted to make sure that there was nothing left to make it an option. I wanted to make sure that I would quit smoking for good.