One Can Live Without Smoking

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

September 29, 1963

   IT ALL happened one evening when I ran out of cigarettes and decided I'd rather have 30 cents than a smoke.  Next morning I wondered if I could survive until noon without smoking.

   Hour after hour I put off smoking.  That evening, to steel myself against surrender, I told my wife I was through with tobacco.  Next morning I made the announcement at the office.  My associates grinned and a couple of them made bets as to how long before I resumed smoking.  

   It's now been 20 days, 12 hours and 10 minutes since I've smoked and I've gulped no "no smoke" pills, munched few mints, chewed little gum and sniffed no snuff.  I am coming to regard the cigarette habit as untidy, unsanitary, unhealthy, smelly and inexcusable.

   THE SAVING which accrues to those who quit cigarettes is considerable.  The habit has cost me about $125 a year, and for really heavy smokers it runs to $300 or more.  The saving in time is startling, too.  I've done some figuring merely on the incidentals for one year and have come up with this:

   Fueling $1 lighter and otherwise keeping it working 50 per cent of the time--65 minutes; lighting it--one hour; hunting for lighter, matches and ash trays--two hours; borrowing cigarettes-- 45 minutes; brushing ashes off pants--25 minutes; coughing--95 minutes; reassuring wife that you aren't coming down with lung cancer--45 minutes; listening to wife tell how well Bill MacKenzie looks since he's quit smoking--three hours.

   This totals quite a batch of time.  I can't say definitely what I'll now do with the additional hours but will think of some meaningful social contribution unless I get too fat to think.

   ALL THOSE who have quit smoking themselves tell me how much better I feel.  I'm glad to know that my health has improved but really can't say that I feel much better than when flooding the lungs with tar and nicotine.

   I don't sleep any better but my wife says this is because there was no room for improvement.  She declares that I appear more alert when awake, at least, and that I'm sleeping much quieter.  She thinks she might find it endurable to share the same bedroom with me again.

   I haven't quit smoking forever.  In my old age I'll resume it.  It'll be something to do while listening to the ball games.  But quitting isn't actually as difficult as the crusaders against tobacco would have you think.  The "quit smoking" campaigns, I suspect, do as much harm as good by building up the habit to the point of fascination.  Clinics and seminars are held to help addicts break away.  The anti-tobacco powwows catch some of the flavor of revival meetings.

   THEY MAKE renunciation of smoking appear about as easy as quitting dope, and the fellow who goes without cigarettes for a few weeks or months is hailed for Spartan resolve and religious faith.

   It really isn't that difficult to quit.  It's only as difficult as mental attitudes make it.  Keep telling yourself that quitting is easy and maybe it will be.  I know absolutely that I can go without smoking tomorrow.  All I need to do is hold this thought day after day.

   I admit that it makes the future seem a trifle bleak.

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