IQ - I Quit! - Mithran Devanesen ( Appeared in The Hindu NXG)

“A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite and leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?” Oscar Wilde in “The Picture of Dorian Grey”

A slave to tobacco myself for over 40 years, I worshipped at the altar of tobacco, like Wilde, smoking 40 cigarettes a day (on a good day and more on a bad day). When you are a smoker, somehow you manage to avoid reading all those articles in the press and the Reader’s Digest on the dangers of smoking.

My two brothers — both doctors — stopped sending me birthday cards. Instead they sent cuttings on cancer; to no avail. Those just landed in the wastepaper basket. The only respite in reducing the number of cigarettes was when I travelled to the U.K., the U.S. and Canada where they slammed a ’sin tax’ on cigarettes and the cost puts a huge dent in your pocket.

I did quit many years ago for two years. I was at a cocktail party and I thought, *It’s been two years; I’ve kicked the habit. So let me have a drag.” By the end of the evening, I had smoked four cigarettes; by the end of the week I was back at 40!

Nicotine is highly addictive but pressure from my brothers and my family doctor drove me to try to quit. I tried The Gum, The Patch, Holistic Healing, Reiki, Ayurveda and even Hypnosis. With each try, my smoking was like a yo-yo. Down on the first day of treatment and up again two days later. I used to dread long-distance flights but smokers are a crafty lot and will sniff out a smoking area even in the strictest airports at home and abroad.

Finally it was the US of A and my sense of pride that made me quit. I was visiting my daughter in Denver and she took me out to lunch at a very fancy Italian restaurant — fine Irish linen tablecloths and napkins, pure silver cutlery, crystal glasses and fine bone china.

After one of the finest meals I’ve ever eaten (I am bit of an epicure), I wanted to smoke and was told the only place I could do so was at the back of the restaurant. I went there, lit up and looked around at my surroundings — rotting garbage with accompanying aroma. I thought to myself , “You have really debased yourself coming here for a smoke after the plush ambience of the restaurant.”

I stubbed out my cigarette and threw the pack and lighter into the garbage can. And that was it. IQ and have stayed quit. Today I can sit in a room full of smokers and the thought of a cigarette does not even cross my mind. I went through no withdrawals, no case of the heebie-jeebies ;just sheer determination.

So if you want to quit and stay quit you can do it. Join the Quitters Club and, as the Beatles said, “You can get by with a little help from your friends.”