Friday Fact #4.
I smoked up until I was 21.
When I was 18 my Dad had a heart attack, he was a 60 a day smoker, it nearly killed him. My Dad's brother had angina and between them they had a few other illness's such as lung infections and other heart problems. At age 21 I was smoking a minimum of 30 fags a day, everyday. I was heading down a road that didn't have much of a future.
"giving up smoking is easy, I've done it loads of times, Ha Ha Ha" this old line applied to me, I had tried before but never really wanted to give up.
So, why was I successful this time? what was different? well I had a real incentive, I didn't want a heart attack in my mid 30's and also I had been reading about positive mental attitude in an article in a martial arts magazine.
I officially gave up on my 21st birthday, as a present to myself, this was a Friday. On the following Sunday I had one smoke and then another on wednesday. On Thursday something happened that was really the key to my giving up.
I was driving to my Kung Fu class with a bloke called Vince who I gave a lift to,
"want a smoke Mick?" he asked
"er, erm, yeah OK" I replied "I'm actually giving up, but I'll have one anyway"
"giving up?"
"yeah" I said
" in that case you can't have one" he said coldly.
"WHAT!, come on don't fuck me about, give us a fag"
"no, if your giving up then I'm not giving you a fag"
there followed a moment of silence then Vince laughed and said "I'm just messing, here have one"
I thought about it, either I'm giving up or I'm not. Decision time.
"no" I said firmly "you can poke your fags up your arse"
I never smoked again.