Chapter Seventeen: 1-800-QUIT-NOW – Quitting Smoking Cigarettes

Chapter 17 of the Autobiography... Letter Q, Quit smoking Cigarettes.

 

Chapter Seventeen

1-800-QUIT-NOW – Quitting Smoking Cigarettes

 I’ve tried quitting smoking cigarettes a number of different times, but it just has never worked out in my favor. I’ve always told myself that I would completely quit smoking when I got out of jail, but of course, I always went back to it. The few other times that I actually tried to quit smoking while I was outside in the free world and was able to smoke if I wanted to, it all came down to some girl. Why I would do something that I didn’t want to do for some girl I just met, I’ll never know. But I did. I called 1-800-QUIT-NOW just like on the commercials. I sat on the phone with them for hours doing some kind of oral assessment and then was put on hold for a while. When they came back on the phone they had me schedule a follow up appointment before discussing them sending me something to help me quit. When they finally got around to discussing what they should send me I asked for Chantix, but of course the funding for the program wouldn’t pay for a new drug that was so expensive and in it’s early stages of use. Both my sister and my dad used it to help them quit, but I didn’t have insurance to pay for it. Instead they sent me nicotine patches and nicotine gum. The patches helped me but they caused me the irritation on my skin. They gave me a small rash and the skin surrounding it itched so bad. The nicotine gum helped some too, but I had a bad habit of chewing on it way too much. You are only supposed to chew it when you have a craving. When the craving goes away you’re suppose to stop chewing on it, but I just couldn’t. All in all I really was doing this for someone else when I did it. Every time I got out of jail I’d light up a cigarette right outside the front doors, and as soon as I’d get stressed out with the girl I quit smoking for, I’d light one up too. I never saw the benefits of quitting smoking for the longest time. Sure, the smell of stale cigarettes is disgusting, but I never saw the health benefits firsthand. I wasn’t noticing negative consequences to me smoking cigarettes at those times. Now that I’ll have been without a cigarette for a year when I get released, hopefully it will be easier to not go back to smoking cigarettes this time.