Julius Chance
How did I quit smoking
The vise clenched
Yet, finally, I became addicted too. An so strongly! By the time I entered the university, I was consistently smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. Further, my living in a smoking hostel, the stress of studying and the romance of student life brought my daily consumption to a pack of cigarettes a day. Many students have been on this dose for years. My addiction progressed mercilessly further. By the end of my fourth year, I was smoking a pack and a half a day, sometimes even two. Such amount of nicotine could not but affect my health and well-being. The mood and vividness of perception of life decreased. My face became gray with circles under eyes. First time in my life I experienced shortness of breath and my heart began to ache. Performance in all my activities decreased and went up only for short periods after smoking. In the end even this positive effect of nicotine disappeared – I began to feel bad after each cigarette smoked! A paradoxical situation arose. Every 20 minutes I had a craving for a cigarette, which increased dramatically over time if I abstained. But as soon as I smoked it, I became ill straight away and my performance dropped to almost zero. I decided to quit smoking at whatever it takes. Unexpectedly I’ve got a boost to my morale. I discovered another student who had the same symptoms – he also suffered after each cigarette consumed. We both woke up in the morning completely physically exhausted, not remembering what day of the week it was, what lectures today scheduled and at what time, what was yesterday, what we planned for today. We could hardly think of anything, barely remember our names, but we firmly remembered that we urgently needed to smoke two or three cigarettes in a row preferably strong ones like ‘Belomorkanal’ or ‘Kazbek’. Then we needed to drink a couple of glasses of strongest black tea. And only after that, the memory and vitality slowly returned to us. Our brains launched the process of thinking and our bodies began to satisfactorily obey our commands. We were ready to start a new day.
The first attack
We agreed to quit smoking together in order to support each other morally and keeping in mind that the shame of failure of one of us in front of the other would hold each of us back. I only lasted two days. Not sure about him. We both ended up smoking secretly from each other. A few days later, our common friends discovered our cheating and revealed it to both of us.
I decided to strengthen the deterrent effect of shame, as well as to exclude the very possibility of secretly smoking or at least to make it as difficult as possible. Having gathered all my courage, I announced to ALL my acquaintances that from such and such a date I would no longer smoke. The day came. I threw away all my cigarettes and hold on with all my might. Falling asleep became a feat. The mornings became worse than the morning of execution for the Streltsy at Peter the Great reign. For them, at least, their sufferings then were soon over, whereas for me they were just restarting again. My head refused to think straight. I kept forgetting about everything and was unfriendly. For four days, I somehow managed to get through honestly. On the fifth day, I was ‘caught’ secretly smoking in the park by one of my friends, who spread the news to everyone. It was a shame! When next time again I publicly announced that I was quitting smoking once more, I was openly giggled at.
