Good Habits, Bad Habits, and Quitting Smoking By Wes McComb

August 14, 2023

I quit smoking. Cigarettes. Again. Cigarettes have been my burden, vice, and solace since my first one in my early teens. My high school still had a smoking area when I was in Grade 9. We just had to step out a door and we went from math to a social melting pot where a lowly minor niner could puff away next to fully grown men in Grade 13. Cigarettes got caught up in all my memories of those developing years and will always be linked to many of my coming-of-age experiences. At the same time, I knew they were bad for me. By the time I was 18 I was trying to quit.

I watched societies attitude towards smoking change as tobacco advertising got banned, smoking was prohibited in the workplace, planes, bars, then patios and now it is dirty looks and a small, fake cough by passerbys. When I ride my bike to work, I get more whiffs of marijuana than tobacco. Call me old fashioned, but shouldn’t getting high at 7 am be more of a social stigma than smoking a cigarette?

I had quit for years. I didn’t even think about it anymore. Then two years ago I used the excuse that I had a lot of stress in my life and let that be my pretext for starting again. Of course, in reality nicotine just gives you one more thing to worry about. Actually, it gives you lots of things to worry about: do I smell? Do I have enough cigarettes to last the evening? Was that cough just a cough? Was I more breathless than usual climbing the stairs? Now that I have quit smoking and am so stress free, I may have to take up an extreme sport or pay more attention to American politics.

Three weeks ago, I went to the cottage by myself, got enough supplies so I wouldn’t have to go to town for a week, and stopped smoking. I have quit so many times before I recognize the stages of nicotine withdrawal: day one and two there is lethargy, the third everyone you interact with is annoying, the fourth day is the worst and I am unbearable and after that it gets easier. I remember quitting once in my 30s and my wife telling me on the fourth day to start smoking again because she couldn’t stand being around me.

I had to quit. I am now in my 50s and one thing that has sunk in is that you need your health. There is no point saving money and working hard all those years to never be able to enjoy it. I take care of myself physically, eat well, and feel I am a pretty contented person. I want to be able to walk the golf course, canoe around my lake, water ski, ride my bike to work and most importantly beat my sons in an arm wrestle for a long time.

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Compounding is one of the most important concepts to grasp. Smoking is one of those negative compounders. Someone can smoke for years with little recognized health affects and suddenly there are irreversible consequences. Continuing to smoke is one of those short term, impulsive decisions that many of us have difficulty stopping. Trying to imagine the long-term detrimental consequences can be hard. This is also true of positive compounding. If I had instead saved the money I spent on smoking (cigarettes are 24 dollars a pack) over the years I would be healthier, wealthier, and maybe wiser. That is what I try to show young people: look at the long-term compounding consequences of what you do.

What you read, eat, do on your phone, savings, who you surround yourself with all have repercussions, good and bad. So, pick the good ones, even if it takes you 40 years to do it.

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