Quitting Smoking Journey

Jory Ames, Ph.D.'s book is for smokers to turn to for motivation, education, and a personal and successful quit journey. I am a nonsmoker. I knew this by Day #16, but I kept this journal through Day #47 to continue my self-discovery, to research everything I could about why I (and others) smoked and why it is so hard to quit, and yet also so easy to quit once the mindset is in place. I wanted to have a book I - and others - could draw on for motivation and education. My mission: to use the same research skills that got me a Ph.D. and a successful 30-year career as a technical writer to understand and take control of nicotine addiction. I know that, like any addictive substance, I must avoid cigarettes for the rest of my life. I understand the dangers of having "just one" and that I can never go there. I have been brainwashed since birth by advertising, movies, TV, songs, and people all around me - including my own mother - to be a smoker. I saw the beautiful liberated women in cigarette ads in my mother's stack of magazines, and I wanted to grow up to be just like them. And different ads and movie icons appealed to men, drawing them in to habit that costs them over $50,000 in 30 years, if they live that long. I have three tumors in my poor 55-year-old lungs, which I have tortured now with cigarettes for 28 years. That knowledge sat hard with me, but it still took me over 6 months to quit. But something changed in me as I wrote this journal. And something will change in you, as you read it. Together, we will want to be - and will be - forever free of tobacco.