For smokers struggling to quit, here's a trick that really works

Cigarette butts. PHOTO | STEPHEN MUDIARI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • For those who are struggling with the decision to stop smoking, there is every reason to try and kick the habit.

  • First, it is bad for your pocket.

  • Secondly, it will kill you eventually.

  • Finally, it is easier to take a decision not to smoke than to take a decision to stop smoking.

Smoking is a terrible habit. And that is the conclusion of a man who smoked for a very long time. I don’t even know how long I smoked. Let me take the opportunity of the World No Tobacco Day that was observed on Wednesday to share my experience and to encourage those who are fighting to kick the habit. I’d also be particularly pleased to discourage young people who are thinking of picking up smoking; it’s the dumbest thing you could ever do.

I don’t know when I first smoked. My father was a smoker. He smoked in the house and in his bedroom, too. I think I stole my first cigarette, Embassy Kings, from my brother-in-law. He would leave packets of cigarettes on the bedside and when I visited my sister, who was then married to him, I would sneak in and steal a few sticks.

My grandfather grew tobacco, which he made into snuff. Boys would occasionally steal the tobacco leaves, roll them in newspapers and smoke like cigarettes. I think there were also others who would “ripen” the tobacco leaves like bananas, by covering them up for a while, and when they turned yellow, mash and dry them into a black or brown substance that was rolled into cigarettes. Folks were always smoking one thing or the other where I came from.

The brown tobacco was also ground, in oil, I think, and that is what my grandfather sniffed. Sniffing tobacco is not for the faint-hearted. On top of making you feel dizzy, it locked up your chest, made you sneeze until you passed out, or made you cry until your eyes were red and puffy.

EVERY HOUR

I smoked as an undergraduate, in graduate school, in the factory where I worked and at the Nation. I was always on the stairs every hour to the street to smoke. I smoked until Charity Ngilu, as Health minister, banned smoking in public places, one of the bravest pieces of legislation ever. I was arrested by council askaris for smoking on Kimathi Lane, Nairobi, just behind our offices. The City Council used to have undercover detectives who would hunt smokers like rats.

I stopped smoking for two reasons. First, because of my children. I couldn’t smoke in the house or the car and there was always a fight about the example I was setting. Secondly, I lived with the sense of guilt that I was killing myself and depriving my family of their father because I did not have the courage to end a bad habit.

Smoking is a sad thing, an admission of frailty. By the time I stopped, I was on almost two packets a day. I couldn’t breathe. I found that attempts to stop by reducing the number of sticks smoked every day did not work. You ended up with the sense that you had a backlog of unsmoked cigarettes.

Even sadder is that smokers don’t know why they find it difficult to stop. The side effects are neither here nor there; they are easily endured. What smokers fear is the idea of stopping smoking. It is like a tall mountain, they look up and just give up.

CLEAR REASONS

For those who are struggling with the decision, there is every reason to try and kick the habit. First, it is bad for your pocket. This never bothered me, but it should have: 15 per cent of disposable income goes to smoke, according to our reporting.

Secondly, the habit will kill you eventually; the sooner you stop, the sooner you begin to improve your chances of survival.

According to our reporting, 31,000 Kenyans a year die of smoking-related causes. Globally, seven million people are put in the grave by that habit.

Finally, it is easier to take a decision not to smoke than to take a decision to stop smoking. One is a small, simple decision, the other is a tall mountain. If you are a smoker fighting to quit, here is a trick to use: Buy a packet of your favourite cigarettes and a lighter, and put them in a conspicuous place where you can see both of them all the time. Then tell yourself, I will not smoke those cigarettes, no matter how I feel. You will be surprised at how easy it is.

I haven’t touched a cigarette in nearly 10 years and I never will.

If you are struggling to quit and feel I can help, get in touch.

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I don’t want to tangle with Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero, but I just want to respond to a social post saying that you are either with Evans or with “some hooligans who want to turn Nairobi into a village”. Hold on a minute! Villages are clean. They have fresh food (as opposed to food irrigated with sewage).

They are relatively safe, and have fewer people, bigger space and dogs. Actually, what wealthy Nairobians are trying to do is to turn their neighbourhoods into villages. Don’t knock villages; they are not slums.