by Stephen C. Byrnes, PhD

Published in Explore!; Health Freedom News; HealthKeepers at various times.

Nine must me my lucky number. It took me nine times to quit smoking and on my ninth try I was bound and determined to succeed. And succeed I did. It has now been 17 months since I took my last drag of a cigarette, so I think it’s safe to say I’m home free. I look back at the 18 years I spent smoking and always wonder, "Why?"

I began smoking when I was 15 years old. Except for my brother who was in the army, no one in my family smoked. My father was a former Olympic track and field coach and head of the high school cross country team in our city; he absolutely despised smoking. My mother did not smoke either. Our relatives, however, were another matter altogether as several of them smoked. Marion, my older cousin, was one of them. Since I admired Marion for her independence and ability to speak four languages (she was raised in Italy), I sought to identify myself with her cosmopolitanism. Under the guise of appearing "adult" and "grown-up," I bought my first pack of cigarettes.

I remember my first smoke very well because I almost fainted from the head rush! There I was, sneaking up into the attic with my pack of Marlboro’s and a book of matches. After doing a last minute sweep of the area with my eyes just to be sure no one was looking, I lit up and inhaled my first cloud of forbidden fruit. Ah, the thrill of it all! Doing something wicked and getting away with it!

Eventually, my father found out and promptly banned me from the house when I smoked. "If you want to kill yourself, do it outside!" This tyrannical tirade was then followed by an impassioned, almost tearful, plea, "Stephen, why are you doing this? Don’t you know what happened to my father?"

I did. Grandpa Byrnes began smoking in the ‘20s when no one knew it was harmful. My grandfather was a talented, funny, and handsome salesman who always had a cigarette in his mouth. He died of throat cancer at the age of 58, one year before I was born. Unfortunately, his early death did not phase me much. Even when my mom’s smoking sister died of lung cancer a few years later at age 52, I was not motivated to quit. Like most smokers I thought, "It won’t happen to me."

For the first few years I smoked very little, maybe 5-6 cigarettes a day. At one point, I quit. Lean financial times forced me to give it up. But when things turned around, I started up again. Slowly but surely, my 5 cigarette-a-day habit grew into a 40 cigarette-a-day one. By the time I quit, I was smoking $5.00 a day.

Overall, I enjoyed smoking but was annoyed at several undesirable qualities that came with it. On the top of my list of peeves was the smell. While tobacco may be a richly scented plant, with some species having beautiful flowers, processed, burning tobacco stinks. That ghastly odor permeated everything around me, my clothes, my knapsack, my books, my newspaper, my hair, my mouth, my fingers, and my body. Even if I had not had a cigarette for awhile, people still knew I smoked from the reeking smell. I’d always be a little chagrined when someone would back slightly away from me to get away from the odor. I constantly sucked on mints to keep my breath fresh. On top of the smell was the mess: the ashes, the used up butts, the dirty ashtrays.

What also bugged me was the addiction, the overwhelming necessity to smoke to avoid going through the roof with nicotine cravings. This was one of the things that prompted me to quit. At rock bottom, I was a junkie. An addict. A slave to nicotine. I was not comfortable with something controlling me that much.

When I was 33, I helped a friend overcome a serious illness using various nutritional and herbal methods. The experience had such a profound impact on me that I decided to go back to school and get advanced degrees in nutrition and natural therapies. Believe it or not, I was still smoking when I began my studies! The incongruity of it all, however, began to weigh on my mind: "What am I doing?! How can I help people overcome disease when I’m doing something that causes it? What kind of example will I be to my future clients?" I realized I had to quit, but I did not have enough motivation yet.

The motivation came. For the past two years I’d been having episodes when I would begin gasping and gulping for air. These episodes did not happen often, but when they did occur, it was scary. I felt like I was drowning. This was, I learned later, one of the first signs of emphysema. Additionally, I was getting my once a year bout with bronchitis twice a year. On top of this, I had no energy. I’d look at myself sometimes and think, "For God’s sake! I’m only 33 and I have virtually no stamina!"

Something all addicted people do, no matter what their addiction, is rationalize. Rather than face their inner demons, they explain away their behavior to make it acceptable to them and others. My ultimate rationalization came, ironically, from my new studies in health. I quickly learned that there were several nutrients that could help reduce the harmful, carcinogenic effects of tobacco (betacarotene, vitamins A, C, and E, and others). Instead of quitting, then, I simply bought these supplements and began taking them. The supplements were my excuse to keep smoking for I figured that, since I was taking them, the toxins were not hurting my body and I was, somehow, protected against cancer!

But something inside of me would not allow me to rationalize anymore. While at the laundromat one Saturday, I picked up a Reader’s Digest to browse through while I waited for the wash to finish. One of the feature articles that issue was called "If Only I Hadn’t Smoked." I read it. Horrible stories about several people whose lives were destroyed by their addiction to tobacco. Lung cancer, emphysema, heart attack, and worse. Rather than try to rationalize again, I resigned myself to the inevitable: I must quit.

But how? I’d tried several times before and failed. Since I’d been studying natural therapies, however, I’d read about acupuncture and its effectiveness at treating drug withdrawal. I knew of an acupuncturist and called her up. I went for a series of treatments.

This was my first experience with "being poked," and was excited at being able to try something new. The acupuncturist, Suzanne, advised us to come back for three additional treatments for three consecutive weeks. While the needles stung a bit going in, they did not hurt. Since I was a student, I wanted to know just what Suzanne was doing. She explained, "The points I’m stimulating are not just addiction points to deal with your cravings, but ones which are strained by smoking. I’m doing this to help your body heal itself of the damage that’s been done to it." Suzanne then explained that she had placed needles at various points on my body, especially my ear, to affect my liver, lungs, brain, and digestive system. "Cleansing the liver is especially important as this organ filters all of the toxins from the blood." Indeed, when she placed the needle on my foot at the liver point, I almost jumped off the table because it was so sensitive. "That tells me your liver qi, or energy, is weak." Suzanne kept the needles in for about 20 minutes, heating some of them with a burning herb bunch. Again, the procedure did not hurt. It was, in fact, quite relaxing and I dozed off for a few minutes.

After the session was over I left. I made some rules for myself: if I happened to smoke after this, it would always be outside. That meant no smoking in the car, the house, or anywhere that was inside. This, combined with the acupuncture treatment, enabled me to go from 40 cigarettes a day to just 8 overnight! It was unbelievable but I did not have any withdrawal symptoms. Despite this, however, and completing the remaining treatments, I was still smoking. Nevertheless, I knew I was getting closer to my goal of ceasing entirely.

But in May of 1995, something changed and the last straw broke my habit. I got bronchitis and sinusitis at the same time. Each time I had a cigarette, I would begin coughing a deep, barking cough that resonated through my chest and caused considerable pain. No problem, my rationalizing mind mused, I’ll just take more garlic and vitamin C with bioflavonoids to get well. But it did not work. As I was smoking and coughing on a break at work, I suddenly realized how utterly stupid I looked. I also realized the truth: I was an addict. When I got back to my desk, I called Suzanne and told her that I’d absolutely had it and needed to make an appointment because I knew I couldn’t do this alone. She saw me right away.

As I sat outside her office, I smoked my last cigarette. I found myself talking to my cigarettes, to my addiction. I was saying goodbye. I thanked them for all the time I spent with them watching good movies, drinking fresh coffee, reading good books, and wasting time with my friends. "But, it’s over. I like you, but you’re hurting me and I can’t control myself. It’s time to say goodbye." I snubbed out the smoldering butt and walked into Suzanne’s office. I was apprehensive about the step I was taking, but determined. "No matter what, I will not smoke. From this day on, I am a nonsmoker."

The next two weeks were difficult to say the least. Despite the effectiveness of the treatment, I still had cravings that would almost overwhelm me at times; nicotine is a very powerful drug. After three days, I knew the nicotine was out of my system (it takes only 72 hours for the body to lose its addiction to nicotine), but now I had to retrain my mind which had grown accustomed to smoking. I did everything not to smoke: every time I wanted a smoke, I would picture my cigarettes crawling with cockroaches and covered in feces to disgust me away from them. Every spare moment I had in my apartment, I filled up with time. I went for a walk. I rode my bike to the beach. I went swimming. Each day that went by with no smoking I thanked God for. I reasoned that if I went back now, all the hardship I’d gone through up till then would have been for nothing.

I eliminated all of my mental triggers to smoke: no coffee, no tea, no sitting around after eating a meal. I took a homeopathic preparation for tobacco withdrawal. I took herbs like chamomile and skullcap to relax myself. I constantly visualized myself NOT smoking, and flying high in the sky, inhaling clean air into even cleaner lungs. Each time I visualized this image, in bright, beautiful colors, I would see myself smiling and saying with pride, "I’m free!"

And free I am to this day. Incredibly, it took almost a year for the desire to go away completely. True, the major addiction was gone in about three weeks, but the last process of overcoming an addiction, extinction, takes longer. At odd times I’d find myself thinking about smoking which I quickly dismissed without much effort. With the money I save from not smoking (+$1800 a year!), I take a nice vacation.

On the block I walk down to get to my office, there’s a small restaurant on the corner. Every day, there’s an old woman standing outside smoking a long white cigarette. Each time I pass by her, I notice her face: it looks like a crumpled brown paper bag, full of wrinkles and creases. It’s as dry as a bone. I know smoking did that to her because I’ve seen that same appearance in other longtime smokers. I’d even begun to see that dry look in my face before I quit. I always think when I see her, "That poor woman. I’m glad it’s not me. Thank God it’ll never be me."