Quitting Yosi Kadiri

8/13/2019 Quitting Yosi Kadiri

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ISPEAK

Quitting yosi kadiriBYSHAKIRA SISON

POSTED ON 02/06/2014 12:10 PM | UPDATED 02/06/2014 1:01 PM

I had my face in the sink, coughing so hard that I felt like pieces of my lungs were coming out. It was the first

week after I finished my last pack, and the pain was enough to conv ince me that I only wanted to go through

it once.

Of course it's impossible to quit. Ask a room full of non-smokers how many of them used to smoke and

chances are that none of them were once heavy smokers who quit. It's a habit that's so hard to ditch that

people do it until they physically can't. It seems the best way to stop smoking is to never start it.

Even with the dailybombardment of information about its harmful effects, it's much easier to tune them out

than to try quittinga habit that'ssaid to be more addictive than heroin. That's the whole point. It's a product that is carefully designed to maintain

the addiction that fuels the $60B c igarette industry. Modern cigarette production even involves the use of chemical additiveswhose sole purpose is

to maintain the craving. The Philippines also hosts the strongest tobacco lobby in Asiato make sure that product presence and government

support will remain. (READ: Tobacco firms' influence over PH gov't among highest in SEA.)

I'm not here to lecture you, but to tell you stories. In my freshman speech class in co llege, I went up to the podium and lit a cigarette. I took a

long drag and blew smoke into a tissue to demonstrate what goes into a smoker's lungs with each puff. The tissue was smeared with a yellow-

brown tint I showed the class as I went on, even including a love poem to my trusted yosi in my presentation. I gave an anti-smoking speech as a

smoker who was in the first year of a habit that would last me another ten, smug enough to tell the class that I knew it was bad but I would just

hack it.

There's always a beginning

I took my first drag at age eleven during a family party after being handed a cigarette by a relative who was having a social smoke after dinner by

the beach. I took no interest in it. My father was a smoker for many years and quit in his 40s, and other than being the courier for his "Dalawang

pisong pilip(two pesos' worth of Philip Morris)" from the sari-sari store, I never paid the habit any mind nor even saw him smoking.

In high school my best friend asked me to buy a pack of cigarettes for her on the way to her house and I did, buying two and saving one for

myself that I kept in the closet, taking a stick or two out in the middle of the night and lighting it, making art on paper using the ember on its tip,

and using these as stationery to write letters to friends.

A friend from my tumultuous early twenties recently told me that because I was annoyed at how she puffed her cigarettes as a teenager, I gave

her a lesson on how to properly inhale cigarette smoke up to your lungs and how to properly exhale in a perfect stream of smoke without

puffing all over the place. I have no recollection of this smoking lesson, though I do recall being taught the same lesson in my teens by well-

Quitting yosi kadiri 2/6/2014

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meaning fellow smokers who schooled me on the ethics, techniques, and tricks of cigarette smoking - smoke rings, making rings from the plastic

lining of your pack, stupid drunk jokes from the pack of Marlboros, as well as the art of twirling a lit cigarette between ones fingers without getting

burned. It was a rite of passage for the men, and an act of defiance for the women. During those days in my university, smoking was still taboo for

girls and I pretended to fight it by obnoxiously smoking in the stairwells of my dorm to the annoyance of upperclassmen who were too intimidated

to say anything.

I wish I knew how to quit you

I smoked close to a pack a day for a decade, and having quit the habit for about ten years now, Ive come to analyze the addiction as a lot more

than a chemical dependence on nicotine and the numerous additives in commercial tobacco products. Its like an old friend whos with you at

regular times during the day, a companion during frustration and sadness. Id always "drawn strength" from my cigarettes when I had them.Reeling from a lovers quarrel or an argument with my parents, I would light up as my eyes welled up and tell myself to stop crying, cursing the

cause of whatever bothered my very hormonal adolescent self. In my family home this would be in front of the window in the bathroom in the

middle of the night, attempting to fan the smoke out with a magazine. It became the perfect way of dealing with things, a five-minute break for me

to gather my composure and get past whatever it was with my chin up and with my smoker's breath. Maybe it subconsciously provided some

space and time away from my problem to regroup my emotions. I'm not sure if the chemicals in those potent little thingsactually solved anything,

but man it felt so good.

It felt as horrible to quit. I quit not for health reasons at first but because my city raised the price of a pack to $5.90 (now it's $12), and I thought

that it was too steep a price to continue that slow suicide. So I braved it with some nicotine gum and self-control, lying down through days of

withdrawal and a solid month of severe back pain I presumed was from my lungs revolting. I coughed up hard pieces of what looked like years-

caked phlegm in the shape of my tracheal rings.

I would be lying if I said, like many others who have kicked the habit, that I don't understand people who won't quit. Like most ex -smokers, I can'tstand the smell on my clothes from secondhand smoke but I totally get it. Ive often told people that I miss cigarettes everyday. Its the truth, and

not lighting up is probably one of my hardest exercises in self-control. Sometimes I wish I could run back to the habit and relive how good it used

to make me feel, but fortunately it really is only good when youre hooked on it. (READ: The last cigarette.)

I have found as Ive grown older that my body can no longer tolerate it, and that I am really a happier person when Im notjonesingfor a

chemical fix. So lately Ive just been focusing on spending time at the gym, having found that regular physical exertion gives me better sleep, an

extra hour or two of post-workout euphoria, and a better way to make my heart beat faster and my lungs work harder. If it gives me a couple

more years of living my life exactly the way it is right now, that would be an enormous reward for passing on a fix.

In return

But the things you get back are priceless. 5-15 minutes per cigarette multiplied by your number of daily sticks means an hour or two of extra time

at your non-smoking fingertips every day . In a few months you regain the sharp sense of taste and smell dulled by years of exposing your tongue

and nose to toxins. Your breaths won't be as labored and shallow, and you'll find it isn't as hard to climb a staircase or even run a mile. You'll smell

better and have great skin, and if you quit early enough you won't have the wrinkles lifelong smokers have.

But we all know that, and telling a smoker about smoking's harmful effects only urges them to light another stick. What would one do anyway with

the extra hours gained during the day and the extra life years without the habit, except to spend that time craving it? When you don't have to

spend each morning coughing your c logged sleeping lungs awake, you are able to taste more, smell more and appreciate the day's air and food

you weren't able to before you quit. It allows you to enjoy something you could never do properly as a smoker, something so basic it's the first

and last thing we do in our lives, and something you want to cont inue doing daily, deeply, and relishing every bit of it. Quitting allows you to

breathe. Rappler.com

Shakira Andrea Sisonis a Palanca Award-winning essayist. She currently works in finance and spends her non-working hours as a non-smoker in

subway trains. She is a veterinarian by education and was managing a retail corporation in Manila before relocating to New York in 2002. Her

column appears on Thursdays. Follow her on Twitter: @shakirasison and on Facebook.com/sisonshakira.

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I feel like it is a social requirement for a smoker to congratulate you for being able to quit, so I shall take on that role and offer my congratulations. Your

sharing about how different your senses are after quitting surely is a different take on the usual lectures we smokers get on its dangers.

I am, however, at a point in my life where quitting is unimaginable. Though I highly appreciate that you weren't being didactic.

This was an honest, entertaining, well-written piece. Thank you for your story.

I have been smoking for ten years but I've never been really addicted to it. The most number of sticks I smoke per day is three (always after consuming a

meal since smoking really feels good after eating). Sometimes, a day passes by without me smoking a single stick. I dunno, it's either I'm disciplined, I

practice self-control or there's just something wrong with me that I never get addicted to nicotine. ;)

i have'nt sm0ke for 3 m0s. N0w! Itz the hardest part! Hope i can do it..

obviously i started smoking rarely 1969 to present , maybe i just handling it with pleasure and at the end how can i say it's bad for me ? or i should say , will

be until the end . . (highly appreciated your side and thanks for sharing your story.) . .

Keep it up! I like what you said and surely hope more people would think otherwise when trying to even smoke. Some say it's hard to quit but I witness a lot

of people being successful on leaving the habit, not that it wasn't easy for them at the start. "Quitting allows you to breathe." and it allows you to live a more

purposeful life :)

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