“How can I quit smoking?”
“Read the whole book. It builds up; so if motivation is what you have been looking for, you will find that.”

One day, one summer I said to myself: “Let me work on something productive which isn’t coughing” and that is how this guide came into the world.

When I told my folks that I wanted to write a book on quitting smoking, they responded: “Lots of them already exist.”

I then replied, “There are love story novels and movies, murder mysteries, thrillers, dramas, comedies – but that is not a good enough reason for others not to be written or produced. Non-smokers turn into smokers, millions sink into this addiction, deeply and daily – becoming more sick, too many die; therefore smoking wins, and is spreading like a virus. We need as many approaches as possible. We have an emergency amongst us.”

NY Times says that more than 70,000 dog books are currently listed on Amazon. I am in love with dogs, but I also love people and I hate what a lost life does to a family, to a circle of friends, and even to a pet.

As you go through the chapters, prepare a care package for those times when you’ll have a craving: highlight and visualize each relevant passage, identify your turnoffs, hold them very close and use them when you’re in danger of falling again for the same vice. Nonetheless, this is not the typical how-to book. You’ll decide alone what’s good, since you don’t like being told what to do. None of us wants to be controlled, but hey, nicotine and vapes dictate the game. Did you look at your relationship this way? Smoking conditions (what we identify as) our happiness.

Keep in mind that generally speaking lungs don’t hurt because they don’t have a significant number of pain receptors, also that if cigarettes and vapes would be an asset, doctors would prescribe them for asthma, and people wouldn’t die from smoke.

Good news, a lot of tobacco users I spoke to understood that smoking is bad, and lots of articles state that most of them would rather stop, only that they find it difficult (more precisely 70 percent of the American smokers wish they would part ways with this habit). Hence this book should be to the soul what nicotine patches are to the body, because our brain is the main fighter and it needs a written reminder that it is almighty. Our will is strong.

You will see a few references to God, angels and the devil. I did this not because I am religious, but because I am spiritual; and since everyone is familiar with these terms, I symbolically named “God” the best part in us. With this book I am asking you to chase the light, and I don’t mean a match or your lighter. (Definitely not the “kids resistant” lighters in the big box under the cat. The children growing up around those “safe” lighters may not burn down their houses, but they could end up burning up their lungs instead. I used to be one of them.)

I would like to dedicate this to all the parents who smoke. If you are one, consider reading further even if you don’t plan to quit. If you know any, please suggest it to them as something that could prevent their kids from turning into smokers as well. Education begins at home, and this here addresses the most important educators: the mother figure and the father figure.

I’ll start first: I recommend this book to my brother in law, a smoker who has two beautiful kids with my sister. One was born on the birthday of my sweet deceased maternal grandfather, August 16th.

He taught my mom and my aunt how to smoke back in the early ‘70s, on a bench in their garden. Both of my cousins smoke, and one daughter who is past adolescence does it also. My sister smokes on vacations – still not that great – so this here is for her too. 

I have no children, however, I gave up cigarettes on the birthday of my late maternal grandmother, his beloved wife. On one March 31^st I like to think (and I know it) that I was given a chance to a longer life.

What does your smoking-friends-and-family-tree look like?

(Excerpt of Prologue. For more links to the material used please check the reference list at the end of the book.)