THE YEAR I Won THE WAR Against Cigarettes

A pack and a half a day veteran of 36 years’ standing tells of the agony and the ecstasy

- DON WHARTON

THIS MONTH thousands will celebrate the first anniversary of their emancipation—from cigarettes. I am one of them, a full year without a cigarette, following 36 years during which I smoked an average of a pack and a half a day. By the time I quit, I was up to two packs a day—which makes a total of some 3,94,000 cigarettes—not a record, of course, but enough to qualify me as an expert witness. When you’ve smoked that many, and when you quit without any doctor ordering it, as I did, then your experience may be of some value to others.

Early in my agonizing withdrawal, when I could see that I was going to succeed, I made up my mind not to be a missionary trying to convert everyone else. After all, if I had gone on puffing away for all those 36 years, ignoring some fairly plain medical evidence, then why should I suddenly become intolerant of persons who were perhaps only in their 6th or 16th or 26th year of smoking? If I speak up now, it’s not as an evangelist but as a reporter with a few personal findings to present.

Withdrawal is not easy. My own reaction could even be called violent; for several days I actually ran a temperature. I became cross, easily irritated, short-tempered. On one occasion I gave a tongue lashing to one of my closest friends. These weren’t just first-day reactions. They carried over for weeks, to some degree still persist.