The DU Lounge

I quit 35 years ago after 24 years of a pack and a half to two packs a day of menthol cigarettes — Kools, Marlboro Menthols. I still remember the exact date; it is indelibly etched on my memory. It was March 23, 1990, and I drove to one of those traveling stop-smoking-by-hypnosis seminars that was coming through town (Columbia, Missouri) from someplace in Indiana. It was being held in one of those big hotels near the Columbia Mall, and I drove through a blizzard to get there. Almost white-out conditions, and so there were only about 12 or 15 people there. I went with very low expectations. At age 40 I had tried several times to quit, with successes of various durations. My record was 63 days, next to that was 49 days, then 22 days. What had always defeated me was that inevitable impossible-to-resist temptation. I'm talking about that one craving for a cigarette that was so overwhelming that my attempt to resist it was as hopeless as the proverbial leaf in a hurricane. So when the man who was conducting the hypnosis seminar said that we would never smoke again, I raised my hand and said, "That's not what I want. What I want is not to never smoke again, but never to WANT to smoke again." He said he couldn't promise that I would never want to smoke again, but that he was going to give us all tools to deal with those cravings. Well, I actually DID never want to smoke again. It was just incredible, but there it is. If I had not quit smoking, I swear to God, I would be dead by now. I just know it.

As I said, the obvious one is smoking. The other obvious one is drinking, but I've never been a drinker at all. That foul, putrid stuff never has had any appeal to me at all. Beer, wine, hard liquor — I can't stand the stuff. And I'm glad I'm like that. There's a whole host of alcohol-related problems that I'll never have.

Several people in this thread have mentioned sugar. Alas, that is my other addiction, and despite my type 2 diabetes, it remains a huge problem for me. Are there any quit-sugar hypnotists out there?

— Ron