Notes from Mr.Chipper

I'm one of those weird people who never got addicted to smoking. I keep reading that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to science, and I believe it, because I know several people who have tried desperately to quit and just can't. But I'm not one of them.

I began smoking in college because I was a total geek and wanted to be cool. I didn't inhale at first, so I looked even sillier than before. But one day a few weeks later, I accidentally inhaled, and instead of choking and coughing, exhaled the smoke in a nice straight line a second or so later. Wow - I'd actually inhaled! I was finally a Smoker!

I smoked all the way through college (cigarettes were .26 a pack at the Target station - now you know about how old I must be!) and for several years after. But it was never a big deal. I don't think I smoked a full pack very often - I don't remember for sure, but I usually smoked between 12 and 15 cigarettes a day. My mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage but, hey - that was the price of Being Cool.

The Surgeon-General's report came out about two years after I started smoking and like most of my sorority sisters, I talked about quitting. Unlike them, though, I actually did. I just stopped smoking one day. No biggie. They didn't, though, and after a while I got sick of being around all these smokers, so I began again.

And thus began a 10-year on-again-off-again relationship with cigarettes. I knew I could easily quit, so I never worried about lighting up again. I'd quit for months at a time and then begin again. Once I quit without knowing it - I forgot all about smoking because I was among people who didn't smoke and never thought about it for a couple of weeks.

But over time, I noticed that I started craving cigarettes more. I was smoking more than before, when I smoked. And I felt terribly guilty because by then, the health implications of smoking were well-known, and I believed - and still do - them to be absolutely true.

I had my rules, though. I never smoked until about 10 am or 11 am - not a hard rule to follow because I never wanted to smoke early. I never smoked in the car - ugh! I tossed whatever was left in the pack when I went to bed because I didn't like stale cigarettes. And so on.

In 1972, I was planning a cross-country drive with my boyfriend. I'd been smoking again, more than I wanted to, and knew that I wasn't going to want to do so on the trip - no smoking in the car, remember? So I decided that I would smoke with impunity up until the night before I left, and would then quit.

For the next four months, as I smoked, I constantly told everyone I knew, and myself, that I would quit on April 4. I must have repeated that mantra at least five times a day. I'll quit on April 4. I'll quit on April 4. I'll quit on April 4.

And I did. I opened a new pack while I prepared for my trip on April 3, and when I went to bed that night, pitched it, almost full. Next day, I went on my trip and that was the end of my smoking. It never occurred to me to smoke - I'd quit on April 4, hadn't I?

Since then, I've smoked occasionally. I can smoke one an hour, day, week, month, or year. I have no desire to smoke more than one.

Several friends who were trying to quit asked me how I had done it. Acknowledging that I'm a weird kind of smoker - the scientific researchers call take-it-or-leave-it smokers like me "chippers," for some reason - I shared my experience with them, as I am doing with you. Here's how it worked for me:

1. Pick a date on which you will quit smoking. Make it several months in the future - it takes time to reprogram your brain.

2. Don't hassle yourself when you light up; after all, you're going to quit on October 17, aren't you? Enjoy yourself until then.

3. Every day, repeat your mantra out loud: I'm going to quit smoking on October 17. I'm going to quit smoking on October 17. Repeat it out loud, not in your mind or under your breath. Announce it to everyone you know every time you see them. If you don't know anyone, say it to your mirror. Keep talking.

4. On October 16, break and throw away any remaining cigarettes before you turn out the light.

5. On October 17, quit smoking.

That's it.

I don't want to belittle the grip cigarettes can exert on our lives or denigrate the power of this habit by making quitting look easy. Like any other system, this one takes some work, but the work is done up front. By repeating your date mantra over and over again for a few months, you are programming your brain in ways that I don't really understand, if anyone does. But thought is powerful, and generates action, and creates reality - what you can think, you can do. (Well, you can't fly, of course, but you know what I'm talking about.) You'll find that you are ready to quit on your target date.

Which isn't to say you'll never crave another cigarette. But if you take it day by day, you can apply this method to staying quit; try "I really hate to smoke." "I don't want to smoke today." Affirmations - or brainwashing, if you insist! - work.

Several of my friends tried this and found that it worked for them. I have found, for myself, that over time, I've completely put cigarettes out of my consciousness; I can't remember the last time I had one, and the thought of taking a drag makes me sick. I've done a pretty good job of brainwashing myself!

I was feeling pretty smug about my little system until I read an article somewhere that advocated the same method: pick a date, repeat it out loud for a long time, and you'll find that you can do it. I have mixed feelings; on the one hand, it's no longer The Margaret Method, and on the other, it's been validated by some experts.

Try it and let me know how it works for you.