My 33rd Day of Conquest Into Not Smoking.

zayedsakib (64)in GEMS • 4 years ago (edited)

It’s been exactly 33 days since I’ve stopped smoking. After 7 years of continuously burning my lungs from inside out, I took a break. And only after 7 days, I started to feel it, the freedom I had given back to my respiratory system. WHO declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic in 11th March. And that was the day I stopped that bad and unnatural habit of mine.

Looking back now, I remember the exact moment when I picked up a cigarette. The moment that caused all of this. It was in a festival where I had my first puff.

It was the auspicious day when I saw the girl I liked in another guy’s arms. My single longest crush of three years. I was a teen then. And it’s a trend in my country, let me rephrase, almost a trend in my country that if your feelings get hurt, you have to smoke. Either weed or a cigarette.

I know, I know, there’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a bottle of Jack Daniels. But in a country of a Muslim majority, alcohol is contraband and highly illegal. Like serious jail time illegal. And even if you do get your hands on those magical fluids, it will cost you ten times more than you would normally pay.

So, it is easy to just light a cigarette then facing the risk of jail time, don’t you think? And that’s the eventual pattern of thinking that results in smoking.

See, I liked this girl from seventh grade. There was nothing left that a guy would do for his special one, to impress her and I didn’t. For example, a friend of mine told me that girls like guitars, so like an idiot, the next day I bought one. I didn’t even know how to hold it properly. I used my years’ worth of savings in just a day for that stupid thing.

Another friend told me a very secret formula to a girl’s heart. That they like unique hairstyles. Like spikes or undercuts. The next day I spent my week’s allowance just to get that stupid haircut. When I went to my school, not even a single student could’ve been found who didn’t point at me and laughed for half an hour.

My best buddy let’s not name him, went a step more. He saw my spikes weren’t holding up and the high IQ this guy had he was determined to help me out. He went to our other mutual friends, collected a lot of saliva from them, added his own and then slapped it all on my MOHAWK like spikes. I became the school fool within the first period.

But even in such misery, I didn’t forget about her. My eyes were stuck on her like the heat seeker missiles. She was laughing too. But being the sweetheart she usually was, she didn’t behave like others.

Now sometimes a thought crosses my mind. I always exposed my affections towards her in a symbolic manner. Like I would do this and that and then walked a lot in front of her table. Talked and made jokes. But never ever I asked her out. Maybe that was my mistake, my inability to express my feelings or the fear of rejection. Guess I’ll never know.

Like I did the same things with cigarettes. Anything I faced, whatever it was, a problem or a piece of good news, I always lit up a smoke. More smoking less talking, that was my silent motto for years.

Credits: @guardian-giphy

When I was trying to quit it for the first time back in 2017, I calculated the amount of money I wasted behind cigarettes. I only went up to two years and then realized what I had done. Let me give you a glimpse.

When I started smoking regularly, I would usually go through a pack of 20 within a day. In USD my choice of brands varied from 3 to 6 bucks. Now, let’s set the mean at 4. 4*365 = 1460 in capital letters USD.

I wasted almost 1.5 grand a year on smokes. Multiplied by 7 years that’s like 10 grand. In my country, you could build a small house for a family of two with that money. This was the financial impact that dragged me closer to the bottom without me even realizing it. Like that is someone’s college tuition fee. I burnt through my own future if I say so.

This is the financial loss of smoking. Now let us talk about the health issues I faced and still are facing. At the age of 25, I have high blood pressure and severe Tachycardia. Like even while I rest, my pulse is well over 100.

But to many who is continuing to smoke regularly, it doesn’t matter to them. Like they are still young and cancer or cardiovascular diseases are far on the horizon. But the really scary thing is COVID-19 which should motivate people to reduce or quit smoking.

It’s not exclusive news that people under 40 have a lower risk of mortality from COVID-19. But still, 2–3% die from this demographic. And the scary thing is, most of those 2–3% dying are smokers. Cause their lung is already 10–20% not properly functioning. And the risk of getting infected is alarmingly much higher for smokers. Defeating COVID-19 will be successful if you do not touch your face without cleaning it first. But smokers are always touching their faces, lips, and mouth.

So if you are a smoker and want to quit, no time is better than this. Ask me and I will even help you for free with the methods I used. Just give me a shout in the comment section below.

And if you liked what you read, any feedback will enlighten my day. Which is quite scarce nowadays.

So, that’s it for today. #stayhome #staysafe. And until next time.