We lived near Chicago and the Bears were in the Superbowl that year. More as a joke than anything I started saying that if the Bears won I would quit smoking for good. Soon just about everyone we knew had been told this so I had plenty of incentive to follow through. When the Bears did win 46-10 over the Patriots I was committed. That evening after the game I smoked as many cigarettes as I could in a final smoking fury. I think we drank some beer too but I.m not too sure! You need to be committed and burn your bridges behind you. On Monday morning January 27th, 1986 I quit smoking for good. I had made sure that there were no cigarettes in the house after the night before so I made it out the door that morning without trouble.. Nicotine gum and nicotine patches hadn.t been invented yet, so I needed to quit cold turkey. I think if you really want to and are committed that is a good way to quit. It requires willpower during the withdrawal symptoms but the less nicotine in your system the less hold it has over you. Maybe if you are a very heavy smoker, consider using the patch to lower your levels of nicotine that you are used to, but at some point, you need to pull the chemical plug. Quitting cold turkey is the most direct fastest way to quit provided you are motivated.

At that time I worked for Western Electric in a big cubicle area and smoking was permitted anywhere unlike today. So I needed a plan to keep me away from the cigarette machines in the break room. My solution was to carry my own lunch in a brown paper bag from home, and too little cash to buy cigarettes out of the machine. I had credit cards and could have gone to the bank to get some cash but that was a sufficient barrier that I never did. The little pocket change I carried was enough to get some candy from the machines two or three times a day but not enough for one packet of cigarettes. So I ate a lot of red liquorish that month. I was lucky that I didn.t have any smoking buddies at work. I think that would be tough watching your friends smoking. Try to avoid them for a month or ask them in advance not to smoke in front of you for a while. The same goes for a spouse or family member living at home that smokes. Get them to smoke only when you are not around or go outside or even out in the car to smoke.

I also needed something to occupy me and particularly something to do with my hands when at home. So I bought a couple of the plastic model kits you glue together and paint . one of a jet fighter and another of the Space Shuttle, which was about to be a huge and tragic coincidence. So that was my plan . eat red liquorish at work to keep my mind off the cigarettes, and make these plastic models at home for the same purpose.

The next morning on Tuesday January 28th, 1986 I was in my cubicle when my wife called me to say the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded after liftoff. As with all days of national tragedy, and there seem to have been too many over the years, they come with no warning, out of the blue. I was in shock along with the rest of the world. Suddenly we realized how dangerous space flight could be. And yet for me this put things in perspective and motivated me to continue.

I think it took about a month for the physical cravings to go away. But I had a lot of dreams about smoking. Although the frequency of dreams has gone down steadily I still sometimes wake up in a sweat wondering if I am really smoking again or if it.s just a bad dream. So far, twenty years later next January, it has always been a dream.