I smoked my last cigarette on April 1, 1996, forty-two years after I started. My normal consumption was twenty to thirty cigarettes a day. The health scare had nothing to do with it. When the price rose to $19 per carton my Scottish blood boiled over.

I never actually quit, though. I just delayed my next smoke. When I got up one morning and thought to reach for the pack that was always on my bedside table I decided to wait till after my shower, on the drive to work. At work when the first-cup-of-coffee urge to light-up came I decided to wait till coffee-break. At coffee break I had a cookie instead, thinking I would wait to smoke on the way to lunch. Well you get the picture. Soon my horizon had expanded to, "I didn't smoke yesterday so I'll get through today as well and reward myself with a leisurely smoke tomorow morning."

My last promise to myself along those lines was to have a cigarette on April 1st every year. And this year I may well do that.... or not, as usual.

I did not throw away my cigarettes or ashtays. In fact I carried an open pack in my shirt pocket as usual, finally throwing it away after about three weeks.

My way may not be right for everyone but for me it worked well. I don't seem to be an addictive person and I'm a Christian who believes in the power of prayer. Let me tell you, though, that I felt really good when my doctor asked when I quit and, when I told him, he marked my record, "Non-smoker."

:wave: