Dr. Ana’s unsolicited advice column.

Here's how to stop smoking. And why.

Greta Garbo, smoking.

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How I quit smoking has a lot to do with why I did it because, like everything in life, only a good reason will make you stick with your resolutions.

Mine was vanity.

In my early thirties and already divorced, I started to see wrinkles, or maybe they were too small to graduate from fine lines, but there they were. I panicked. I would never find another partner because nothing says “Don’t kiss me” like a barcode engraved on your upper lip. Quitting was tough, but I managed.

I had curbed that catastrophe.

These days, we are renovating our apartment; by we, I mean the man I managed to make want to kiss me in my mid-thirties and me.

The guy who comes every morning to paint the walls reeks of cigarette smoke. So much so that he leaves an atmosphere when he is gone, like an afterthought that blends with the smell of fresh paint. The ambience in my living room, with the undertones of hydrogen cyanide, benzene, formaldehyde, and nicotine, with hints of solvent, got me thinking about how cool I thought smoking was in my early twenties. I could picture myself like Greta Garbo back then.

Now I see this man painting and can only picture his shrivelling lungs. This image I describe seems problematic, but rest assured; I don’t sit and stare like a voyeur diagnosing hidden tumours or upcoming heart failures. I just ponder on how good we are at lying to ourselves.

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As an oncologist, I say every so often- “you should consider stopping smoking”. When I have developed a close enough relationship with my patients (which takes, like, 2 visits; it comes with the territory), I feel comfortable enough to tell them- “Look, in reality, you only enjoy smoking the post-prandial cigarettes, so you should be cutting down to three per day, easily.” A couple of venturesome patients have remarked, “What about the post-coital?” to which I say- “OK, four?”

I have lost count of the patients who reject the treatment I offer to decrease the risk of relapse because “I am against pills, god knows what they put in them” but will not quit smoking. They usually give me a bashful smile and shrug their shoulders when I ask about the contradiction. “Oh, Ana! You know how it is!”.

I do.

My sister is a cardiologist; she has met a cornucopia of patients who literally say, “I drink a bottle of wine for lunch and a couple of gin and tonics after work because I need to decompress. It’s the stress that is killing me”. When she explains the effect of alcohol on heart disease (not to mention the liver), they feel offended and reply, “Doc! All I drink is top quality". There is no designated section for “top-quality” heart attacks or liver failures in the ICU, nor is their prognosis better. Let’s just get that out of the way.

So, what I am getting at here is that Health is not a very enticing reason to quit anything bad or start anything, you know, healthy. And I get it. Health is this abstract entity we take for granted until we lose it. And then it is a catastrophe one might not be able to curb.

So my piece of unwanted advice, here, for the taking, free or charge and with no strings attached, is:

Should you want to start a healthy habit or stop an unhealthy one, don’t make Health your “why”. It won’t stick.

Find another “why”, anything you want- take mine if you need it! I have enough vanity to go around. But find it. And when you have it, start small and build momentum.

You got this.

Yours in divine (im)perfection,

Dr. Ana

Expert in unsolicited advice

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