I had only been smoking for five years, and had not been smoking that much (about half a pack a day), but had not been successful at several attempts at quitting, either. I had always kind of liked smokers and smoking. For example, I would deliberately sit in the smoking car of a train, even in the years before I began to smoke, feeling the people there were probably friendlier...

I tried to quit when I got engaged, with the grand gesture of throwing my last pack out the window into the Susquehanna River as I crossed the state border into Maryland, where I was going to get married. That cigarette-quitting only lasted about two weeks.

What did the trick for me was quite inadvertent. On a vacation, we were visiting Pennsylvania, and after three days of Philadelphia rain, I developed a cold and really couldn't smoke. Then we stayed for several days on a Lancaster County Mennonite farm, where you were only allowed to smoke standing up outside and it was rather embarrassing to do so. It just wasn't worth the trouble and discomfort to smoke on the farm, so I didn't start back up again.

To my astonishment, after this week of not smoking I had suddenly turned the corner into being a non-smoker. Even when we got back to town and our old routine, I had no desire to smoke and now completely hated the smell.

I'm sure that my being on a farm with lots of fresh air, simple food and exercise helped a lot, once my head cold had taken care of the three-day withdrawal period for me.

It's been about 25 years, and I don't miss smoking except maybe for a second or two about once a year.

Both my mother and grandmother died early and badly, directly as a result of smoking. Everybody else in the family (all non-smokers) lives to vigorous old age.

Keep up the good work! You deserve a good life with no smoking!!

--Linda