Our Lady of The Respiratory Assistance...

As I pondered my fate right after I quit, I was in the drug store check out line 

when I noticed the tiny elderly woman standing behind me. Our Lady of the 

Respiratory Assistance. She had tubes in her nostrils and was hauling 

around a heavy canister of oxygen on a little wheeled cart. 

She reeked of smoke. 

Abject terror mounted inside me as I realized how close to her condition 

I actually was, while being younger by decades-maybe. You can never 

tell with chronic smokers. In a raspy, failing voice, she asked for two 

cartons of the cheapest generic filtered brand. It was the most frightening 

mirror I’d ever stared into. She was never going to quit. Seeing her 

stopped me from buying a pack. Hearing her convinced me that I could 

never go back.  Whoever and wherever she is, I’d like to thank her. 

I’m sure she doesn’t realize how much she helped someone that day. 

But I'm not buying her a pack of cigarettes.

 

When the cure may prove worse than the disease....

This story about CHANTIX was published 

in the Health Section of CNN.com July 5, 2011

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/05/chantix.smoking.suicide/index.html

A Potentially Dangerous Brush With Flame

Another’s brush with flame almost blew an actor 

and the whole house sky high. There’s a tale I 

heard from Rolling Stone that Johnny Depp was 

staying in the basement of Hunter Thompson’s 

house in Woody Creek, CO. He was prepping

for his upcoming film role as the journalist, chain-

smoking while he poured over script night after 

night in the dark little room. 

As he struck a match to light a cigarette one evening, 

he noticed for the first time that his nightstand was in 

fact, a barrel of gunpowder on top of which he had his 

ashtray. Hunter said he’d always wondered what had 

happened to that powder keg.

Johnny never smoked in the house again.

This is where I learned about smoking...

Cocktail Lounge (circa 1957)

Penn Albert Hotel, Greensburg, PA

ART returns to where it was created 43 years ago...

Created in 1968, this ceramic sculpture returns
to the Thacher School for the Alumni Weekend.
Made by John Aaron, CdeP 1971, its influence
is of Warhol. It was the art of the time. It also
had the first warning from the Surgeon General.
I began to take smoking way too seriously...

If they offered you a smoke, what would you do...?

Paul Newman

Rod Serling

(died way too young)

Bogie knows just what to do 

once his cigarette is lit...

Once I realized I'd never be this cool, 

I could quit smoking... and I did....

YOU can too!

If they offered you a cigarette...

Smoking Sirens

seductive as smoke

when the candle lights the cigarette

If they offered you one,

would you turn them down?

It is up to YOU to remain Smoke Free...

not so easy, is it?

I have this intense craving....

I feel the need to gnaw 
on wood, to splinter it
with my teeth. I think 
I picked this up from 
my dog...

It is the transferral of a 
smoker's oral fixation.

Like all behavioral
realignments, this too
shall pass...but you 
may never look at 
a doorjamb the 
same way again...


Take a deep breath...

Somewhere RJ Reynolds was laughing til he wet his pants....

Print and television ads back
then suggest that Hollywood
was completely under the spell
of the Tobacco Industry...
Visit our
Advertising At Its Scariest
FB link to decide for yourself...



http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.215810231779701.67364.215809221779802

Adding Up The Costs...

There's enough money in this to have 

a down payment for a house...

Romancing The Smoke: What They Wouldn't Do...

Ronald Reagan told us us  to give
Chesterfields for the Holidays!

Romancing The Smoke tells the story 

of how America got so bamboozled

into smoking in the mid part of last

century, it's a wonder anybody could

ever quit. Myself included...

This guy sold them to me

when I was a little kid. 

Didn't even card me.

The Psychology of Smoking. 

Have I got a story for you...

This blog, Romancing the Smoke,

draws from my new book,

Romancing The Smoke: 

Confessions of a Nicotine Addict. 

I'll be posting excerpts & thoughts 

about the most absurd & dangerous

habit in the world-- tobacco.

Took out most of my family.

I got away after 35 years and lived to tell about it. 

Here's the story. It's probably alot like yours.

FREE YOUR LUNGS.

MAKE THE CHANGE.

This blog gives you great reasons why...

Welcome to the blog "Romancing The Smoke..."

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Romancing-The-Smoke/215809221779802