"You gotta die of something, might as well be something you enjoy"

After looking at my name tag, a man asked if I was the same VJ who used to go stop smoking classes. When I answered  yes, he said, "You saved my life."

Elliot had been a three pack a day smoker when he took attended a stop smoking workshop I did in January 1993. He smoked three packs a day and needed heart surgery and they were going to amputate his leg due to lack of circulation. His doctor wouldn't operate until Elliot quit smoking, so he was at the class so he could quit long enough to have his surgery and then Elliot fully expected to return to his beloved cigarettes.

"Do you remember what you said me all those years ago?" he asked.

"Yes, you told me, "You gotta die of something" and I told you, "Yes, but yours would be a long slow painful death as they just keep cutting parts off of you."

Elliot said he never forgot those words. He quit, had his surgery and was able to keep his leg. Twenty years later he knows he would not be here today if he had continued to smoke. He has married, has been traveling the world and started making pottery. He looks at all the wonderful things in his life today that smoking would have deprived him.

The lesson is not look at what you are giving up, Elliot loved smoking, but look at what you might miss out by not living so long; plus how do you want to live your last years of life? Disabled from smoking or healthy and enjoying life?