30? Stubbing that cigarette now can give you extra years

Rather than being viewed as an inspiration for having kicked the butt, smokers who have quit though in a minority are looked down upon and jeered at. For those who give up smoking it is a gargantuan task against self and society, says Bandra resident Kunal Parikh, 25, who was a chain-smoker for two years before he quit.

While for some quitting the cigarette involves seeking medical intervention and family support, Kunal managed to pull off the task all by himself. “Vagaries of a demanding MBA led me to get hooked to cigarettes in 2010. In the beginning I thought I was not an addict, I never realised how and when smoking started to take a toll on my life. The feeling of holding fire in my hand was an amazing one,” recalls Kunal.

While the heady feeling of relaxation is a temporary one, Kunal realised that smoking was effecting his body. “My hands used to shake incessantly while holding an object. I used to be out of breath soon and I used to get tired. I got petrified at the thought that I may die of lung cancer if I didn’t quit soon,” he says.

After he announced his plans to quit smoking to his peers, his friends took on for a holiday. He ended up smoking double the number of cigarettes he usually used to smoke in a day. “Having miserably failed in my very first attempt, I decided to be discrete about my plans and embarked upon an experiment that the Jains practice while fasting. I kept away from cigarettes for a day and the next day I smoked one. Then I didn’t light a cigarette for two days and on the third day I smoked just one. Eventually, I realised that I could give it up altogether by extending the days I could go without smoking,” he narrates his experience...

Studies prove that smoking cuts at least 10 years from your lifespan. However, quitting before 30 reduces the risk of an early death by more than 90 per cent. Of the addicts who see psychiatrists to ditch the habit, only up to 50 per cent are successful;. “Barely 8 to 10 smokers visit my clinic every month seeking to kick the butt, of whom four give up the habit. Though it may relapse at a later stage of life, there’s no way to know that,” says Dr Harish Shetty, a city-based psychiatrist.

Shetty says that new anti-smoking medications combined with counselling and hypnotherapy help in kicking the habit. “Anti-smoking medicines like Varnacline occupy nicotine receptors in the brain and make sure that smoking does not cause a high. That coupled with hypnosis and counselling help an addict give up smoking,” he says..