After 42 Years Of Smoking, She Quit. Here’s What Made It Easy...

Belleruth here. We got this story many years ago.  Since the time it was written and posted, Terri passed away, leaving a hole in many a heart. She had a smile that could light up a room, and was a much-loved sweetheart to her partner, friends and community. 

Terri had been a super-addicted smoker, who generously agreed to let me interview her when I was working on the guided imagery script for smoking cessation.

I knew her through friends, and had always seen her as kind of angelic. That’s why my jaw dropped and I snorted in disbelief when the first thing she told me was that she’d been smoking since she was ten.  

Anyway, here is her story, as she once posted it years ago.

Dear Belleruth,

I began smoking when I was ten.  Now at 52, my voice is a croaky, creaky smoker’s voice, and the lines on my face are smoker’s wrinkles. I tried to quit three or four times before but couldn’t stay with it. (My companion is a respiratory therapist, who was after me to stop for decades.)

Maybe you don’t remember, but you interviewed me when you were working on the smoking tape. [Ed. Note: I totally remembered her]. I told you about what it feels like to be hopelessly addicted.  But I was not ready to quit and try listening to the imagery until last year, when I began developing some symptoms of COPD.

Every day, five or six times a day, at times I’d normally take a break and smoke, I would go walking with you!  We would walk and walk together, BR. At home we hung out together too, especially after dinner, or when I felt anxious or upset about something. On would go the headset.

Oddly enough, I feel okay without my smokes. This was utterly inconceivable to me. Really, I thought this was something that would be completely impossible, but it hasn’t been that at all.  You and I will be walking together for a while, Belleruth, until I’m safely on the other side of this habit.

Thanks.
Terri Quinlan (remember?) 

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