Plant and your spouse plants with you; weed and you weed alone.” ”
—- Jean-Jaques Rousseau

When it comes to smoking, everybody knows the score: it’s a zillion to three, smokers lose. Even smokers know this.
The only question now for our country’s 46 million smokers is how can they be done with this goofy habit, this life and death game? According to research from the Center for Disease Control, the great majority of smokers (70+% ) are tired of the game and just want to know how they can sneak off the field, into the locker room, out of the stadium. It’s a rout. Smokers want to get back into civilian clothes, blend in with the natives. They truly don’t need convincing.
So how do we help our smokers quit? On the surface, it’s easy: We just love them unconditionally, support them, give them time and space to get the job done, offer non-judging curiosity and, most importantly, humor and light-heartedness.
And then what? A more useful question might be how do we NOT help our smokers quit? Are we doing anything that makes it harder for them to quit?
Aneta Comensecu, aged sixty-three, made it harder. According to newspaper reports, her husband, Marin, died at age 76. In his will he stipulated that if Aneta wanted to inherit his estate she would have to smoke at least five cigarettes a day for the rest of her life. This, he said, was her punishment for waging daily war against his smoking habit and putting him through “forty years of hell.” Aneta challenged the will. “I’d rather lose everything than touch a cigarette,” she said.
Poor Aneta. And poor Marin. If Marin had been in hell for forty years, we know that Aneta was right there along with him. Can we blame tobacco? Did Marin smoke because he couldn’t help it and Aneta just wouldn’t cut him any slack? Or did Aneta’s harping just make it that much harder to quit?
Obviously, some smokers live with nonsmokers and both sides experience a heaven on earth during their years together. And countless smokers have quit because they were inspired by their lovers, brothers, sisters, parents and friends. Clearly, it’s not the tobacco that makes for heaven or hell; it’s how we approach tobacco.
So what approach do we drop that doesn’t work. Here are the basic five:
1.) Don’t be a cop to your smoker. Alas, our smokers are already handcuffed, and know the difference between right and wrong. Our smokers will not escape from either the physical or social laws surrounding tobacco. Smokers already meet countless numbers of people quite willing to play the cop role, telling them right from wrong. So we can put away the badge. Our smokers’ “wrong-doing” is obvious. Our smokers have already been “arrested.” We can relax away from the “cop role.” Be on their side. The heavy hand of the law need not be our hand.
2.) Don’t be your smoker’s doctor. Researchers report that most smokers estimate the health risks of tobacco higher than do non-smokers. So we are not obliged to make diagnoses, or prognoses. Smokers know better than we that smoking is not healthy. They’re already frightened enough. No need to add to their fears. If we practice our own healthy lifestyle, our smokers will notice. Joy, not fear, is the road to health. Our smokers already know the dangers. Our reminders don’t help. Reminders just add to the fear bag.
3.) Don’t be your smoker’s Hall Monitor. We don’t need to monitor the times our smokers go out for a smoke, or count the number of smokes they’re smoking. Such close monitoring doesn’t do our smokers any good. In fact, our monitoring leads to more smoking, or secret smoking. And such monitoring doesn’t help our mood. We have other ways to help our smokers. Counting smokes is not one of them!
4.) Don’t be your smoker’s psychotherapist. Our smokers don’t not need our analyzing. Our smokers just needs our love, our laughter, our support, our free and easy company. By the hour, the week and the month.
5.) And finally, don’t be your smoker’s preacher. Our smokers don’t need sermons. They’ve heard it before (probably from us!) Most smokers already give themselves a daily series of hellfire and brimstone sermons about smoking that sufficiently chastise them, keep them cowed. Again, our smokers just needs our love, our laughter, our support.
For our smokers to finally be free of smoking they will have to change not only their physical behavior but more importantly change the way they think and feel about smoking. Seems only fair that, to help them, we change our own way of thinking and feeling and acting about smoking?
We harp on our smokers because we love them. For the same reason, let’s stop harping, offer instead our love, patience, insight and most all, humor. This is what they most need from their traveling companions.

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