How I quit smoking and lived to tell it

This is the story of how I was finally able to conquer my four-pack-a-day smoking habit back in September, 1968. I was a professional smoker; I absolutely loved to smoke from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. You have to smoke a lot of cigarettes to go through 80 or so during roughly 18-hours of awake time. Many times I would light up, only to find one already burning in the ashtray. I smoked everything from Picayunes, the Pride of New Orleans, to Camels to Lucky Strikes to Salems, and sometimes I had so much menthol in my system it would make me queasy. I even had some long, slim, pink Nat Sherman cigarettes, custom-embossed with my name. Fancy, wancy!

I read an article in the July, 1968, Life Magazine about the anti-convulsant drug, Dilantin, being prescribed in lieu of tranquilizers to slow down patients' racing of the mind and to help them focus. They found that, as a side-effect, the patients were able to stop smoking. I asked my doctor for a prescription and stopped smoking the very first day I started the Dilantin (Phenytoin). I took it for two weeks and have never smoked a cigarette since. I chewed so much gum I got sores in my mouth and my jaws hurt, but it was worth it. I did, however, have nightmares that I was smoking again and would wake up in a panic, knowing that if I smoked one cigarette I would be hooked again -- just like an alcoholic with that first drink after falling off the wagon.

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