Why I Stopped Smoking (and how I kept from restarting)

In the year and a half since I abruptly stopped smoking, several people have asked me for advice on the issue. Even today, I received a message from a friend asking about what scriptures helped me to stop. I thought that while I was responding, I might as well make this available to everyone. These are my thoughts and convictions about smoking. I'm not trying to tell you that this is a formula and that it applies to everyone... I'll just tell you that I haven't found any reason that it isn't and that it doesn't.

Just now I looked online to see what some other people had written regarding whether or not christians should smoke. I'll be honest... that was a little frustrating. It seems like there are two camps:

-one that cites 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "... your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit..." and that you therefore cannot poison your body

-the other that says that the bible never talks about smoking specifically, which means you can do it

I'll just say real quick, the second point is bogus (and bogus is an awesome word that I forgot about). The first point, however, is legitimate, although I personally never felt much conviction on it. I know a lot of people (like me at one point) argue against the "body is a temple" thing by pointing out a lot of other harmful things that are more socially acceptable. Something like, "well, if the body is such a temple, why are you eating that Big Mac?" Justifying our own sin by pointing out the sin of another is bad practice. The fact that there are many things that are unhealthy is a poor excuse to do one more unhealthy thing. If anything, it's an even stronger reason why NOT to. Enough about that though, let's get on with the good stuff.

I smoked a pack a day for more than 7 years. First of all, that's around $8,000.00 for cigarettes, which is incredible to me, but sort of pointless for what I'm going to say. About 2 years ago I began to seek God in a new way. Without giving my whole testimony here, let's just say that the more I began to walk toward God, the more I found God, and the more I fell in love with God. For a while I had some slight convictions about smoking, although they mostly felt related to other people's perceptions of me. Eventually, as I read the bible more, I had this moment of clarity where I realized that, regardless of health, public opinion, whatever... if God asks me to not smoke, and I respond by continuing to smoke, I have just declared that my cigarette smoking is more important to me than God. My addiction, my physical, chemical, mental dependence had been getting in the way of me worshiping the one true God. So if you're looking for a specific verse that helped me to quit, it would have to be Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before me." That verse pretty much sums up the initial 'spring cleaning' that went on in my life as I began my walk toward God. I wanted to know God more and more, and quickly started to realize that that wasn't happening because He was one of many to me. I was devoting so much of myself to so many little gods that I rarely paid attention to the one big God.

I hope this helps some. When I stopped smoking, the chemical withdrawals were difficult and I became depressed for several weeks. This was curbed by exercise. I found that my mind kept wanting to believe that after I "finished quitting" I would be able to restart again. If you've ever tried to quit before, you probably know what I mean. The thing that changed this thinking for me and absolutely closed the door on it was a picture in my head of Jesus. A realization that this was not for me, but for my Lord. I remembered what I was doing, where I was going, what my goal was. My goal was God himself, at any cost, by any road. There's no sentence that I can give you that will make quitting easier. Maybe some laser treatment or hypnosis or something, who knows. Rather than take the difficulty away though, I can assure you of the one who will be with you all through the difficulty, and I can assure you of the new understanding of strength that comes out on the other side.

also, if you never quit smoking, never stop doing whatever it is you're struggling with, God loves you the same.