I have a patient on my schedule today who is a heavy smoker. Complaint: "Lungs are hurting."

[LisaM]

53. My parents both (successfully) quit smoking cold turkey, but...

it was harder for my father than for my mother, even though I'd say she smoked a lot more than he did. I finally figured out that it was likely because his smoking was situational. He was a teacher and of course, all the teachers used to smoke during the day, but once that stopped, he would go all morning without a cigarette, then come home for lunch and routinely have a cigarette at the same time every day. Same thing after school. And so on.....he was also much more likely to get a cigarette out when he was stressed. My mother just seemed to have one going most of the time, often just sitting next to her, so when it came time to quit, situations would arise where he'd want to smoke (and I imagine he had an inner clock telling him that it was the time of day he always smoked). This is obviously a completely non-scientific observation, but I was interested in why the parent who I'd say smoked far less had the harder time stopping.

Anyway, it took, it's been 17 years for both of them now.