Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.

K has been counting down all week.

One dead soldier. Two dead soldiers.

She's quitting smoking. And it's hard. I know (I've done it dozens of times).

But she's been taking a class at the Hospital, and now its become a Personal Challenge, so its "buh-bye smokes."

But it's tough, despite all the stuff she's been learning in the class.

Did you know it's safer to smoke cigars than cigarettes these days? Because with cigars you get tobacco, tar--the usual things we've been warned about. But the tobacco companies lace their modern cigarettes with all sorts (up to 600) of chemical additives, like (wait for it) benzene, freon, ammonia, as well as extra nicotine...oh, and chocolate. And they put all these chemicals into the trash tobacco (mostly garbage like stems that aren't as valuable) they mash into cigarettes to make it more addictive faster. So when you take those first couple of puffs that rush you feel is your capillaries constricting from all the chemistry going into your blood-stream.

Suh-weet!

I've been off smokes for five years about. I smoked some in college. Resisted when my first wife smoked, and our best friends smoked. But when I started doing sessions where the producer-writer, all the talent and everybody smoked, I couldn't avoid it anymore. So I started again. And BOOM! it was like I never stopped. One of the reasons it's tough to quit is because you don't WANT to quit! It feels good. It feels cool! It gives you a chance to sneak outside from work and take a break. Time becomes measured in the length of a cigarette, the number of cigarettes in a pack. It becomes a favorite part of your life. You don't WANT to give that up.

But you have to. It's unnatural to inhale all that smoke--your body can't process it fast enough. It's not natural to lose your taste, or to walk around in a tobacco cloud that only you are not aware of. And you fool yourself into thinking nobody notices. But people do. Because your clothes stink of it.

How'd I quit? I stopped buying 'em. Then I'd have to bum them off people, which is embarrassing, AND it throws off your comfort cycle. Sometimes you have to smoke when its not convenient, and you can't finish that precious cigarette. The rhythm gets thrown off--you can't have a cigarette any time you want any more, and that just throws everything out of joint.

Sean Connery helped me stop smoking, too. In "Never Say Never Again," the villain offers him packs of cigarettes to smoke, and the reply is "Not today..." "Not today" is a great way to stop smoking. Pretty soon, "Not today's" start piling up, and you don't even know when the last time you've smoked was. That's the other thing--I try not to think of it as a life-sentence. "Not today" makes it seem casual, and not absolute. "Some day I might have a cigarette, if I really want it, and am weak enough to go through with it."

Just not today. Maybe not ever. But not today, for sure.

When I was stopping, the toughest thing was to watch people smoke in movies. I can see why they want to slap "R" ratings on movies with smoking. I never wanted a cigarette so bad as coming out of "Good Night and Good Luck."

Which reminds me, right after CBS News announced the real Ed Murrow's death from cancer, they cut away to a cigarette ad (back in the day).

Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.

It satisfies no normal need. I like it.

It makes you thin, it makes you lean,

It takes the hair right off your bean

It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.

I like it.

Graham Lee Hemminger, "Tobacco"

Love you K. Snuff it out. You can do it.