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I smoked cigarettes from 1965 till 1995 and quit cold turkey with this concept. It was very easy for me and it absolutely works.

#1. You must prepare for your quitting day and just before that day if you normally smoke one pack of cigarettes a day you need to triple that. The key is to make yourself truly disgusted when you put out that last smoke before you go to bed on the eve of your quitting day..

#2. I think the most important part of the contract to quit smoking that you are about to make with yourself is that you must give this wonderful gift of you quitting to a loved one who cares about you and that you love. I quit smoking on my daughter Nicole's 6th birthday. I promised her on that day that I would never smoke another cigarette again, and I never have. I know this still makes her very happy and I will never go back on my word to that little girl. She is 19 now and who knows, I am 51 today and this might have saved my life and given me an extra 20 that I would not have if I continued to smoke 1-2 packs a day.

#3. You must understand that you are addicted to the chemical nicotine (you are freebasing nicotine and bypassing your natural immune system, permitting all the carcinogens, tar and you can't imagine what else to go directly into your blood stream). You know that it has control of you and that quitting will make your life very uncomfortable for the next couple weeks, but it is clearly worth the effort.

READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH TWICE...The reality is that you will think about smoking a cigarette every five minutes for the first two days. As time goes by you will be less influenced...After the third day it overwhelms you every 20 minutes for the first week. By week 2 you will have a mild craving every 45 minutes. By week 3 it's about once an hour and by week 4 it's once every 2-3 hours. I found that the cravings did not go away completely until about three months had passed. But just understand, the longer you go without a cigarette, the less you desire one.

The psychologists say that it takes 21 days to turn a skill into a permanent habit. This goes for good or bad habits and relates to everything we do. Here you have a conscious choice.

#4. THE CLINCHER... Trust me this works. After you have done everything else and it is Friday night and you are with your friends who still smoke (not because they want to) and you are about to bum (sneak) just one small drag from your friend... Just know that if you have one small drag you have broken the deal and it is guaranteed that you will be back to smoking full time again. You will justify yourself right back into the routine. Here is what you do if you just can't stand it any longer. (When no one is looking) sneak over to a used ashtray, making sure no one is glancing over and you take a good whiff of that ashtray. Inhale deeply and believe it or not you will get a little nicotine and be totally satisfied for that moment, and somewhat disgusted at the same time. I probably sniffed 4 or five ashtrays before I kicked the habit. Just survive without a drag for three short weeks and then it's really easy...

So the question is: When is the next birthday of someone you care about very much? And good luck...

Average pack $3.00 X 365 = $1095 per year. If you can earn 10% on your investment.

Thirty Years = $217,884 That's a nice new house that your cigarettes will pay for.

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The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's "dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. "Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part. It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over

"I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear."

"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.

And so, as one smart bear once said..."If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you." - Winnie the Pooh.