I loved them. They were my solace, my trigger, my friends. They were part of my French heritage, so I told myself, so giving me the out as one of a culture with low disease and death rates.

But my closest friend, a CNS working in a retired living center described to me the fallout: "You're at risk for cancers, emphysema, and strokes, for starters," she said, despite my balking. "If you don't quit smoking cigarettes," she nagged, "I would hate to see you end up like my people here, gasping for breath, toting around oxygen tanks, needing help doing the simplest of tasks because you're all stroked out." So I agreed. I would quit smoking...if she would help me.

That's the key to quitting cigs-using all the help you can get your desperate, hacking, trembling hands/self on, can wrap your resistant brain around. Here are some steps I took to quit smoking cigarettes, steps you, too, can take to one level or another:

-PREPARE BY READING UP ON QUITTING

The American Cancer Society offers free, thoughtful info on giving up the habit. The pamphlets are written in serious terms and at the same time use gentle language. If you need the soft approach, so you don't feel like a freak, the ACS might be for you.

There are plenty of books on quitting--many informative, supportive, coaxing, humorous, brilliantly researched, and helpful. I can't recall the title (it was about 15 years ago I quit smoking cigarettes), but you'll know it when you see it, as it has something like twenty words in the title, all hyphenated: something like, The No-nagging-low-pressure-how-to-really-quit-smoking-cigarettes-book!

And it's written by an MD offering info on how smokes are a dual drug...unlike any other: they are, he says, upper/downers. When you're nervous or agitated, you take long...slow...drags and are tranquilized; when you're logy, sluggish, tired, you take short.quick.puffpuffpuffs, and are instantly energized, hyped up.

Doc X exclaims, "No wonder it's so hard to quit smoking!" He also defines another characteristic that helps us appreciate why we're so hooked. He gives the times for onset, noting how there's only one other drug, of all drugs (OTC, street, prescribed that hits the brain faster, and that's crack cocaine. If I recall correctly, crack hits you in 3 seconds, heroin in 10, 7.

Cigarettes are harder to quit than heroin!

-INTERVIEW SUCCESSFUL QUITTERS

No need for brutal interrogation; just informally ask how others who stopped smoking did it. Here are a few tricks told to me:

1. Drink water. A lot of it. Our bodies take at least 8 ten-ounce glasses of water a day anyway, so whenever you feel the urge to puff, do water instead.

2. The oral act is a big part of smoking. Use a pencil, an imaginary butt, or even-if you're brave-a real unlit cig, and each time you have the crave to drag, inhale really deeply and satisfyingly, instead.

3. Say, "If I still want a cigarette in 20 minutes, I'll have one." What? Give in? No. Give yourself permission to. BUT...truly wait the whole 20 minutes (for most cravings cycle through and pass away in 20 mins.). Then, here's the trick, repeat the permit. If you still want a cigarette in 20 minutes, you can have one. The next thing you know, 8 hours have passed.

4. Reward yourself. First, when you plan to quit smoking cigarettes, note how much you spend on smokes. During white-knuckle moments, remember you have a treat coming. Use the same money you'd use on cigs to buy a toy, new bauble, health drink (not coffee!), magazine, DVD (yes, some of us smoke that much).

5. Use slogans. 12-step programs have something there. Easy does it. This too shall pass. I think I will have to wring the neck of the crazy driver in front of me.

Well, not that last one...but you get the idea. Do whatever works. Pray. Meditate. Run. Walk. Bike. Hike.

I did a lot of hiking. My friend drove us to Mt. Tam every day, and we scaled trails I bitched about, cried over, resented. But the tricks worked. For a year and a month, exactly. Then I stupidly picked up the lung bleeders again.

Quit smoking cigarettes? Aw, crap. Here we go again.

Muna wa Wanjiru is a web administrator and has been researching and reporting on Internet Marketing for years. For more information on Quit smoking cigarettes, visit his site at Quit smoking cigarettes