OpinionJanuary 1, 2025

Struggling to quit smoking? You're not alone. Explore humorous yet relatable methods to tackle New Year resolutions and the challenges of sticking to them, as shared by Tom Runnels.

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Ain’t you glad to see the holidays over? All the relatives have gone back to where they belong and you can start breakin’ all them New Year resolutions you’ve made.

My biggy this year, as always, is to quit smokin’. Of course, it’s like Mark Twain said, “It ain’t no trouble to quit smokin’—I’ve done it a million times.”

There are a couple methods I ain’t used yet. I’ve tried cold turkey, which lasts about five minutes. I’ve tried hypnosis—can’t wait to get out of the trance so I can light up.

I’ve tried the pill, the gum and almost everything else I can think of with little or no success at all.

Not only have I prayed myself, I’ve asked some of them bonified Christians to throw in a word for me, and I’m livin’ proof that prayer ain’t goin’ very far, at least as far as smokin’ is concerned.

I’ve got a couple ideas I ain’t tried yet that just might work. I had this brilliant doctor to tell me one time, after my hypnosis session with him and the one hundred dollar office call, that quittin’ smokin’ was no problem—just don’t buy any.

Ain’t that smart? Now I couldn’t figure that out all for myself. Of course, that doctor never smoked.

Someone told me to just quit everything I do when I smoke. Everything? Even breathin’?

I’m here to tell you. I smoke with everything I do. And there is nothin’ I can think of, except breathin’, that I can’t do better with a Camel than I can without.

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This last idea I got is a sure care. If I have to quit coffee, and other of my favorite drinks. I’m goin’ to have to stay out of town.

I’ve got this big buoy chain over at the shop, and when I say chain I mean CHAIN. That sucker is about fifty feet long, and I can’t even lift it and I can’t drag it.

If the wife would shackle me to that chain before she leaves to work on Monday and not take me off until she comes in on Friday, maybe I could stay off the smoke for a few days.

She could leave me a pan of water and some dog food and I’d still be alive when she came home, maybe.

I know one thing — she had better hide the wheelbarrow, or I’d be loadin’ that chain up link by link and cuttin’ out for town anyway, if a lightning storm was to roll in.

Oh, well, what are New Year resolutions, anyway?

Courtesy of Tom Runnels Publications. Copyrighted and Registered by Tom Runnels and Saundra Runnels Revocable Trust. Printed in The Banner Press: Jan. 12, 1989.

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