From Joel Spitzer at www.whyquit.com:
http://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_10_i_will_quit_when.html
"I will quit when my doctor tells me I have to." "I can't quit now it's tax season." "Maybe I will quit on vacation." "School is starting and I'm too nervous to quit." "I will quit in the summer when I can exercise more." "When conditions improve at work, I will stop." "Quit now, during midterm, you must be nuts!" "Maybe after my daughter's wedding." "My father is in the hospital. I can't quit now." "If I quit now, it will spoil the whole trip." "The doctor says I need surgery. I'm too nervous to try now." "When I lose 15 pounds, I will stop." "I am making too many other changes to stop now." "I have smoked for years and feel fine, why should I stop smoking now?" "I'm in the process of moving, and it's a real headache. I can't stop now." "It is too soon after my new promotion, when things settle down I will stop." "When we have a verifiable bilateral disarmament agreement, I will consider quitting." "It is too late. I'm as good as dead now."
Amazing, isn't it, how so many people can come up with so many excuses not to stop smoking? If any of these were valid reasons why now is not a good time to quit, when did 33,000,000 ex-smokers in our country stop? They must have been experiencing at least one of these situations during the initial quitting process. The only difference between successful ex-smokers and the smokers making these statements is that the ex-smokers were bright enough to recognize that smoking was not really necessary to deal with any of these situations.
The best time to quit is NOW. No matter when now is. In fact, many of the times specifically stated as bad times to quit may be the best. I actually prefer that people quit when experiencing some degree of emotional stress. In most cases, the more stress the better. This may sound harsh, but in the long run it will vastly improve the chances of long term success in abstaining from cigarettes.
