How to give up smoking

Smoke gets in your eyes - The Platters

Joy upon joy! We have a new bed coming this afternoon (“Big deal!” I hear you say) and my wife and I are delighted, not that there was anything wrong with the bed we have but this bed is special.

My wife has quit smoking; she smoked about 200 cigarettes per week on average but wanted to quit the habit for many reasons not least because her father had not long died of the dreaded lung cancer, the same dreadful disease that took her mother at the age of 49, so, an effort was to be made to quit. Not an easy task as anyone who has taken up the habit of smoking will tell you, it’s not just a case of “that’s it, no more!” well, not in the majority of cases anyway. As an ex smoker myself I knew what lay ahead.

If you have never smoked, well done, you have not succumbed to fashion or peer pressure, you have managed to avoid one of the most addictive habits and surely one of the unhealthiest and dangerous habits as well. Government figures, any government figures that is, will show that there are tens of thousands of people dying each year from cigarette related diseases, cancer mostly and heart disease and each year more young people take up the habit to replace the people who have died, there seems to be no end to it, strangely enough, in a lot of cases its girls who are taking up smoking, a lot with the belief that it will keep their weight down, others because they think it makes them look like “cool gangsters!” it doesn’t of course, it just makes them smell bad.

So, we decided there should be a little extra incentive for giving up the fags and this came in the form of a bed. We live in Spain and so wood is scarce here, things are built with steel or concrete in a lot of cases (the beds are not made of concrete, don’t be silly, mind you, our old mattress felt like it was!) and headboards are usually ornate wrought iron affairs that rattle against the wall as they are fixed with a couple of screws, oh no! This bed is all wood with four ornate posts and a nice big wooden headboard, it’s something that would look right in a cottage and we live in a cottage of sorts.

The plan was this; Every Monday my wife would pay around 40€ that’s around 4,343 JMD for a carton of 200 cigarettes, so, every Monday that she quit smoking we would put the money in a box to purchase this bed, the weeks soon went by and we started to build up a fair amount of cash that would have been wasted on buying tobacco and when we reached 500€ (54,282JMD) we put the deposit down and ordered the bed, that left us another 500€ to pay and thus we were at a point of no return, if she started smoking again we lose the money. Happily though, we are still smoke free and the bed comes today, a further incentive to keep cigarette free.

Why am I rattling on about my wife giving up smoking and a new wooden bed being delivered? What has this got to do with renting Luxury Jamaica villas or Jamaican Treasures (The best Jamaica villa rentals company in the world, so I’m told?) Nothing! Absolutely nothing to do with Jamaica or Jamaican Treasures but I would like to say this; Giving up a habit is hard for anyone and any little incentive is a help, be it a pat on the back or a small present or whatever, if you know someone who is trying to give it up then why not help them.

Anyway, a lot of our fantastic Jamaica villas are smoke free rentals so you will feel a lot better in one of them if you are giving up the habit. Good luck and “well done!” in advance.

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Email lisa@jamaicantreasures.com
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