A Point of View by Paul Montesino

Trading tobacco for… hamburgers?
A Point of View © 1996
By Paul V. Montesino. PhD, MBA, CSP.

Recently, the Stop and Shop supermarket chain announced that, as of August 31st, they would stop selling cigarettes. I was surprised. I’d never noticed any cigarettes sold in the years I’ve been buying groceries at that outlet. Of course, it helped that I am not a smoker and couldn’t see any tobacco on display if it hit me or if it was lacking.

I suppose years ago, I’d have noticed. The woman who helped my mother during my childhood years in Cuba was a heavy smoker, and growing up meant learning from her how to smoke as soon as I reached maturity. I guess the term maturity loses its meaning when one makes that decision.

In Cuba, tobacco growing was and is as popular as sugar cane. My grandfather planted tobacco on his farm and sold it to makers of the famous “Macanudos.” My father was a senior marketing executive of a well-known tobacco company called Villamil Santaya and Company, where they manufactured the famous “Royal” cigarettes that imitated American brands with cork nozzles that were supposed to protect the lips but did little to protect the lungs. I remember when I helped my father design polls intended to interpret smokers’ attitudes towards the “Royal” brand.

It wasn’t until my late twenties, after I watched my mother dying of ovarian cancer and the CDC warning about the health risks of smoking, that I questioned my practice and decided to stop. That habitual behavior included getting out under rain or snow and walking several blocks to a drug store at any time of day or night to replenish the nicotine supply demanded by my brain. But notice what made me do it: nicotine, not the devil. If you could drink nicotine instead of inhaling it, you would die of nicotine poisoning instantly. But smoking is no different, it’s only a slower death.

But returning to my decision to quit, it had to be cold turkey, and slowly, it wouldn’t work. I could have done it over fifty years ago, and so could you today. It was rough going for a while. Once you stop, the moments when you miss your old habit may reappear unexpectedly from any angle of your life. While taking a shower, having a drink with your friends, driving to work, in the middle of a theatre play, even as soon as you wake up. All you must do when the habit’s head shows up is to say to yourself, “Oh, I can smoke next time, not now” over and over. The following times will continue to become smaller and smaller until they are no longer.

You can then go to the supermarket and ignore the meaningless tobacco displays to you now or ever. Head to the meat section instead and look for healthy ground hamburgers. Oh, did I say hamburgers? Have I told you all I know about hamburgers?

And that is my Point of View Today. So long.