I was never a heavy smoker, but for much of my twenties I was a social smoker at bars and every now and then. Recently, I have just kicked that habit in a “I’m too old for this” type deal. I recently came across a story of how Hookahs helped someone quit smoking cigarettes AND find money to travel. For smokers looking for way to fund trips, this is the healthiest way to I’ve heard of for traveling the world.
-LMA
How Hookah Saved My Life, My Family and My Money
Sponsored Guest post by Chris M Cloutier
You could probably say I was destined to be a smoker from the start. I grew up in a family of smokers. As a kid I watched interviews with rock stars who made smoking seem cool. Plus Get-togethers in my house, meant 15 or 20 people sitting around the dining room table chain smoking.
Much of my teen years were spent trying to come up with new and creative ways to find and smoke cigarettes. I got pretty good at it too. In fact I was so good at it that by the time I was 15 my parents gave up and just started letting me smoke.
I was finally free to be as cool as I wanted – anywhere I wanted.
Fast forward 10 years
Smoking seems cool until you find yourself with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, trying to play basketball with your son. Finding myself in this situation, I realized I wasn’t so cool anymore and knew I had to stop.My brother had been trying to get me to go to a bar with him for months. He’s kind of a hippy so I was dead-set on turning him down. I had a bad image of the types of bars hippies likely went to.
When I finally agreed, he told me it was a Hookah Bar.
This is how I Was Introduced to Hookah.
The smell of the place was almost exotic. It was much better than I imagined and my first hit had me convinced. The flavor was so sweet and bold that I didn’t want to ruin it before I could get home and tell my wife about it.
The whole ride home I didn’t smoke. I just wanted my wife to catch a wiff of it and I knew she’d be willing to give it a try too. And I was right. From this point on we decided to give up cigarettes for good.
More Time For the Important Things
Because my wife and I enjoyed hookah so much, it became a nightly ritual. At the end of the night we would both sit together and talk about the day while trying new flavors. This made it much easier for us to leave cigarettes behind.
The Savings
After our first month of smoking hookah only, we decided to a little math. We found out that we were spending about $4,000 a year on cigarettes. Smoking hookah allowed us to save $3,000 a year.
Our first year we decided to see if we could use it for a vacation and we have been able to go on vacation every year since then.
Idle Hands
If you’ve ever heard the expression, “idle hands are the devil’s playground” then you understand why it’s so hard for people to quit smoking cigarettes. After smoking hookah for a while I quickly realized that my cigarette habit was caused almost entirely by me needing to have my hands busy.
Smoking hookah allowed me to do that. It gave me a hobby and that kept my hands busy. Between trying new shisha and cleaning things, I found that smoking hookah was quite the enjoyable hobby.
Being a Kid Again
Because the tobacco is natural and maybe because we tend to smoke less hookah, my lungs began to feel like they were working again. It didn’t take long before I was able to keep up with my kids outside. I was running alongside them in no time, and I could tell it made them much happier.
The Reason it worked so well
Cigarettes have a way of claiming every aspect of your life. Before you know you’re developing habits around habits. That’s why hookah worked so well for us in our journey to quit cigarettes.
Smoking hookah isn’t like going ‘cold turkey’. It helps you replace all the habits that come with smoking. And what’s better is that helps you create new, healthier ones.
