806: I Can't Quit You, Baby

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 30 July 2023

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

People on the verge of a big change, not wanting to let go. And the people who give them the final push.

Prologue: Guest Host Sean Cole gets some scary news about his health, and decides to quit smoking. (5 minutes)
Act One: Sean Cole attempts to kick his 35 year-long smoking habit, using a book that’s said to have helped millions of people to quit. (33 minutes)
Act Two: Someone writes into the advice column Dear Sugar to ask whether or not they should quit a relationship, and gets a strange but very persuasive response. (9 minutes)
Act Three: Even people who vehemently disagreed with Heider Garcia wanted him to stay in his job. But then something happened that made staying impossible. Zoe Chace reports. (9 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show.
0:05.4	If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
0:11.9	From WBEZ Chicago, it's this American life, and I'm Sean Cole sitting in for IRA class.
0:18.0	Late last year, I got some not-so-great health news that kind of scared the hell out of me.
0:22.4	Basically, I was diagnosed with mild emphysema, lung disease, and two, what they're calling
0:28.3	small benign nodules, one on each lung.
0:31.5	It's like scar tissue.
0:33.6	I'm trying to focus on the words mild, small, and benign.
0:37.9	The cause wasn't mysterious.
0:39.1	I'd been a daily cigarette smoker for about 35 years.
0:41.9	It needs to be a pack a day when I was younger, sometimes more.
0:45.1	I'd cut it down to maybe a half or a third of that later on.
0:48.5	And I'd been meaning to quit for a long time, but I just never tried to, not really.
0:53.8	And now it felt like I had no choice.
0:57.1	Before I tell you what happened next, I feel like I should explain what a huge change
1:00.8	that was going to be.
1:03.1	I always say I started smoking when I was 15, and started inhaling when I was 16.
1:07.9	Partly, I just wanted to be like the people in the British TV dramas I was watching on
1:11.6	PBS, pulling these perfect little white cylinders out of silver cases that snapped shut.
1:18.0	I remember I painted an empty metal bandaid container light blue and kept my salamethals
1:22.5	in there, puffing at them in my parents' driveway.
1:26.4	In my 30s and 40s, I was the guy in the friend group that always had cigarettes.
	...

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