The American Heart Association, AHA, keeps reminding us tirelessly that the smoking habit is terminal: smoking upscales the risk of all the gravest diseases, including cancer, cardiac inefficiency, and stroke. Besides, smoking is addictive and, once acquired, is extremely difficult to get rid of. For a celebrity as well as for the next guy, too.
Jennifer Aniston
The Friends’ famous star used to chain-smoke like there was no tomorrow. It was a bad case, yet she managed to give it up. In a GQ‘s 2012 interview the actress said she didn’t smoke anymore. What moved her towards such a radical change? The answer can be found in Aniston‘s introduction to Yogalosophy book indited by Mandy Ingber, her yoga coach. It was yoga that produced such a healing effect on her and made her shake off tobacco and caffeine addiction.
Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones die-hard could always be seen strutting on stage with a cigarette. Who could have thought that a year ago Richards would denounce smoking – which he had done by the end of 2019.
The rock star who used to be a notorious addict plying himself with drugs and drinks now confesses that his addictions are currently limited to rock’n’roll and an occasional drop of pinot grigio.
Of course, this was a feat of an uphill job. When busy on stifling his bad habit, the guitarist said he seconded the opinion of Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground leader, who stated that “nicotine was harder to quit than heroin.” Asked by Mojo about how he coped with the addiction, Richards revealed he did it by “cutting down by a substantial amount every day.”
Gwyneth Paltrow
When a teenager, Gwyneth Paltrow smoked like a chimney – with her it was not less than two packs daily. The actress‘s father died from cancer, it could have stopped many people, but not Paltrow. The time she got finally convinced that it was bad for her was when she conceived her first child. These days Paltrow is an ardent healthy lifestyle enthusiast.
Gisele Bundchen
Models often smoke to keep themselves on the slim side, and Bundchen followed suit up to a point. It was only in 2003 that she made the decision to switch to healthier habits together with her family. That resulted in her putting on 15 pounds, yet, according to the supermodel, she glorifies in her healthier body and doesn’t regret her decision. She definitely set an example for her female fans.
Lady Gaga
Talking with Zane Lowe on New Music Daily, the pop diva averred that she no longer smoked (as communicated by People). “I’m not smoking any more, but I’d smoke 40 cigarettes all day long.” As Lady Gaga claimed to the host, she was off tobacco completely, although it had been a rough ride. Still, the singer stuck with her decision, saying she thought quitting was „so brutal” that she wouldn’t want to ever do it again.
Cameron Diaz
Just as Cameron Diaz is totally health-aware these days, she was recalcitrant some thirty years ago, with her daily dose of 20 cigarettes. Luckily, the feeling of guilt had caught up with her before her condition began to deteriorate.
Glamour reported her opening up about her reasons. “I gave up because my parents were upset that I was smoking so much and I was setting a bad example. It preyed on my conscience. I was into roll-your-own, and I was killing myself.”
Prince Harry
As the Daily Mail’s story runs, the Duke of Sussex took up smoking in his adolescence and stuck with it into adulthood notwithstanding the fact that in 2016 Buckingham Palace together with all Royal Household sites was made a non-smoking territory.
Then the People magazine reported that the prince laid off smoking previous to his marriage to Meghan Markle, who, being wholeheartedly for yoga and healthy lifestyle in general, is supposed to have influenced her fiance towards improving his habits. As is known from a source, Harry was assisted along by Gabriela Peacock, the royal nutritional advisor, finally forgoing tobacco, dropping weight, and balancing his meals.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama, the former U.S. President, fell into the habit of smoking in his teens. When in 2008 he embarked on his presidential campaign he resolved to quit and persisted in his decision. Eventually, Obama made a success of it, and in 2011, when he had his second periodic medical check-up, the White House doctors proclaimed him to be free of the habit.
What about his wife, Michelle Obama? During her husband’s tenure in the White House, she did her best to promote healthy daily routines. “I’m scared of my wife,” Obama was known to joke talking to NBC News in 2013. When the president did feel an urge to light up a cigarette, he used to assuage his harmful desire with nicotine gum.
Catherine Zeta-Jones
One of the photos with Catherine Zeta-Jones shows her puffing at a cigarette at the time when the actress was pregnant in 2003. Now smoking during pregnancy constitutes a grave health danger, fraught with multiple fetus development problems including premature birth or stillbirth, placental abruption, and other highly unpleasant issues. Aware of that, Zeta-Jones resolved to give up smoking for the sake of her children several years ago, although she finds it a hard task, going into relapse periodically.
Anthony Hopkins
The Silence of the Lambs star also joined the club of non-smokers, but even after he did, now and again he still felt like having a cigarette or enjoying a cigar. In order to cope with the craving completely, the actor turned for assistance to a highly-recommended book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking penned by Allen Carr, the renowned anti-smoking advocate, and the advice he found there worked for him beautifully.
Hopkins‘ comment on the helpful book says that it is “not only easy but unbelievably enjoyable.” The central idea is that there is inner fear which keeps disturbing people thereby hindering the successful rejection of smoking.
