World No Tobacco Day is celebrated today, 31 May. On this occasion, actor Purab Kohli talked about his smoking addiction. He told that he started smoking at the age of 15. The actor said, I was 15-16 years old. We all know that smoking is bad for health and we have also heard many stories about it, so we know that it is not good to do this. Smoking seemed attractive at that time. I started feeling cool.
He further said, it had been 10 years since I started smoking. Then I thought of quitting. I was noticing that when I was stressed due to work, I smoked more. I reached that point when I wanted to try if I could quit. I told myself that I smoked for 10-12 years, can’t I do one more year? I set a date and kept motivating myself. And I comment a lot, when I make a decision, I stick to it.
Purab Kohli further said, I woke up one morning and said, I have to stop and I quit smoking. But it was very difficult. I bought a cigarette and kept in mind that I will never light it. I used to keep the cigarette in my hand without lighting it and slowly the desire to smoke went away. However, whenever I passed by the shop from where I used to buy cigarettes, I used to feel like smoking. Then I realized how strong the addiction of smoking is.
The 45-year-old actor added, “It was having a physical effect as well, like my stomach would get very upset and I would eat food and have indigestion. It was physically tough on my body, it was not an easy task at that time. I gave myself a year and that’s how I kept myself committed. The next year I lit up a cigarette and I hated it. When you don’t smoke for a long time, you realise how disgusting it tastes. It used to smell horrible. I didn’t smoke for 3-4 years after that, but there was a role that I had to smoke for and then I started smoking again for a short period in my early thirties. I already knew how much difference it made once I quit smoking and while working out.”
