18 years and counting STORY OF HOW I QUIT SMOKING AND DRINKING

By Manny Piñol

I was a heavy smoker.

My consumption was three packs of cigarettes a day and I drank like a fish until the wee hours of the morning.

I have successfully kicked both habits.

Not a single stick of cigarette has ever touched my lips for the last 18 years and, except for a sip of the Igorot rice wine during my recent visit to Banaue, Ifugao for the tribal rites, I have not taken alcohol for the last 10 years, not even red wine.

How was I able to kick the bad habits?

First, the smoking.

It was Sept. 20, 1998 and I was into my third month as Governor of North Cotabato when I asked my daughter, Josa Bernadette, who was turning 9 two days later, what it was that she wanted for her birthday.

“Wala po Papa. Gusto ko lang stop ka ng smoking,” she said leaving me dumbfounded.

Actually, I am very blessed with my children. They do not have tantrums and they would never ask anything beyond what I could afford to give him.

But for my little girl (a little boy would later come, Bernhart Immanuel), to ask me to just quit smoking as a birthday gift was something I could not refuse.

That was it. Since that day, I never smoked a single stick of cigarette.

Now, for the drinking.

Actually, it was my own realisation that as a leader of a province in conflict and in crisis, I had to make critical decisions at any given time of the day.

I drank a lot, almost everything actually from rum, tuba, beer, brandy, whiskey and anything offered to me during occasions like fiesta and that sort.

During the moments I was inebriated, however, I felt that I was quick to make rash decisions and prone to committing foolishness.

That was when, on my own, I decided to give up drinking.

Yes, the craving for cigarettes and alcohol is still there. I would still imagine the smell of the tobacco and alcohol but I could easily control myself.

On Saturday Sept. 24, 18 years and 4 days after I quit smoking, I and my daughter, JB, whom I brought along with me to Peru to make sure I take my maintenance meds for all the ailments that come along with old age and also as a gift on her 27th birthday and successful passing of the medical board examinations, laughed aloud when we saw a big stubbed concrete cigarette butt in a plaza in Rio de Janeiro.

I did not quite understand the Portuguese inscriptions in a billboard beside it but I was sure it was a way of asking people to stop smoking.

Well, I did mine 18 years ago and it feels good.

And I thank the little girl who asked me to quit.

At least now, her only concerns are my cholesterol, my blood pressure, blood sugar and my endless nasal allergy, not emphysema or lung cancer.

(Photos taken in Rio de Janeiro’s Rua Senador by my brother, Bong, also my head executive assistant, JB and the Brazilian restaurant waiter.)