Poker News

Susie Isaacs

It’s not only “not easy”; it’s hard as hell. On my personal scale, it was the second hardest thing I have ever done in my life. That is the line I use when someone ask me how I did it. Of course their next question is what was the first hardest thing. I jokingly say, “Not killing my husband when he broke my heart!”

What? You ask, what is so difficult? Quitting smoking. If you have ever been a smoker, a real smoker with a full blown addiction and finally quit, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are a smoker, you probably want to quit. You may even have tried a time or two or twenty only to fail because it was just too tough. The second biggest surprise in my life is when I see someone who has quit — start back! (What is the first biggest surprise, you ask. See hardest thing in preceding paragraph.) These folks have made it, they have celebrated anniversary after anniversary of the day they put them down and then out of the blue, they’re smoking again. There is always an excuse, a death, a divorce, a birth, a bad-beat. The reasons can be a good thing happened and I’m celebrating or a bad thing happened and I’m grieving … any excuse will do.

I have a friend who has quit several times and after six months or a year, she went back to it. When asked why, she explains that it is a satanic pull that literally pulls you back into it. She presently is trying it again. I have volunteered to be her “sponsor”. She can call me day or night if Satan starts tugging on her again.

I got to thinking about this subject a lot during both the World Series and Harrah’s WSOP circuit event. I saw many players, certainly not the majority anymore, but many players of all ages, getting so antsy after some smokeless time in the poker arena. Some would watch the clock and as break time neared, they had their cigarettes out, lighter in hand and literally ran out to the smoking area. I felt sorry for them because I have been there and I know what they are going through.

I am shocked over and over again by family, friends and acquaintances that have gone through the hell of quitting only to go back to it. A few examples; I have a close relative who chews tobacco. I know, you’re thinking, she’s from Tennessee. This must be a redneck relative. You’re wrong; he is a top-notch executive who sneaks around chewing and spitting. But what is so much more surprising about his habit is that his granddaddy was a tobacco chewer who got cancer of the mouth and went through hell before he died.

Another is a friend whose voice was getting very raspy after decades of smoking. She had a polyp removed from her throat (non-cancerous.) Her voice was clearing up and she quit smoking. She was one of the lucky ones, I thought and then I saw her a few weeks later and she was smoking again!

The last example is a friend who had been off cigarettes for many years. She started dating a guy who also had kicked the habit, but he allowed himself one cigar a night. She started joining him for the nightly cigar ritual and the next thing I knew, she was a smoker again.

I know that the majority of smokers want to quit, as did I. Cigarettes had such a hold on me that I disgusted myself. I could not get satisfied. I would wake up in the middle of the night and light up. In the last tournament I played in 1996 before making the decision to quit, I played for 14 hours and was into my third pack of cigarettes. I got to the point that I could have smoked three at a time and not gotten satisfied. I had more smoke hangovers than drinking hangovers and I was a partier at the time.

In the next issue of Poker Player, I will share with you how I quit. Between now and then, keep this in mind; if Susie Isaacs can quit smoking, so can you!

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