Non-Fiction Critical Analysis

      In an article "How I Quit Smoking" by Wendy Fox it is an article completely about how Fox realized she was harming herself. She talks of her addiction an of how even as she changed, from moving to losing friends and gaining new ones, she never stopped smoking. Eventually she had a minor medical scare and had an epiphany she then speaks of how she quit. Her opinion is pretty clear throughout the telling of her story but especially when she talks of a book she read about quitting and how this one quote spoke to her, "Would you deliberately step under a bus?"

    At first Fox only talks of her story and her experiences how her, "smokes stayed with me as I moved to five different cities, changed careers, met new people and left old friends behind." But she then talks of how she had her "a-ha" moment, "My “aha!” moment came last year after a health scare... I was worried about my life potentially being shortened, and suddenly saw the irony: By smoking, I was purposely reducing my life expectancy. What a fool! I asked myself, 'If I don’t quit now, then when?'" She talks then about how she struggled with quitting but only really stopped when she read a book. The book was called "Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking." Fox talks of her "open[ing] myself up to Carr’s advice" and how a lot of what he said in the book stuck with her. For example, "'Would you deliberately step under a bus?'" Fox then finishes her story saying Then there was the chapter in which I had to account for the money I’d spent on smoking, and would spend in future. I was shocked: Smoking a pack a day for another 20 years, I’d spend $73,000 for the privilege of killing myself. (The sad part is that I had already spent almost that much.) I finished the book, and quit."

   I always agreed with people when they would say 'Smoking is wrong' and now after doing so much research on the topic I agree with it even more so. It affects every single part of your body, the people around you, the environment, your bank account and quitting, well that sounds horrid. Smoking is a ridiculous waste of time and money and i agree with Wendy Fox on every level.