It pay$ to quit.

Jim Sweeney started smoking Chesterfields when he was 16 years old. Most of his friends smoked, and he just went along with the crowd. Later Jim joined the Army and was shipped overseas.

"Over there everybody smoked," Jim says. "That's about all we could do to relieve stress."

After getting out of the Army, Jim became an accountant, got married, and started raising a family. By this time he was smoking an average of two and a half packs a day. "I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I would do was light up a cigarette," he recalls.

His wife often complained about the smoke getting into the curtains and the furniture. She didn't like the smell of smoke on her clothes, or finding dirty ashtrays around the house. And she confronted Jim about the amount of money his habit cost. He had never bothered to calculate how much he spent on cigarettes, but she totaled it up for him. He was astonished.

Jim's children also urged him to quit smoking. They said his constant craving for nicotine made him irritable. "I'd reach into my pocket for my car keys, and they would immediately start complaining," he says. "They just assumed I was reaching for a cigarette!"

One day at work Jim decided he'd had enough. He pulled out a half-full pack of cigarettes and showed it to a coworker. "You see this?" he said, crumpling the pack and tossing it into the trash can. "That's the last of my smoking habit."

Of course, nobody believed Jim could actually quit cold turkey. A couple weeks later his wife asked the kids where Jim was hiding his ashtrays. "Nowhere," they replied. "He's really quit."

Indeed he had. "My wife was so happy," Jim recalls. "She gave me a big hug and a kiss. My kids were happy too. They said, 'Daddy, you're a different person! I must have been pretty grouchy when I was a smoker."

Before quitting, Jim had often found himself wheezing and coughing after any physical exertion. Now those symptoms are gone. "After I quit, I felt younger and more agile," he says. His sense of smell improved. He would walk into a room where someone else had been smoking and think, Wow? I must have smelled that bad all the time?

His work as an accountant also improved. "I found I could think more clearly, and I had more energy and incentive to do more."

For Jim, quitting wasn't that hard, once he made up his mind to do it. "I believe your mind controls your body," he says. "I just told myself I wasn't going to smoke anymore, and I stuck to it. But I realize not everyone can do it that way."

Regardless of how you do it, thousands of former smokers will agree that a whole new life waits for you-- once you give up cigarettes. Here are some of the benefits you can look forward to:

Short-term benefits. Within one week your sense of taste and smell will dramatically improve, increasing your enjoyment of eating and drinking. Within a month your blood circulation will improve. Your hands and feet will feel warmer.

Also, within a month after quitting, sputum production, coughing, wheezing, and respiratory infections such as bronchitis will improve. Blood platelets will become activated, and your heartbeat will slow down. Your blood pressure will also go down. You will experience increased energy and stamina.

Long-term health benefits, The longer you stay off cigarettes, the more health benefits your body will experience. For example, quitting smoking will greatly reduce your risk of getting several types of cancer. Your risk of getting lung cancer will decrease as much as 50 percent within 10 years after quitting. Your risk of getting cancers of the mouth, throat, and esophagus will be cut in half within five years. Quitting also reduces your chances of getting cancer of the larynx (voice box).

The same holds true for pancreatic cancer. Bladder cancer risk is reduced by 50 percent within a few years after quitting.

You'll reduce your risk of coronary heart disease by half within one year after quitting. Within 15 years your chances of getting coronary heart disease will drop to the same level of someone who has never smoked. Your risk of having a stroke will also drop to the same level within 5 to 15 years after quitting.

Your chances of getting peripheral artery disease are also reduced if you quit smoking. And you are less likely to die from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Think of all the money. Two years ago another smoker, Joseph Scott, kicked his addiction. He saved all the money he would have spent on cigarettes in a cookie jar. Watching all that money pile up in the jar helped him stick to his commitment. Now, two years later, he's amassed $3,285, and he's going on a luxury cruise. What would you do with all the money you could save?

Cigarettes aren't the only expense associated with smoking. Smokers also spend more on insurance, especially life insurance. Three major life insurance companies--CNA, Franklin Life, and Farmers Group-- are owned by various tobacco companies. All three of these insurers charge smokers nearly double for term life insurance. Why? Because they know that a smoker is twice as likely to die as is a nonsmoker--at any age. Obviously these insurers believe that smoking is lethal, although the cigarette companies will never admit it publicly.

Smokers also spend more on cold remedies and doctors' visits. A division of Dow Chemical did a study and found that employees who smoked missed an average of 5.5 more days of work annually than nonsmokers. Smokers also used an average of eight more days of disability leave than nonsmokers.

And what about those extra dry-cleaning bills to keep your clothes smelling clean?

"Tobacco addiction is a major economic handicap," says Andrew Tobias, who writes a financial advice column for Time magazine. "A child who can avoid it has a far better shot at lifelong financial health than one who gets hooked."

Quitting smoking will also bring financial benefits to the entire country. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, smoking costs society $52 billion each year in added health-care costs and lost productivity. That amounts to $2.20 per pack of cigarettes-- more expensive than the cigarettes themselves! The current federal tax on cigarettes is 20 cents a pack. That leaves $2 per pack in health costs that have to be covered by higher taxes and higher health- care premiums. In effect, nonsmokers are paying for smokers' health care, thanks to relatively low taxes on cigarettes.

Others benefit. Each year 53,000 nonsmokers in the United States die from breathing secondhand smoke-- smoke from other people's cigarettes. Nonsmokers who spend a lot of time with smokers are significantly increasing their risk of getting precancerous lesions. So if you smoke, you're not only hurting yourself, you could be hurting your coworkers, your spouse, and your children.

Pregnant women who smoke can do a great service to their unborn children by quitting. Within a week after quitting, a pregnant mother will be able to provide her fetus with nicotine-free blood, according to the 1990 Surgeon General's Report.

If you're a smoker, single or married, male or female, young or old, you can greatly improve your quality of life by doing one thing--quitting. It pays!

Curt Dewees is a freelance writer living in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Why I smoke

(1) It's such a clean, refined habit. I love to cough and spit.

(2) It makes my breath so pleasing to everyone. Kissing me is like licking an ashtray.

(3) It sets such a good example for children and friends to follow.

(4) It makes my teeth and fingers so pretty and yellow. It makes my clothes, car, and house smell so clean and fresh.

(5) It proves I have self-control and am not a slave to anything.

(6) I want to see how much poison my body can take in before I die.

(7) It's fun to throw my cigarettes out the window and start forest fires and kill animals.

(8) It means I'm tough and rugged, and able to ride a horse in a cow pasture at sunset.

(9) It tells everyone I'm wild and ready for a good time. I like to abuse my body, so why don't you do it too?

(10) It's my way of showing people how secure l feel, that I'm not nervous, that l like myself, that l like to take care of myself because others are counting on me.

Reprinted with permission from Dan Clarke, Getting High: How to Really Do It (Salt Lake City: Sunrise Publishing, 1983).