英语四级阅读200篇: Unit 45 passage 1

　　My name is Maurice Zolotow. I am an ex-smoker. I havent had a cigarette since July 4, 1982!

　　Last October, I spoke those words to 32 members of Smokers Anonymous, which meets once a week in Roxbury Park, Calif. As the leader that evening, I called on those present to tell why they had smoked and how they had stopped. In this way we help each other through the emotional crises that ensue when the addiction to nicotine is broken.

　　For make no mistake about it: smoking is an addiction. We ex-smokers have discovered that smoking could not have done so much to us if it first had not done so much for us. We know about cancer and emphysema and strokes. But we also know the benefits of smoking.

　　Many of us are shy and nervous, and have used cigarettes as a smoke screen to protect us from intimacy. We have needed the calming effect of inhaling and exhaling cigarette fumes during tense business conferences or personal confrontations. We have discovered that when we stop smoking, powerful resentments suddenly surface and drive us up the wall. And that is mostly what we talk about at our meetings, which are modeled on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.

　　Deadly Habit. After 40 years of smoking from two to three packs of cigarettes a day, after being warned by a surgeon that smoking was destroying my larynx, after being warned by other doctors that I was at risk of both lung cancer ad emphysema, after suffering a mild stroke, after all this and more, I was still compelled to smoke. Had to smoke. And I became resigned to the fact that Id go on puffing, coughing and spitting, despite knowing that it was killing me, until death in fact did me part.

　　You see, It isnt the quitting thats hard. As Mark Twain once said, Its easy to stop smoking; Ive done it thousands of times. The hard part is: How do you go on living after you stop? And how, for heavens sake, do you stay stopped?

　　And so, Im here to tell you those of you who are still killing yourselves with nicotine that it can be done. It can be done as I and others are doing it right now. We dont do it with willpower. Quite the opposite. We surrendered.

　　We admitted that we were powerless over those dumb sticks of white paper filled with chopped-up weed. Some of us believe in God. Others rely on the strength of the group. But all of us believe that it is the process of helping smokers still in the severe pains of the addiction that has been most beneficial. This is a new movement in the war against cigarettes, and it works.

　　New Joys. Three times a month, on Monday evenings, we have a Quakerlike meeting during which each of us speaks for a few moments. We speak of the new joys of tasting and smelling food, of driving in a clean automobile, of how good kisses taste without smoke on the breath. We speak of how our complexions have improved, of how young we feel, of the new strength we are bringing to our favorite sports. We even speak, some of us, blushing, of how our sex lives have livened up.

　　On the fourth Monday, one of us talks for a full 30 minutes. We tell our smoking autobiographies. This was easy for me because I remember it all so well, all the way back to my first cigarette. I was a shy, stuttering kid of 16, on a double date with my best friend. Eddie already smoked. A year older than I, he was a man of the world. With his swagger and wide-brimmed fedora, he looked like a Hollywood reporter. I, too, wanted to dangle a cigarette from the corner of my lips, tilt my hat back, and sat at the typewriter as I knocked out a story.

　　By smoking I could become Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable. Yes, I was buying a dream when I bought my first pack of cigarettes for 15 cents. Smoking that first cigarette put me into overdrive I could talk, laugh, even make passes at my date.

　　Smoking was als6 an act of rebellion against my parents, who prohibited the use of tobacco. While I lived at home, my smoking was kept secret. I concealed cigarette packs behind my books and hung out with other young criminals who smoked.

　　Staying Clean. What happened on July 4, 1982, that finally made it possible for me to put away the deadly sticks?

　　I believe it was an almost spiritual sense of my own helplessness. For two years I had suffered from chronic bronchitis and a practically permanent cold. For months I had been conscious of a gradual draining of energy mental and physical. I blamed it on Los Angeles smog, on lack of exercise, on overwork. I blamed it on anything and everything but cigarettes.

　　Then, on that miraculous Independence Day morning, I blamed it on cigarettes.

　　I got into my car and started driving to a party. I could not make it. I turned around and pulled back into the garage of my apartment building. I switched off the ignition. I believed that I was soon going to die or, worse yet, go on living as a cripple. I had no willpower left. I closed my eyes and whispered, God. If theres any purpose to be served by my living, please help me.

　　Almost as if I was in a trance , I went up to my apartment and put away the ashtrays. I threw out a half-finished pack of cigarettes. I went to the store and got a refund for the packs still in the carton. If I had stopped to think, I would not have gone through with this, I was sure as Ive discovered most ex-smokers are sure that it was impossible for me to stop smoking. So I did not make any resolutions. I just knew that if I smoked cigarettes I would die. And I did not want to die.

　　That Fourth of July went rather more easily than I had expected. I talked to friends on the phone, watched television, read. On the second day, I had a sip of coffee whenever I wanted a cigarette. I telephoned a friend who had stopped smoking and asked him to help me remain an ex-smoker. He was delighted, and gave me several suggestions. By the fourth day, I was getting nicotine-starvation urges every 30 minutes. But I was staying clean. And, gradually, I felt calmer. The changes, as the weeks went by, were miraculous. My coughing and choking cleared, and those dreadful racking catarrhal spells that woke me up dozens of times at night disappeared. Gone were the chronic bronchitis, the laryngitis, the perennial bad cold. The Los Angeles smog hadnt cleared up, but my lungs surely had.

　　1. We know from the passage that Smokers Anonymous is an organization for smokers and ex-smokers.

　　2. It can be inferred from the passage that many people begin smoking when they find that smoking benefits their life in many ways.

　　3. The effective way to stop smoking, as it is mentioned in the passage, is to admit the fact that smokers are powerless over cigarettes.

　　4. All ex-smokers have regained good health since they stopped smoking.

　　5. To some people, belief in God was the source of the strongest power against smoking.

　　6. An idea of quitting smoking came to the authors mind the moment he was dying.

　　7. The most difficult for the author to do was to resist the temptation of cigarettes in the process of quitting smoking.

　　8. The author began smoking at the age of_______.

　　9. Those who have stopped smoking find their life enjoyable because there are_______,

　　10. Many members of Smokers Anonymous are_______in personality.

　　I. Y 2. Y 3. N 4. NG 5. N 6. N 7. Y 8. 16 9. new joys in their life 10. shy and nervous