Mike & smoking & gum

[Smoking is not, in itself evil compared with say, hate, greed, pride etc. However it is an addictive behaviour with serious health implications for yourself and others. God wants us to be freed from addictive behaviours, so that we can really enjoy His world, and not be slaves to anything.]

[Mike] I'd been a smoker for 20 years, on about 25/day, when I became a Christian. I heard a small voice saying 'you're choking my Holy Spirit, you need to give up smoking'.

Well, I was quite happily smoking away, plus I had no will power and so I said 'it's over to you God', though I decided that I would pray about it.

About a month later, I heard this voice again saying 'you will stop smoking on third Sept 1984'. On the second of that month, I was with some friends, and my mate Alan [who's since died of lung cancer], all smoking. That day I smoked 59 cigarettes, knowing that they would be my last.

When I went to work on the third, I had to do my collegaues job, who started his holiday, which had a lot more responsibility. After a few days of that I became addicted to chewing gum instead!

I felt God saying 'if you can do your colleagues job, then getting back to your own job will be a lot easier'.

In October of the next year, I was still addicted to chewing gum, and had begun suffering pains in my stomach. Later that month we went to a christian conference in Brighton. Just before my mother in law [who was baby sitting] said 'if you stop the chewing gum, then your pains will go away'. That night I was prayed for, and amazingly, didn't need the gum any more, or felt the desire to smoke ever again!