How Keith Richards Quietly Quit Smoking
Keith Richards revealed he quietly gave up smoking two years ago by going cold turkey and that he didn’t miss his 55-year habit.
The Rolling Stones guitarist’s lifestyle change came soon after he cut back on his alcohol intake after finding it was no longer enjoyable.
“It’s funny, I don’t think about it much anymore,” he told CBS Sunday Morning of quitting tobacco. “I got a few patches for a few weeks. Sometimes, you know, a bell rings, something inside says, ‘Hey, pal – enough!’ So I just put the hammer on it.” Asked why the bell had rung for him at that point in his life, he laughed: “Probably getting on a bit! ... Luckily I don’t miss it, and that makes me feel good. Until I started rehearsing for the tour last August, and then I realized that I had 10 times more wind!”
You can watch the interview below.
One thing Richards owned up to missing was Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died last year. The guitarist said his death “came as quite a shock,” but he believed Watts knew he was seriously ill. “I think he’d been trying to keep it under the wraps for a while last year. … He had had a round with cancer a year or two before, and he’d beat that one. He just got hit with a double whammy, bless his soul.”
He added that, although a discussion never took place, he felt Watts would want the Stones to continue with their touring plans. "Yeah, that is strange, to turn suddenly and after all these years you just expect that face," he said.