a smoker lives to 122!

In researching the secrets of longevity, Emerald, 62, was amazed to learn that the world's oldest people – Jeanne Louise Calment (pictured) and Marie-Louise Meilleur – were smokers.

"I gave up smoking seven years, two months and five days ago," laughs Emerald, "and it's been such a terrible time for me that, yes, I have been taking each day as it comes, reciting the non-smoking mantra and believing that I'm doing myself good when, in fact, I'm probably doing myself more harm by drinking and eating more and stressing myself being a reformed smoker."

"No, I'm not going to rush out and buy a pack of cigarettes," says Emerald, "but I am going to stop all the other nonsense I've been doing for the past seven years, two months and five days and if I ever feel like having a smoke then I will deal with it in a mature and informed manner."

"Jeanne Louise Calment began smoking as a young woman -- like I did," says Emerald, "and she quit smoking at 117 because by then she was was blind, too proud to ask someone else to light her cigarettes for her and was encouraged by her doctor to do so."

"At 117 she had reduced her smoking to just two or three cigarettes per day -- like I did -- and she should have been able to quit completely," says Emerald, "but I guess she was too smart to go through the daily non-smoking mantra and strict regime that the rest of us ex-smokers have to go through."

"She actually resumed smoking a year later at 118 because she felt miserable -- oh boy, do I know about that -- and told her doctor to get stuffed, or words to that effect," laughs Emerald. "She believed, quite rightly I suppose, that only someone who had lived as long as she had was qualified to tell her what she should and should not do."

"When Mme. Calment died in France in l997, at the incredible age of 122, her place on the longevity list was taken by a 116-year old chain smoker from Canada -- Marie-Louise Meilleur -- who had quit smoking just 16 years before."

"I certainly don't believe that smoking prolongs life," says Emerald, "but facts like these really make you wonder about doing what people tell you to do, and doing what your gut instinct tells you to do."

Read more stories by Emerald related to longevity:

how to live to 122

everything in moderation

doggy friends

overeating and early graves?