As the final seconds count down to 2006, the owner of Madam's Organ will raise a glass of bubbly to Becky Balliet and reward the 26-year-old waitress for going exactly 365 days without lighting up.

"It's amazing that nobody else has" succeeded, said Duggan, who plans quite an announcement. "It'll be a hoot," he predicted.

This year wasn't the first time Balliet tried to quit. But before, she'd always failed, relapsing to the habit she acquired as a teenager. Duggan's offer was powerful motivation, she said yesterday, especially in the beginning. Working nights in a smoky environment didn't make her effort any easier -- working days as national volunteer supervisor of a sexual assault hotline challenged in other ways -- but the people who cheered her on helped.

"Everything just kept me going," she said, sounding happy and pleased and feeling "much more healthy" than on New Year's Eve 2004. "It was the right time."

According to her boss, many other Madam's Organ employees also have tried to stop. Though resolve frequently faded like a puff of exhaled smoke, some struggled hard to last the obligatory 12 months. One woman stayed strong into the summer but returned from vacation with a cigarette in hand.

"It's a tough one to quit," Duggan said, an experience he has seen firsthand. His father died of emphysema when he was little. His older sister Gerry is dying of lung cancer.

"It's tough on people who smoke," he said, "and it's tough on people who love people who smoke."

Tonight, however, will be all celebratory. Balliet will take the applause and the check and buy herself a new laptop.

And Duggan again will put $1,000 on the line.

-----------------------------------------------

Click here to go back

Please use your browser's back button to return to the previous page, or go directly to the SmokeFreeSociety.org Home Page.