Slash Motivated To Quit Smoking After Mother Sied Of Cancer
The former Guns N’ Roses guitarist hasn’t smoked for a year and admits seeing his beloved parent Ola Hudson lose her battle with the disease, and a bout of pneumonia he suffered himself, made him realise he needed to ditch his habit for good.
Slash – real name Saul Hudson - said: “I’ve been off them for a year. The first time I quit smoking was because me and my wife just had a baby and she claimed the baby smelled like an ashtray. So I thought, ‘Well, I’ll give it a shot.’ So I quit for a year and then I started again.
“Then this time my mom died of lung cancer, and I got sick with pneumonia. And after I got sick I had a cigarette in my hand and a lighter and I was about to smoke – and it just seemed really stubborn of me.”
Slash – who has two sons with his wife Perla Ferrar – didn’t find it difficult to give up smoking and once he stopped he realised nicotine didn’t do anything for him.
He added in an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “I just always smoked. It’s not been too difficult to give up smoking, apart from the fact that I’ve found that I use twitter all the time to keep my hands busy.”
Slash – who is renowned for his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle - also no longer drinks or takes drugs and says he feels much better for quitting his various vices.
The 44-year-old musician said: “I quit doing drugs. But because I’m a habitual kinda guy, if I quit doing drugs, then I drink. And then if I quit drinking, I do drugs – forever. So I quit doing drugs this one time, and I decided not to drink too. It’s been four years. And I really don’t miss it.”