Slash Gets Real About How He Stopped Smoking

Slash's journey to quit smoking wasn't easy. The Guns 'N Roses and Velvet Revolver guitarist, who hasn't smoked cigarettes since 2009, tells German interviewer Antenne Sylt the advice he has for those also looking to quit smoking. "Quitting smoking is the hardest thing I've ever quit. I can think of a lot of stuff that was hard to quit and smoking was the hardest. You just have to make that decision and then stick to it," he said, per Blabbermouth.net.

 "I have to admit, when I quit, I had pneumonia, so for two weeks I couldn't breathe, let alone smoke, so that got me over the hump," he added. "And then, from that point on, I used the patch and then I used Nicorette and then I was doing snus [a moist form of smokeless tobacco which is usually placed under the upper lip] and then regular gum. And I'm still chewing regular gum. And it's been [more than] 12 years. So you just have to make the decision and then you have to do it. But it's not easy."

Slash has opened up about his struggles trying to kick his bad smoking habit in the past, revealing that the loss of his mom to cancer was the main impetus behind his decision to quit. "She was one of those smokers that always said, 'I'm gonna quit one day,'" he said. "But while she was in the hospital, I would literally sit with her, go outside and smoke a cigarette, come back and sit with her. And then the Cher thing happened, and that's when I said, 'You know what?'"

He went on to share a story about his visit to Cher's concert in Las Vegas over a decade earlier which also convinced him to quit smoking. "I had to leave for every song and go outside and smoke," he said. "And I think I'd worn myself down from smoking so much, and Cher just took me over the top. Every time she revisited one of those periods [during the concert]… She had a closet on stage and she'd go in the closet and she'd come out and she'd be the Indian. Every single thing that she's been over her career… When she started with the Sonny & Cher thing, it just killed me — I couldn't take it. So I would smoke… I just didn't have any fond memories of that show or any of the other stuff."