Twelve Bucks

Like any good doctor, I always take every opportunity to counsel my patients on smoking cessation when I get that chance. This is particularly true when I see patients for issues that are directly related to their smoking.

One winter I saw a patient who had all the symptoms of acute bronchitis. When I explained the diagnosis and treatment plan, she complained that she was sick of taking antibiotics and expectorants as this was her third bout of bronchitis that winter. When I asked how much she smoked, she replied, "two packs a day." I then went into a long explanation of how her smoking made her predisposed to recurrent bouts of bronchitis and that if she wanted to stop having the bronchitis she needed to quit smoking.

Then I launched into what is always the finale of my 'smoking talk' that in addition to the health benefits of quitting, she could also save a lot of money since cigarettes are very smoking. I usually do the math for them to show them how much they would save per day and per month. Just as I did that for this patient, she replied, "well really, that's nothing compared to how much I spend at Starbucks."

"Oh really?" I asked, "what exactly do you get at Starbucks?"
"Well, I get the Venti Caramel Macchiado, and I ask for triple caramel. They say that it uses nearly a third of their bottle of liquid caramel to make my coffee, so they have to charge me extra for that."
"So how much is that?"
"It comes out to twelve bucks for a cup, 363 days per year except the 2 days a year they are closed. And then the day after those 2 days, I'm standing outside waiting for them to open, and I order two of them."
"Wow. I don't know what to say to that. I guess my cost argument for the cigarettes goes out the window."

I then turned to find my patient literature on diabetes.