QUITTING SMOKING

 Considering this is the eve of my 5^th anniversary since I quit smoking, I thought it was the perfect time to write about it. I am actually very proud of myself for hitting this milestone. Five years ago if someone had told me that I would go smoke free for five years I would have laughed at them. Who me, after 40 years of smoking!!

 I started smoking when I was only about 14 years old. It was the thing to do in those days. You weren’t with the crowd unless you did. Coming from a home where both parents smoked didn’t help me not to know that it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. I had tried when I was about twelve shortly before my mom left, used to take some of hers and try but they made me sick.

 When I was fourteen, all of us teenagers would spend our spare time hanging around restaurants, don’t know if they do that now but it was the in thing. I had a friend, Paula, and we did everything together and smoking was something we learned together. We used to practice, as we sure didn’t want to make a fool of ourselves in public. After all, the guys might laugh at us and that would have been devastating. I can remember the night that we felt we were okay with it. The two of us headed out with a mission. We used to hang around a place called “The Milk Bar”. When we got there a lot of our friends were in the booths, almost had cold feet but we went ahead and lit up our smoke. I wish we had failed but we didn’t, we were a hit right away. That was the beginning of my smoking for over 40 years.

 In those days I wasn’t a heavy smoker that came later. Everyone that I was around smoked, so I didn’t see anything wrong with it. It seemed the social thing to do. Through the years I got smoking heavier and many times I thought of quitting but didn’t think I could do it. Listening to everyone talk about how addicted we are to it and we cant quit, made me decide why try. Why put myself through that if I wasn’t going to make it. To this day I believe the cigarette companies purposely lead people to believe that they can’t quit.

 There came a time when I realized that smoking had affected my health, the doctor diagnosed bronchitis and I still didn’t quit, smoked even heavier I think. I would get up in the morning and start coughing and hacking away but no way did I quit. Even when my diagnosis changed to chronic bronchitis it still didn’t stop me on my road to disaster. Today I have a very hard time walking any distance as I run out of breath so easily. Whenever I arrive anywhere I am huffing and puffing.

 I started to notice how my clothes and my home smelled of cigarette smoke, oh yes, and my car!! Anyone getting in my car would even tell me, it stinks in here, sure can tell you smoke!! All of a sudden this wasn’t the in thing to do. When I got my first pc and needed something installed, I asked my nephew to come over and do it. What I didn’t know is he found it very hard to sit in my apartment, as even though I had started to notice the stink, he never smoked so it was much worse for him. What I didn’t know is he couldn’t stand it so he got his sister to come over and do some of it. My niece did tell me that my place smelled. The good thing about Kim, she tells me, which is great, as I didn’t make the decision to quit on just one thing, it was many things. Kim actually started this when she was a teenager. It actually was the first time I realized how bad smoking affected others.

I had picked Kim up for something and I think we must have been to Burger King as I had a drink. I had to get out of the car and I gave her my drink to hold. When I came back, she said to me, you just had a smoke as I took a sip and all I could taste was cigarettes. Gosh, I didn’t realize it transferred that bad. Now years later I do know it does. I feel terrible for putting my family and friends through all that but I can’t take it back, only improve things. That day, I didn’t realize it, but Kim had put a little bug in my ear and I never forgot it. The day I made my decision to quit smoking I also thought of that moment when she said that and I wanted to show her I could do it. Today I am so proud when Kim tells me how proud she is of me.

 Each year when I had my physical, my doctor would start telling me why I should quit smoking and I would listen and move on. I had my physical appointment coming up and one of the ladies at work had told me about taking these pills to help quit smoking. I asked her the name and wrote it down, Zyban.  The day came up for my appointment and I went and my doctor did all the normal stuff and then was ending my appointment and telling me to take some blood work and come back in three weeks. I thought, wait a minute, this is the time he tells to quit smoking and he didn’t. So I asked him!! He started to laugh, and he told me that he knows that I am going to do it as I asked him. He explained about the drug to me, it is an antidepressant but it helps people quit smoking. Of course you have to want to quit for any program to work. People that say something didn’t work are wrong. They didn’t want it to work, so it didn’t.

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