A Long Time Smoker Speaks Out
For me smoking cigarettes is an addiction, an obsession. I have smoked most of my adult life. Sure-I quit several times-10 years being the longest period of abstinence. So if I could make it that long-what happened?
Well mostly it was a separation and ultimately a divorce that weakened my resolve.
We smokers make all sorts of excuses for continuing, but I am intelligent enough to realize that I’m just lying to my friends and family, and more importantly, I am lying to myself.
We smokers will grasp at any evidence that smoking is OK! My step-grandfather smoked a pack of unfiltered Camels for as long as I knew him. He was in his mid-nineties when he died-not of cancer or heart disease.
We can call the cause of death simply old age…
Now this is, of course, a pretty weak excuse for me since he wasn’t a blood relative, so I can’t claim any hereditary benefits.
I’m Really in The Nicotine Rut
My days all begin about the same way: During the week I drag my weary butt out of bed at 5:00 a.m., shower, dress and then walk the dog. All this time until I hook up Cindy’s leash I’m thinking about that first cigarette.
And so it goes throughout the day. Oh, I have cut back a bit. One pack usually lasts a day and a half. As I write this I often think of myself as a 73 year old idiot. But you see…I am addicted to nicotine.
Government at every level has come down on us smokers. Most places are off limits and smoking has been banned anywhere I go.
Is There Any Hope?
At times over the years I’ve been given something to hang onto. Medical science will come up with some new finding that gives me a glimmer of hope. But is there really any defense against the myriad health problems that smoking lays claim to? Quitting seems like medical science’s only solution.
A short time ago -in an email exchange, a lifelong friend said, “You’ve been smoking so long that it probably won’t make any difference if you did quit.” Unfortunately I tend to believe him.
So what is on the horizon for us smokers? The most recent flash of light came from a report I read about a very amazing discovery. I was researching material for an article I was writing on “free radicals.” The free radicals I speak of are not a bunch of 1960′s flower children who avoided prison. The free radicals in this case are inside our bodies and they are an enemy of our good health.
“After years of trying, I finally Quit Smoking with !
Now I live healthier and smoke ? “
