FIVE YEARS...

...four days and counting.

I celebrated an anniversary the other day. I have been off the chokes, smoke free that is, for FIVE YEARS and FOUR DAYS now. On March 11, 2001 around 4:30 in the afternoon I inhaled my last cigarette. I was living in Chicago then and I just reached the end of my rope as far as smoking was concerned. I KNEW it was STUPID and that if I did not quit that there was the grand possibility that the fucking things would end up killing me.

Like most people, I started in my teens because smoking was seen as cool and rebellious, etc. etc. blah, blah, blah...meaning, I fell right into the trap set up by the tobacco industry. I smoked for 18 years and I was seriously addicted. I based my entire persona around smoking. I even wrote a column for a weekly paper in Tennessee that I titled "Smoke & Whiskey" (I still like my whiskey - but in perspective, I don't drink 20-25 shots a day - in fact I only drink the stuff on occasion). All my heroes smoked (most are dead) and all my friends seemed to smoke (far too many still do - if you read this and you know who you are - please quit that shit!). Somehow I got up the gumption to just fucking STOP. No patches or gums or hypnosis or electro-shock therapy, nothing, just good old fashioned COLD TURKEY. I am so happy I quit. I do not miss them. I am around smokers all the time still and I just think to myself, "Did I SMELL that bad for 18 years?" I did and now I don't.

So I am patting myself on the back.

FUCK YOU TOBACCO INDUSTRY