Wednesday, March 15, 2006

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

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

in five years, you've got your pink lungs back and mostly undone the damage you did to your lungs over the previous 18 years. as long as you don't pull a peter jennings, you should be fine.

i am really proud that you quit and have stayed quit. it's that "march or die!" attitude of yours that serves you well on more than one occasion.

--stacy

6:29 PM  

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