This subject is somewhat sensitive. and I don't want to offend. On the other hand, it could help someone. So I'll just tell my story and you can decide what you think. I was an addict for 27 years.

Addicts remember the first time they tried what they got hooked on. I remember mine. A crisp raw September day, its edges sharp as the ends of my nerves. After 24 married years I was getting a divorce, and had a court hearing to go to.

I took a few hours off work and when I left the courthouse, felt I needed something to calm me, so I found a place and got it, a little green and white package of twenty rolled up hits of Menthol Kools.

A girl I worked with tried to talk me out of it. She would hide the cigarettes, but I'd find them,. After a while she stopped. I remember telling someone that day it was cigarettes or tranquilizers. A choice, a decision based on emotions, set me on a trail I followed 27 years.


Back then the public put up with smoke more willingly, so I could usually find places to light up, and soon was using a pack a day. When opposition to smoking increased, sometimes it was a little difficult to enjoy. In Atlanta's airport, the only place it was allowed was a smoke filled room, crammed with other smokers puffing away. I got a good idea of what it's like breathing second hand smoke. It was pretty bad. I put my smoke out, and hurried to my plane.

Years passed, and I did nurses training. Even graphic film about what it does to your body, not just your lungs didn't convince me, for I wasn't listening. Once while observing a surgery, I noticed right away my own cigarette smell condensed in my mask bothered me, but not enough to quit.

I knew all the medical reasons why I should, but let me tell you, I had my own rights. Nobody was gonna tell me what to do. Like other addicts, my habit became more important than human courtesy.

I would not forget to bathe or use deodorant, or not brush my teeth before going out in public, and I wouldn't pass gas from either end of my body, and expect someone to have to smell or breathe it in just because doing it made me feel good. Tobacco kills. That's been proven. I am thankful laws are being passed to put a stop to it being in the air I breathe.

At work I had to change a patient's dressings (or bandages) Part of the side of his face and chin was eaten away, from cancer. He had smoked many years. The most heartbreaking ones were poor souls with emphysema. Each breath was hard for them to take. They couldn't get across a room without having to stop and rest, and try again to breathe. I saw all these things, but still I wouldn't quit.

Eventually I kind of tried to a few times, but told myself maybe it was allright to have just a few. But soon I was smoking a whole pack again, or more, year after year.

One day we got a new patient. I really liked the little man. He was such a character. But he just about drove me crazy, clicking his dentures to get our attention, so somebody would take him out for a smoke.

He got sick, very sick, with pneumonia. I had a few days off work coming up, and knew when I helped him to bed that night, he probably wouldn't be there when I got back, and he wasn't. I checked to see if he was, but only his empty bed stared back at me.

About that time I got sick with pneumonia , the worst case I've ever had. After ten days of heavy duty antibiotics I still felt limp as a rag. It was so hard to breathe that I didn't hardly smoke, and when I lit one, soon put it out.

When I went back to work, we had a new patient. He wasn't as old as the man who clicked his dentures., about only sixty. He knew he was going to die. One day he said "You know why I'm here, don't you". Not wanting to show bias, I just said "Yes". Then he added: "It's my own fault, I knew better. I smoked." Two weeks later he died.

These two patients are only two of many I saw killed by tobacco. I don't think that's what they planned while smoking their first cigarette. I know I didn't think that far ahead when I took my first draw. Spouting statistics about how many die from it probably won't cause anybody to quit either.

Smokers are in a state of denial about its effects, like thinking you'll never be in an accident, or a car wreck. There's much information before the public about it. You don't have to look any farther than the side of the cigarette pack. Warnings about what it can do to you are stated right there. I read them a few times myself, but chose to ignore the warning, and lit up my next cigarette.

The man's family was caring and loving. The wife and children and grandchildren were there a lot. Seeing them cry even before he died got me to thinking of something my daughter had said.

We were having a family visit, and were all in the same room. Cigarette smoke was so thick I turned on a fan. Her eyes were tearing up, and getting red. Later I tried to apologize about it, but she said: "It's alright Mom, but what bothers me is, it's the people I love most that smoke."

When I decided to quit I had to get support from somewhere, so at work I practically became obnoxious. Anybody who would listen, I told them I'd just quit, so if I lit up they'd know. Each day I was surprised I'd made it through another. I armed myself with greenish Candy Apple suckers. Kept some handy all the time. At night after work I'd chomp away on popcorn, however much it took to keep my mouth occupied.


I took my last pack of unopened cigs and wrote the date on them, front and back, and threw them in my nurse's bag. Had to know they were there, for a fix. Each day the goal was to not. I needed daily successes to help me believe I could do it. Do you know how good it felt to accomplish that! It will soon be nine years since my last cigarette.

I got a big jar I could see through, and every night put two one dollar bills in it. That's about what cigs cost back then. When the jar got pretty full it was a real fun hoot, taking it to the bank. Last week I priced my old brand. They're about five dollars now. That's for a pack, not a carton .

Over time I switched from Kools to Bensen Hedges. Cigarette makers started making them longer and slender, and in more appealing boxes. To sell more to females I guess.

Figuring out what to do with my hands was the biggest problem. After 27 years of lighting up, it was a part of me. Getting used to saying "non-smoking please" when I ate out was not. The first time I sat in a section not clouded with smoke, I realized "Hey, I'm a non smoker now". It was a little like getting a new identity.

People give all kinds of reasons for not quitting. Companies and advertizing try to convince us we can't, and we cooperate by letting them think for us. I had to know if I could quit, and I did it! It was a personal thing, right up there with teaching myself to drive, and accomplishing natural childbirth.

I didn't use patches or any of those quit smoking things, but took B Complex vitamins almost religiously. I started to say I quit "cold turkey", and that is partly true, but it was those sixteen words my daughter said that did it. With them she helped me see my smoking was about much more than it, or me.

I almost forgot one detail of this story, what happened to that last unopened pack. I hadn't got rid of it, so while wrapping Christmas presents, as some silly humor I wrapped it too, and sent it to my daughter. For a long time she kept it in her prayer basket. I was not worried I'd start up again, but she was, and prayed about it, often.

Knowing she did that humbled me. She says the unopened cigarettes are the best present I ever gave her. Tonight while talking with her she told me she still has them, a relic for remembering a few carefully chosen words said at the right time and place can change a life.