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Monday, February 26, 2007

My Smoking Story

I have several blogs dealing with several issues that are near and dear to my heart for various reasons. They are either issues that I personally have suffered with or they are issues that family members or very close friends have suffered with (which I have been around to see the, often devastating, effects). I have wanted for a long time to explain why I started this particular blog and have been wary of doing so because looking back on my experience is still a painful thing for me to do. As a result, I will share my personal story, but I will for reasons mentioned above, keep it fairly undetailed and synoptic.

I took my first drag when I was about 14. I stole a cigarette from my father's pack and I watched myself smoke it in the mirror, wondering (quite pathetically, in hindsight) whether the cigarette made me look "cool." I didn't inhale the first few times, so I didn't quite understand what drew people in just yet, but at one point I did "learn" to inhale and, as smokers know, it created a quite pleasant buzz. The day we learned to inhale, a friend and I chainsmoked an entire pack of cigarettes while this friend's parents were out, simply to feel that buzz. The friend threw up afterwards in a garbage can. I, on the other hand, couldn't help but feel idiotic pride in that my stomach took it nicely.

I have smoked ever since then, and I still smoke. I have tried to quit more than several times. The longest time I have managed to go without a cigarette, I believe, was about three months. But it was always the pressures of those around me (friends, people from work, even alcohol) that made me give in once again. I still like to consider myself fairly young, and in my mind I keep thinking that I have time, I have time... (Since I enjoy smoking, I naively tell myself I still have time to quit before the lung cancer, strokes, emphysema, or other smoking-related diseases get to me). However, I finally would like to quit (for good) as I am wanting to have children very soon, and I do not want my children being around smoke, nor do I want them being influenced to smoke by having parents who smoke (as I myself was).

Several years ago--and this is what prompted the idea for this particular blog--a family member suffered a series of debilitating strokes due to this person's smoking. This is the part where I want to stay undetailed because it is still hard to think about what this person, and what we as family members, went through. In short, the experience--watching what this person went through and what lasting effects the strokes have had on this family member--was one of the most horrifying things that I have experienced. I set up this blog because I do not wish what happened to this family member (or any of the other diseases caused by cigarettes) to happen to anybody else. Even if this blog helps just one person to quit, then that will be good enough for me.

Well, that is it for this post. It's not much of a post, but I just wanted to get the story (the reasons behind my starting this blog) out. If anyone has any stories that they would like to share (about how smoking has adversely affected you or somebody you know, or how you managed to quit smoking), please reply to this post.

I wish all those in the quest of quitting the best of luck.

~B.L.S.
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