Started smoking in my teens, on Friday nights before football games. There was quite a gang of us, so the "peer pressure" aspect was in full force for sure.
Easy to hide back then from the parents, both smoked and the house smelled of it for sure.
College came along and that was when the habit really seemed to kick into high gear. More drinking which went oddly better with a smoke in the other hand.
Added stress of college made the habit more prevalent and a female friend once told me that the appetite suppressant aspect of smoking helped her avoid the "freshman 15". Odd logic now that we both look back on it.
Started phasing out smoking in my mid 20's when I was bartending and was so busy that did not have the time to smoke while at work.
The thing that I noticed at that point was that I could spend an entire 10 hours shift at the bar, smoke 1 or 2 cigarettes and wake up the next morning coughing and feeling like I had smoked 3 packs of cigs, simply because of ALL the second-hand smoke at the bar. I once looked at pics that a friend took of a party at the bar and you could barely see through the fog of cigarette smoke to the dance floor. The effects of other peoples smoke began to creep into my thoughts.
Then NY state made it so that you could not smoke in the bar because it also was a restaurant. Suddenly having a cigarette outside on the porch when it was 10 below and windy did not have such an allure as it once did.
Quit for good 7 years ago, 1 week before the birth of my daughter. I had planned on it, but the wife put the ultimatum down. I think it was worded kinda like this: " You will quit smoking today!"
Funny how that works... To this day, I argue that I did it for my daughter cuz I will not admit that my wife has that much power.
Over the past 7 years, I have had 4 separate "accidents"
(that's what the smoking cessation counselor at work says that we can call them)
The last of which was 2 years ago and ONE single drag of a cigarette made me simultaneously happy and violently dizzy and ill.
I now find the very smell repulsive and can honestly say that I will never start smoking again..... BUT
I fight the demon on an almost daily basis....... There is still something about 2 aspects of smoking that can still give me a twitch:
1) The smell and sound of a cigarette being lit by a ZIPPO lighter
2) The smell of the first whiff of a newly lit cigarette.
My only focus is that my 2 children understand that I have made the mistake FOR THEM and that they need not make it.
