Just Stop Already
As of today, I've been putting off my next cigarette for 19 years. I don't intend for there to be a next one, but I've torched that intention three times before, so I distrust the word "quit." I was a pack-a-day smoker by the time I was in high school, having started when I was 9. (Yes, you read that right.) There were those three smoke-free periods — a year when I was 20, three years starting at age 26, seven weeks at age 34. Each time I stopped — including the current 19-year-stretch — it was cold turkey. I know others who have done it with gum, or a patch, or e-cigs, or whatever. The method is less important than the simple determination to stop. At any rate, I had smoked for more than 20 years out of 25. Several times in the six years I've been on Facebook, I've commemorated this day publicly with a "yay me" post. This time, instead, I'm thinking about my mom, who stopped smoking around the same time I did. My siblings and I — for...