My smoking career lasted 3 months. I started shortly after my dad died and my thinking wasnt clear. One of my best friends started hanging around a "bad crowd" and we both got into some things we shouldn't have. It started one nite we were out and I was depressed, so she said "lets go get some cloves" (the cigarette kind
) so that was my first smoking experience...then I worked my way over to regular cigarettes. Ironic in a way since my father passed away from lung cancer, and here I am starting to light up
At the end of those 3 months we got away from that group of "friends" and I screwed my head on straight and realized I needed to get out of my self-absorbed pity party phase and get moving on with life and living again.
A year later I met Alex and we began dating. He was a smoker and for whatever odd reason I didn't have a problem with it. A little over a year ago he was climbing some steps at work and was out of breath when he got to the 2nd floor. He was only 22, going on 23 at the time and it hit him that if he was getting winded this young, what was it gonna be like 5, 10 or more years down the road. So for my birthday last year his present to me was quitting smoking...he even put a "patch" in my b-day card
Now he's been smoke free since then and is so glad he did it.
As for the addiction,he can totally relate. He started smoking on n off at 13 and became a regular smoker at 16 and went on til my birthday last year (2 weeks short of his 23rd b-day). It was hard at first but what helped him with the physiological need (the act of putting something to his mouth) was cinnamon flavored toothpicks. He came off the patch after the first "phase"of it cuz he got a box of bad ones that wouldn't stick but by then he had made up his mind he really quit and never went back.