A habit that I wish I didn't have.
My vice is smoking. I have mentioned before somewhere that I am a smoker. I started smoking at my friend's 16th birthday party and that was 21 years ago. It's been 2 decades plus of lung degradation. I have noticed and have started to feel the effects from smoking. I wheeze actively and get winded easily, especially if steps are involved. The smoker's cough can be quite annoying and occasionally I think to myself 'I sound like my father'. My father died of COPD aka emphysema at age 66 in a hospital ICU. He was in multi organ failure, refused intubation and and was literally on his death bed all the while asking me to haul his ass out of bed and take him outside for a cigarette. Back on topic I am 36 and I have hypertension and poor circulation and I am on the diabetic fence. But this is not a blog about my health problems and certainly the marlboro's didn't cause the diabetes. It doesn't help it either circulation wise.
When I started smoking cigarettes were everywhere, including my house. They were 1.25 a pack and that was in a cigarette machine at a restaurant cause that is where I bought them if a store wouldn't sell them to me. Cigarette machines are but a thing of the past for the most part. Now it is a 200$ a month habit and will most likely put me in my grave, an early one.
What does smoking do for me now other than quicken my death? It calms me down. It is definitely a leisure habit and an anxiety related habit. I quit for two weeks twice and should not have gone back. It's worse than crack. It's worse than heroin. I don't mess with that thankfully.
Used to be you could smoke anywhere and now we are regulated to a hut that some nice committee dreamed up, and they are nice little huts too. A gazebo usually. Can't smoke in restaurants anymore and that is fine by me. To tell you the truth that non smoking environment was a great idea. I think they should be banned altogether. I am a little perplexed as to why cigarettes have not been banned. It kills literally thousands of people a year.
SOM 6/15/11
No comments:
Post a Comment