Yes, I did... start Smoking- so Easy, Quit It...- very Hard!

I started smoking in my teens. I think this is the time that many people will tell you they started smoking. I was about 16 and hanging out with a friend and my sister at the time at the friend's house. She was a close friend who actually lived right across the street from us. It was really just peer pressure which is how many young people start smoking. You want to fit in and not look like you are weak so it leads you to do things that you would not normally do. You want to feel like you are cool and somehow smoking is a way to prove that fact. We were sitting around in her attic and she pulled out the pack of cigarettes and kept telling me to take one. In my head I knew it was wrong, but I took that cigarette.

There I was smoking for the first time. Of course, it would lead to many years of smoking for me down the road. Smoking was just a habit for me, as it is for many people. However, since I was young I didn't always have the money to support my addiction. Unfortunately, I resorted to whatever means necessary to get those cigarettes. Smoking was still socially acceptable in my teens which were in the 90's. Everyone would go out and party and smoking was just a part of that whole scene. It took me many years to realize that smoking cigarettes was a bad habit and was eventually going to destroy my health. The breaking point for me came after the birth of my son. I didn't want to expose him to the second hand smoke and it was time to quit!

Cigarettes were robbing me of a healthier lifestyle. There are so many stories of people who have tried to quit and how hard it can be but you don't really know unless you try to quit yourself. It is very difficult to quit. It was even more difficult for me because everyone around me was a smoker even my girlfriend who is now my wife. However, I decided not to take any smoking aids and to quit smoking cold turkey! The first week for me was the hardest. Once, I got past that period everyday seemed to get a little easier. I am proud to say, that I am 35 and have not picked up a cigarette for many years now. The weird thing is that through those years even up to a few years ago, I still had the craving to smoke a cigarette!

Whenever, I would see someone smoking it would turn on something in my brain that enticed me to smoke. That just proves the power of nicotine on your body! If you are a smoker, you are actually numbing your senses especially your sense of smell, and it is amazing how much better your smell becomes when you quit. Of course your other senses are heightened too - I could smell the cigarette smell in clothes, hair, breath and it was awful, and it really made me sick. Then the fact that the cigarette tar stains your teeth and fingers and makes your skin look sullen was even more of an incentive to stay smoke free.

Quitting is like it is a gigantic feat, and I guess in a way it was. It takes a lot of willpower to be able to quit, so you have to know that going in.