Jamie's goodbye letter, while unique to her personal experience, details the slavery anyone who has been addicted to nicotine feels. Read it and see if you don't agree...and if you feel motivated to, write your own goodbye letter.
From Jamie:
I’m on my sixth smoke-free day and I’m finally glad to be rid of you, Marlboro Light 100’s. This was a toxic friendship we had.
I was always loyal to you and smoked 3 packs of you a day. I woke early in the morning and stayed up late to be with you. Over the 24 years we had together you never did anything positive. You tried to kill me! You suffocated me with poisons which gave me never ending choking and wheezing spells. You made me stink, yellowed my teeth, damaged my hair and skin, destroyed my house and property, and some of the friendships that I'd built up over the years.
Because of you, many people did not want to talk to me, and stared at me with disgust, not to mention making rude remarks for me to purposely hear. They treated me as if I were a freak. You took the life I dreamed of having, yet through all of the destruction and heartache you caused me, I was still loyal to you. I tried many times to end our friendship, but I always went running back to you, knowing you would only keep hurting me.
I finally realize you will never be good for me and that you were never my friend. I need to say my final goodbye to you today. Although I will grieve you at first, and think about you nonstop, you can bet I will eventually move on and find something else to fill the void that will make me happy again.
You think I will be back like I have always been before, but I will not be deceived by you this time. I have prepared for months to escape you; to flee this lonely and filthy prison I have lived in for so long. I have already begun my journey and started living the life I was always meant to live. I will not grieve you like a lost friend, but like a brainwashed and helpless addict missing their next fix.
I have started running and living freely again which is what I was doing when we first met. You tried to control, seduce and lure me in with your lies and false promises of how cool I would be hanging with you, telling me I would be happier and look more grown up with you by my side. But the opposite was true. Those people I thought I looked so cool with and hung with were just other people who had fallen for your lies too. They weren't my friends. I was deserted by my real friends who knew better than to deal with the likes of you.
And look at me now...I look real grown up with the wrinkles and gray hair you gave me way before my time. I can tell you for a fact that you have never made me happy, not once. You did not want me to be a happy, outgoing sociable, confident person or a successful athlete, so I gave in to your lies and deception and quit the things that were good and positive in my life.
You knew exactly when to come into my life, and when I was most vulnerable to you. You introduced yourself to me when I had just lost a precious and dear friend, and knew when I would be most susceptible and receptive to your dishonesty and deception. You sought me out when I was still a young innocent girl not mature or old enough to form a conscious well thought out decision or to look far enough ahead to know what I was up against with you. Little did I know that when I took that first addicting puff, your misleading and strategic plan was to drain my lifelong savings over time, and then sentence me to a slow and painful death. I’m sorry to say, your plan has been unsuccessful because I’m done with you.
