Mary Quit Smoking One Year Ago

"I had been in denial for so long and now it was hitting me full force."

I didn’t experiment with tobacco until I was in high school but I well remember my first smoke. Two girlfriends and I were spending the night together. One of them had gotten hold of a pack of cigarettes. We lit and puffed until that whole pack was gone. We giggled and pranced around like movie stars and practiced holding techniques. I don’t think we even inhaled and I’m certain we didn’t enjoy the watering eyes, coughing and nasty taste. But there’s no way either of us would admit it so we ended up just feeling lousy in a room full of smoke.

I didn’t take up smoking as a habit until after I was married. I went to work as a secretary to an automobile claims adjuster for an insurance company. All of the men smoked and some of the women. I soon became one of them. It was ok to smoke in the office, even the clients did. So I smoked, at my desk, on the phone, on break, at lunch, wherever and whenever I wished.

I had three children and a miscarriage and still I smoked, during pregnancy and afterwards. No one told me I shouldn’t. Just once with the first pregnancy I quit for about six weeks during my nauseous period but I quickly picked it back up at work. My boss smoked the long non-filtered Pall Malls and always left about half a cigarette. I was right there to finish what he didn’t and was hooked again!

I remember smoking in the wee hours of the night while up tending and feeding my babies; a stinky ash tray in the nursery, circles of smoke wafting through the room and filling my child’s nasal passages and lungs. Just writing this now makes me want to cry. I was so ignorant.

There was a period of my life when I went through some depressing times…some of those situations I mentioned. I became quite obsessive for awhile and one of the things I was obsessed with was a guilt and fear of smoking. I was afraid to smoke and afraid not to smoke so I cut down to seven a day. This went of for many years. Seven a day…two in the morning, three in the afternoon and two after my evening meal. Talk about being screwed up! But that’s the way it was, and the only way I felt safe. Even a doctor* told me “That’s a safe amount”! How ignorant was he?!

Knowing what I know now, I must have suffered a great deal from nicotine withdrawal without realizing what it was. I just remember often wanting another cigarette, but the guilt stood in the way. Finally, I started bumming an occasional ‘extra’ smoke from a friend or family member, telling myself that was ok. (oh my) Then a different doctor* (now get this) told me not to worry too much about smoking, that I deserved a little bit of pleasure!! Well that was certainly the wrong thing to tell me. I knew better, but the addict in me chose to take his advice and I was once again smoking at random. *(neither of these doctors was my family doctor)

By this time there were grandchildren in the picture. In fact, I had one (or more) in my home almost constantly as I babysat some as early as six weeks old, eight or nine hours a day, five days a week. It’s now a hard pill to swallow knowing I put seven out of nine grandchildren through a constant smoke screen. Thankfully none seem to have any breathing problems as yet and I pray they never do because of what I did.

A year ago in January, 2005 I had a sinus infection and bronchitis. I’d had many of them before, but this one hung on and did not respond well to medication. A month later I was back at the doctor’s office. I had coughed the cigarette hack for many years but now it was constant, even during the night. I started to wheeze in my chest, whistle in my throat and struggle to get a decent breath. Antibiotics helped with the infection but in May I felt it starting all over again. I was literally sick and tired of being sick! But I still smoked. I was now up to a pack and a half or more a day. I was fast becoming a chain smoker.

I had been in denial for so long and now it was hitting me full force. I was scared, I didn’t want to lose my best (so called) friend. Cigarettes had been there for me (so I thought) for most every loss, every birth, every happy or sad occasion in my adult life. I didn’t know who or what to be angry at but I was angry! I knew I had to do something and I did not know where to turn. I was sick, I was depressed, I cried….

I remembered I’d seen something on the computer about stopping smoking. I sat down one night and typed smoking cessation into a search engine. That brought me to About.com and further to the smoking cessation website where I commenced to read the articles. I went from there to WhyQuit.com and CognitiveQuitting.com. I read about John Ryan’s program and his site QuitSmokingOnline.com. I read and I smoked all during the night. I learned a lot of cold, hard facts.

Mary's Story, Page Three