No Smoking…

Not to toot my own horn, but “toot, toot”.  Ok, seriously, I know I haven’t conquered the world, and I know that I’m only one drink away from (re)becoming a full-fledged smoker, but I just wanted to say that I’ve now gone 2 weeks and 2 days without smoking. 

Really though, I’ve done this before… several times, so frankly, I’m not impressed.  I’ve quit before on a bet, or “just to see if I could”, but I’ve never told myself that I’m no longer a smoker before.  I always thought, or knew that eventually I’d smoke again.  I never had a true reason to quit.  I at least never thought I had one… there are several OBVIOUS reasons, but I rarely think of my own health as being a reason…  For me to do something for myself has always been secondary to what I might do for someone else.  I needed a someone elses’ reason…

Well, I looked and looked, and because deep down inside I really WANTED to be a smoker, I refuted every reason to possibly quit until about 16 days ago.  1 year, 2weeks, and 2 days ago, my dad died of esophageal cancer.  Nasty, nasty stuff.  When it happened, I wanted to quit, but somehow the need to smoke through the stress prevailed over the need to save myself…

Well then, directly from the doctor’s mouth, I found out that the cancer was ultimately a product of either drinking scalding hot tea… time and time again, or just general acid reflux over time and NOT smoking.  My grandfather just so happened to die of the same thing.  Both of whom, never smoked as far as I knew.  The only reason I bring this up, is because, like everyone else, I felt that the “proof” that is wasn’t smoking that caused it was justification that I was still fine if I smoked.  It’s nothing different than hearing that my grandma smoked for 75 years and is still as healthy as on ox… 

So anyway, back to my point.  I was always looking for a reason…  my own health, not being a reason… for some reason…  Well, about 20 days ago… when I realized that the weekend we were going camping was the 1 year anniversary (if you can call it that) of my father’s death.  I knew I’d want to smoke like a fiend in the middle of the woods in front of a campfire, so I decided to quit AFTER that weekend.  I decided that I’d make a promise to my dad, one year later than I really should have made a promise, that, for him, I would never smoke again.  That was my “reason”.  Reason, because I told him on his deathbed that he had saved my life, because now I knew that unless I started regularly getting checkups and taking daily medication, I’d have the same problems that he had.  Reason, because, if he had saved my life, how stupid would I be if I killed myself by smoking…?

Since then, I’ve been surrounded by chain-smoking friends…  three hopping happy hours, 2 bowling leagues, poker night…  dice rolling, and swimming all day on the Labor Dabor weekend… and not once have I even been close to being tempted to smoke.  I’ve stared a few cigs down thinking that no one would notice, no one would care, but then I think about my dad, and that he would notice, and he would care.  I’ve finally found my reason.