Donna, you're doing so great with your quit. I sincerely hope that you never go back to smoking as long as you live. And if I could spell it out for you or draw a map for you, I would. But the strange thing is this --- everybody's map is different. You might think we're all the same because we have the same addiction, but our past is different and our thoughts are different and our lives are different. So each of us has our own map with twists and turns and dead ends. I have no idea why some people quit and go back and quit and go back and others quit and are done with it. I think tho that it is tied in with this also:
When I started my first diary I called it Smokerings45 because my Dad smoked and my earliest memory of smoking was as a child, watching his smokerings rise over my head. I thought that it was a magical thing. And as a little girl, I couldn't wait until I was old enough to blow those beautiful perfect circles myself.
As I grew up, every movie star was a smoker. They used the cigarette almost like a prop in every movie I watched. It was so cool to watch a man light a woman's cigarette and I couldn't wait to grow up and have that magic moment happen in my life. I was and always will be in love with Paul Newman and he, along with Bogart, etc etc etc all smoked.
As I drove down the highway, the billboards along the interstate showed this handsome cowboy with a big white hat, (my hero), the Marlboro Man, grinning at me with white teeth and promises of happiness. He was also on most of the commercials on tv in my living room.
And then, as I was beginning to define who I was in this world, Virginia Slims entered my life in the magazine that I read "Cosmo" and she was slender and beautiful and independent and she too lied to me.
Everybody lied to me. From the moment that I was a child, until I finally figured it out for myself, a grown woman of 45 years old. I was 45 when I finally tried to quit for the first time in my entire adult life. I failed. I was 45 and I smoked from the age of 17 to 45. I named my diary 17-45 and called myself "Smokerings45" in honor of a lifetime of lies.
I am 48 now. That's 3 years later. I quit for 3 months 3 yrs ago and failed. At the ripe old age of 48 I finally allowed myself to look at all the past lies and let them sink in. At the ripe old age of 48 I screamed out the window "I'm Mad as Hell and Won't Take it Anymore!" ha ha ha ha ha ha And that was it. I hated cigarettes.
I hated them for killing my Dad. I hated them for robbing me of an adult life of health. I hated them for showing my 2 oldest children how to smoke (they both still smoke). And I hated them for possibly killing me. I have no idea whether or not I have precancerous cells growing in me. Probably so. Anyhow, it took me a lifetime to understand the lies.
And I forgive my Dad for starting it. I forgive him because he sure didn't realize it. I have yet tho to forgive myself for doing this to my children. For some reason I just think I should have known better. But if you look at our history, you will see those lies littered in every single page of the book! And one day I'll forgive myself.
There is nothing to go back to, Donna. Nothing. It was all a lie. Keep the quit and live in the truth. Keep going forward! Oh, and one more thing, Donna, you have been like a sister to me and I have watched you slip a couple of times and then gather up your strength again for the next quit. You deserve everything life has to offer ... and you deserve the best. Don't do it for anybody else, do it for yourself. We owe it to ourselves, finally. It's our turn to go first.
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Famous Smokers Who Have Died
