I smoked for a long time.

Sometimes that fact was a very tightly guarded secret.  It was stressful, holding on to my “stress-relieving” addiction.  It fought a good fight.  It extracted hundreds of my dollars, luckily at a then discounted Kentucky tobacco rate. But…

June 14th, 2007 5:05am PST, Las Vegas, NV, it lost the battle.  With one cigarette left in the pack and one of my 50+ bic lighters in hand, I said the words I’ve stated dozens of times. I’m done smoking.  That last unlit smoke hit the trash can in LAS airport and my addiction went with it.

I win.

Smoking is an addiction. A shitty one at that.

I’d rather be addicted to video games or gambling or Walmart brand cough drops, heroin, anything other than cigarettes.

They rob you of your freedom, money and health.

Cigarettes stain your teeth yellow, make your clothes and hair smell terrible and raise your blood pressure.

Smoking decreases your lung capacity, raises your heart rate and alters your sense of taste and smell.

Wow.  Cigarette companies, without the ability to market their product on television, an endless list of advertising restrictions and up to 40% sin taxes and they still continue to profit.  Those guys in their marketing dept. deserve a raise from their employers’, selling any other product with those effects is 100% impossible.

If you smoke, I encourage you to do something healthy for yourself and quit. Fuck the excuses, rationalizations and procrastination games that we all like to play.

If you don’t smoke and know someone who does, nag the shit out of them until they quit.  Then, tell them how proud you are of them everyday for doing something as difficult and as important as taking their health seriously.

Smoking is effing stupid.

Thanks to everyone who supported me and listened to me brag about how awesome I am when I was looking for reasons to stay off that bus.