~ 20 Years Ago Today ~

As a birthday present to my (then) wife, I gave up smoking! It was my second but best attempt at kicking the habit.

As of that date, July 1989, I had been a smoker for nearly ten years; married for three years; and had two little girls ages one and two and a half. I certainly didn’t want to be the bad influence on them or subject them to the second hand smoke.

Once, while sitting on the porch steps outside, my oldest little girl picked up an old, discarded cigarette butt and pretended to ‘be daddy’. My heart just sank inside my chest, nearly to the point of being sick. That’s when I decided to ‘choose my date’ and stick too it. I chose my wife’s upcoming 30th Birthday. (She’s over 4 years older than me in case you’re doing the math.)

I had quit smoking once before -- while my future ex and I were dating -- I went over three months without a cigarette that time. I remember when I started back. My car was stolen. I was sitting inside a police car making a stolen vehicle report, the officer had a pack of Camel Lights on the dash. I asked for one -- one, of course, is all it takes.

This next time however, I knew my downfall and what to avoid. I also knew I could do it. I would just have to preserver… not give in… no matter what.

I can still remember the first three days, then the first week, and the first month, all being nightmarishly hellish -- all with their own challenges. I even had the most bizarre dreams about smoking and cigarettes.

If you’re familiar with those over exaggerated dream sequence in sit-coms you’ll know what I’m talking about here. I’m totally serious when I say that I literally had a dream of giant cigarette with legs chasing me down the street. This is how the drug permeates its way into your life and your psyche!

In the birthday card that day I wrote that I wanted us to live to see the year 2050 together -- That would be sixty-one years from that day -- Obviously, since she’s my ex that wont be happening whether I live that long or not!

The sad ending to this story is I did not make it an entire year. (I will go into my relapse another time.) I had failed is enough to say right now and thus began another 20 years of this ridiculous struggle! This is one of those situations where you lament about where you’d be now if you had done something differently in the past.

But there’s nothing any of us can do about the past, we can only change things today to improve our futures.