Three Year Anniversary

As I sit back and attempt to blow the dust off this blog, let me assure you I am not blowing it off with smoke. Today (February 18^th) marks the three year anniversary since I quit smoking. It still amazes me to think I went from a pack a day to absolutely nothing. Oh yes, I quit cold turkey. It helped that at the same I was dealing with a severe sprain, was on crutches and the outside world was a little too nasty out for my clumsy butt to even attempted hobbling up to a store to buy a pack of cigarettes. I regretfully smoked off and on for ten years. More on than off, naturally as I can say from experience it’s a rather difficult habit to break.

Now to this day, three years after I stopped smoking, I still have the occasional craving. Sometimes bad enough that I almost want to climb a wall. I also still have the occasional dream that I am in fact smoking again. Sometimes those dreams will be so vivid that I wake up smelling my hair, just to make sure I didn’t actually smoke. It’s amazing the kinds of tricks our minds can and will play on us when we’ve let go of a filthy habit.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t sit here and preach about how everyone should quit. Come on, we all read the labels and warnings with smoking. It’s your choice if you want to harm your body. I will sit here though and say it’s simply amazing how much my own personal health has improved over the past three years. It’s quite nice being about to move around more without getting winded so easily. I could go on, but then it might very well seem I’m border lining preachy and that is far from what I want to do here.

I will end though, on a little message to any potential smoker. I don’t care how young or old you are… if you are thinking of starting or just started up? Stop. I know it’s the cliché thing to say, but seriously stop while you are ahead. It’s considered one of the hardest habits to break and it really can cause a lot of major health issues and illnesses. I thank God every day that I do not have lung cancer, emphysema or anything else along those lines because of the years I spent smoking.

--XOXO, Jane