I know how I quit smoking. I quit four days ago, because I looked at my little kids and thought to myself "I really hope I see them grow up." When I realized that the only thing threatening my health in a deadly way was my own habbit, I threw my cigarettes out.
What I'm not sure of is how I became a smoker in the first place. As a child, I saw my parents smoke until I was 7, and every time they lit up I thought it was absolutely disgusting. It was never a habit I wanted to pick up, until the day I did pick it up. I don't remember anything about the first cigarette I had, but it was the one that doomed me to years of being chained to a terrible habit.
I know it was sometime in late 2008 or early 2009. I know I picked up the habit when I was in the military, and hanging out with a group of people who had been smoking for years. But for the life of me, I don't know the details of what made me want to light one up myself.
In the years since that first cigarette, I have been horribly naieve, almost romantic about smoking. I've read the warning label of every pack and thought "that won't happen to me. Or at least, it won't happen for years. By that time, I'll have stopped smoking." On multiple occasions, I convinced myself that I wasn't a real smoker because I only had half a pack or less to smoke a day. Real smokers consumed entire packs at once, and I couldn't imagine that. I always told myself that by next year, or my next birthday, or maybe my next Christmas, I would have quit. And in my mind, quitting was always as easy as just putting down the cigarettes and walking away.
It wasn't until this year that I realized I had been smoking for 8 years, 4 years past when I thought I'd be done with it. I'm only 26, and I want to see my kids go to college and have their own kids. Quiting is hard, and the withdrawals are painful, but dying early and leaving my 4 year old twins behind would be so much worse. I will probably never remember why I started smoking, but I will always know why I quit: so that my children can have a healthy, loving mother for many years to come.
