A Brief Rant [Dec. 20th, 2013|12:19 pm]
Even though this community has been pretty dead for quite a while I thought I would articulate and post some thoughts that have been running through my head the last few days. I have been attending a series of day-long workshops this week and have come in contact with several people who have expressed surprise and only lightly muffled scorn upon learning that I am an unrepentant smoker. Almost as annoying are the three smokers in their twenties who have thought it appropriate to tell me that at my age (I'm 43) I "Need to quit soon before it's too late" and have professed their intention to quit before they hit 40.
You Smoke?
Yes, I smoke. Every day, from the moment I turn off my alarm to right before turning out the light to go to sleep, I deliberately inhale massive amounts of toxic cigarette smoke into the darkest depths of my corrupted lungs. I don't stop there, either. Oh, no, I hold the poisonous gasses in my lungs several seconds so my poor addicted body can absorb even more oxygen-displacing carbon monoxide and brain-stimulating nicotine while yet another layer of carcinogenic tar coats my delicate alveoli. If that wasn't enough, I smoke 40+ high tar and nicotine cigarettes a day. I have done this deliberate self destructive thing for 32 years.
Why? Because I enjoy it. When I was 11 years old and had succeeded n beating my lungs into submission, I finished the pack of cigarettes I had purchased from a vending machine (It only cost a buck!) and told myself that now that I knew what smoking was like I wouldn't continue. After all, why would I want to keep doing something that was so bad for me. A day later I bought another pack of cigarettes and haven't looked back. I knew I was headed for physical and psychological addiction. I knew that I was headed for decreased stamina, a "smokers cough" and all the other nasty stuff my teachers had described to me in such vivid detail. I also knew that, in time, lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema were possible results of my decision to continue smoking. Now, more than 50 pack years later, I am still smoking and have no desire to quit. No, I don't have the stamina I would have if I had never smoked or had smoked less; but smoking has never prevented me from engaging in any physical activity I wanted. Yes, when I don't smoke for a while I get a slight cough (More of a throat clearing) as my lungs try to get rid of the mucus they have secreted in a futile attempt to fend of the damage I have inflicted.It isannoying and I put anend to it by lighting another cigarette as soon as I can. Chronic sinusitis exacerbated by smoking gives me an impressive morning hack fest and I have to muster all the raw lung power I can to clear the crap out so I can breath without rattling. I can live with all that and intend to as long as I can.