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I can remember my very first cigarette. It was in the spring of 1945, and I was with my childhood pal, Dick Akins, and he had a beat-up old pack of “green Lucky’s.” We grew up in Kentucky and almost every adult smoked. We puffed and coughed together for several years; then I “took up” the habit in High School to be “in” and “older.” I stopped smoking in 1967, 1969, 1974, and 1982. I finally quit smoking in April 1988: “cold turkey,” ... as the old saying goes. Ever since that fatal first smoke, ... over 60 years ago, my future of poor health was sealed. I am simply a “percentage” in the predictable medical consequences of smoking. Even though I haven’t smoked in about 18 years, I am reminded of my habit every time I take a step today: I have second stage emphysema. The third stage is burial. I am on 2 liters of oxygen per minute, ... 24/7, just to live. I take two oral medications twice daily. I “puff” three liquid inhaled medications in a “Nebulizer” (mist) treatment, four times a day. One of these is an inhaled steroid, the very mention of which scares you because of the publicized notoriety. I go to “Pulmonary Rehab” at a local hospital, three days a week, and the nurse who runs Memorial Hospital’s Emergency admittance calls me by name. But as they also say, ... “I’m still on this side of the sod.” I worked as a chemist and in textiles, but it is probable that most of my poor lung condition has been caused by smoking. Like you, who have or had the smoking habit, no one held a gun to my head to start. We have been warned for at least 75 years: I remember old people calling them “coffin nails,” and the 1940’s Phil Harris’s comic song: “Smoke, smoke, smoke, ... that cigarette. Tell Saint Peter at the Golden Gate, that you hate to make him wait, but you just gotta’ have another cigarette!” But, when I was scared and sick enough, I quit cold turkey — as you may have, or you may want. This is because smoking and nicotine are used by us as habits; they are not addictive. Think about it, ... if nicotine was addictive, as most people believe, ... I (we) would still be smoking, because you simply can’t “stop” using a true addictive drug without help. I volunteer drive for a local group of wonderful ministers and benefactors who provide haven and hope for real drug addicts: they must be female jailed addicts (some) from another city, and remain anonymous. They are lovingly and spiritually counseled, and are taught basic high school education, and must study some health science about their drug addiction. I drive them to the Dentist, MDs, meetings, etc. The location of the center home is kept secret for obvious reasons. I see these girls (they don’t get old enough to be women) who medically and physically, can’t get off of “crack, or meth,” etc. The only way for them to “quit” is to be denied drugs for long painful periods of time, by incarcerating them, while trying to keep them physically alive during their nursed recovery. They cannot quit by themselves, but they can with a whole lot of dedicated help and prayer. Some of them die, we don’t hear so much about that, but most of them “start up” as soon as they are free of barriers to the drug world: That’s addiction. We who have quit were simply smokers, a big nasty expensive horribly unhealthy habit: yes, but we could quit all by ourselves. It’s not easy. No habit is easy to break, ... however, anyone, who decides to quit smoking, can. I quit. (Thomas S. Markham is a resident of Lookout Mountain, Ga.)
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