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I smoked for 3 years. That may not seem like a long time, but let me tell you about the whole experience.

When I first met the man I am now married to, I didn't know that he smoked. He hid it from me very well by using breath mints and cologne. I had been around smokers my whole life, so it wouldn't have bothered me if he'd just told me he smoked, and one day I caught him in the act while visiting him at work during his break. I'd always been curious about smoking...my parents both smoked, my friends were smokers. Before my husband came along, I always politely turned down any pressures from other people to just "take a drag". One night while sitting with my future husband on my front porch while he lit up, something came over me and I asked for a puff.

I was hooked. I started out with just a couple cigarettes a day, and I didn't think was really "addicted". But then I started going to beauty school where everyone in my class smoked on our breaks, so I became a 'social smoker'. I worked up to a half a pack a day, and discovered that smoking was very calming to me. Soon I could be found skipping meals in order to just get a few more cigarettes in, or having a cigarette while I was at home by myself reading or watching television. I stopped walking, because it was inconvenient to me to smoke and walk at the same time. Family functions were unbearable, because I didn't want them to know I was a smoker, so for hours, I would have to sit there smelling the smoke of THEIR cigarettes but not be able to have one myself.

When I got married to the man who had gotten me started smoking, all the stress of sharing each other's troubles set in, and I began smoking more than a pack a day. When we moved, and my new job offerred nothing BUT stress, I smoked three packs a day. I was constantly short of breath, tired, and I was gaining weight.

The final straw was on a white-water rafting trip my husband and I took with his parents. They knew we smoked, and were always nagging us about the health risks. One morning, my mother-in-law asked me to go for a short hike with her. I love hiking, but hadn't done it in years, so I accepted. Half way up a small hill, I had to stop and rest. I was breathing heavy, and felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. My mother-in-law was poking fun at me, because I was a 21 year old who couldn't keep up with a 45 year old!

My husband had a similar experience on that trip, and on our last night on the river, we announced that we were quitting.

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