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I quit smoking. Again. For real this time.

I have had a long, stormy love affair with cigarettes. I find them hideously gross and gloriously delightful all at the same time. Talk about an internal battle of wills.

I tried my first cigarette at 11 years of age. No, that's not a typo. At the start of my 7th grade school year, my mother and I moved to Melbourne (on the east coast of Florida) where she had taken a new job. I developed a new circle of friends; the older, rougher crowd was the first to take me in and they smoked. It was the "cool" thing to do. Smoking was pretty gross to me, although admittedly I liked that it made me look older. My mother smoked, so I used to steal hers from time to time. Before I knew it, it was a regular habit. It was pretty easy for me to get them so I'm sure that contributed to the addiction.

I'm not sure how many times I got caught smoking underage; but no matter how many times or how serious the consequences, it never deterred me from continuing to smoke.

My habit continued into adulthood and even through my first pregnancy; a fact that I am not proud of. Cigarette smoking is a gripping, nasty addiction and very few women who are regular smokers when they become pregnant manage to quit completely. Many of my women friends secretly smoked when they were pregnant. No matter how much love we had for the bean we were growing, we remained a slave to the addiction. I'm not saying it's right; it is what it is.

In 1997, my Aunt Phyllis died of emphysema. She had been like a grandmother to me and it was a devastating loss. I had spent many weekends and summers with her and Uncle Youell. They spoiled me rotten. They also smoked like chimneys. Aunt Phyllis had been diagnosed with COPD years before her death. In the year before she died, she continued to smoke - removing her oxygen to do so. It was a sad thing to witness. I was angry that she didn't love us and life enough to quit. Unfortunately, it didn't make me angry enough to quit. It wasn't until 1999 when Uncle Youell passed away that I called it quits. He died from a brain tumor that metastasized from his lungs. Further investigation revealed that he was riddled with lung cancer.

A week after Uncle Youell died, I quit smoking. Cold turkey, too. I was determined not to die the way my loved ones had. With the help of countless bags of Blow Pops to keep my hands busy, I successfully quit. I went 8 years without a cigarette.

Here is the true power of addiction on the human

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