I have a drug problem ~ Something Personal

"Our family has a drug problem," he said to the group standing in front of him. Tears were already forming at the corners of his crystal blue eyes as he stared out at his audience. "It's not a problem that we can hide under our sleeves. We can't stash it away when the authorities knock on the door. It doesn't stay locked in a cabinet until we have to have just a little sip. We inhale it, and bleed it onto those around us. Even the ones that we love."

He paused for a moment to wipe away a tear and look down at his mother's coffin. "She smoked cigarettes for 50 years, and my father did as well. They paid the tobacco companies to kill them. And now we stand here before both of them, upset and tattered. Feeling lonely and telling God that this just isn't fair. Yet more than half of us will get in our vehicles today and light up another one to ease the pain."

The wind was blowing his thinning blonde hair all about his face. This was the most difficult day of his life, yet the most important. He watched the faces of his family and friends as they stood in silence waiting for his next word. The smokers were the most affected ones. And yet, even as he spoke, he knew they were all secretly wishing he would stop.

"It isn't illegal, yet it is killing us all off one by one... by one." He looked down at the freshly dug grave as he said this to them all. "My mother and I spoke about this a few years ago. She decided that the best time to do this was now. I am just SO tired of watching my family die and not even getting to say goodbye. My mother was a good woman. She and my father loved and cherished all their children. They were God-fearing, hard-working, and American-proud. And now they are gone. No more. No less. They are just gone. And for one reason only. When they were both young, they picked up a cigarette and lit it. And they never stopped."

He walked back over to the other side of his late mother's grave as he laid a single rose on her coffin. The minister said a few more words and the crowd slowly dispersed. He hugged all of his family, relatives and friends as they walked by, with a sick feeling in his stomach. Knowing that today he had done something good. Knowing that it would not work.

I saw the look on his face that day as I got into the back seat of my mother's car. I saw the fear in his eyes, and the pain he felt in every wrinkle and pore in his kind face as he watched his youngest sister put a cigarette in her mouth and light it without a second thought. I waved a cloud of smoke away from my face and I vowed that December day that I would never pick up a single cigarette. This December it will be 11 years since he said those words and this November will have been my 9th year as a smoker. Quitting isn't easy, but not quitting........is worse.

Smoke free: 34 days and counting