You can't smoke a chicken

Some might find this, alarming, many will understand. When I was young we owned a gas station, it closed when I was thirteen. Included in the left over stock, were five cases of cigarettes. Be clear, five cases. What amounted to 150 cartons, 1500 packs or 30,000 cigarettes were placed in our garage.
I met the right or wrong person and opened my first pack the beginning of that summer, starting with his brand. Once those were gone I smoked similar brands, then menthols and the ones without filters.
I was under emotional stress, I think that had some effect on how I started and continued to smoke. Always a compulsive smoker, I smoking at least two packs a day. I could smoke a whole pack during a football game; the first time I appeared on Television I had to be there at 5:30 AM and smoked a pack before arriving, I was sick. The way I smoked, those cases didn’t make it past the summer and I was full time by fourteen.
There has been no day in thirty-eight years I haven’t smoked; I expected the first day, I’d not smoke, to be the day after I died.
“Tobacco offers us a life of slavery, a host of chronic, debilitating illnesses and ultimately death. And think about it: We pay big bucks for those benefits, sad but true.” www.about.com
Three thousand, smokers start in America each day, over eighty thousand worldwide. Ten million cigarettes are sold worldwide every minute, the article, The dangers we face from
tobacco use, by Terry Martin, says. Further, over five trillion cigarettes are produced and sold each year.
I wake up at three AM, the first thing I want is a smoke. I go back to sleep, but for at least an hour I dream of them. This, my first full week without one, it’s been worse. I dream of one and then I wake up depressed. Falling back asleep, I repeat this process over and over, it’s enough to make you start smoking. While eating I barely chew my food, trying to get to where I light up my smoke, then it hits me, I’ll never light up another and I feel a little tinge of depression, this happens repeatedly. Every smoker who finds out you’re quitting will offer one, misery loves company, is an old saying rooted in truth.
Nothing replaces cigarettes and a non-smoker cannot understand. There are many products designed to help. Several drugs are available, in my life I’ve found that any drug or drink increases your desire to smoke; these drugs simply make you sick when you do. Gum, electric cigs, staples, hypnosis and patches, all help, but, you just can’t smoke them. No drug, no food and dare I say, not even sex can quench the desire for just one more.
Find something that helps, find someone who helps, understand that you’ll never be allowed one more and start today. If you fail try again, it’s worth it. To all the non-smokers, during the last week I could have eaten a pack of cigarettes, but no matter what, I can’t roll up a chicken, a lobster, a big fat piece of chocolate cake or a kiss and smoke it.