Smoking, or rather, not

So, as I've written before, I smoked for 20 years. At least a pack a day, some days more, some days much more. I always craved the smell, the taste, the relaxing feeling I got from them.

It never occurred to me how much they stink. It never occurred to me what I looked like with the damn thing dangling out of my mouth. The persistent hacking cough I had ever day never bothered me, I didn't even notice it usually.

So yesterday, I don't know if I was hypersensitive to it or perhaps life was giving me a few reminders. As I was sitting at Les Schwab waiting for my tire to get fixed a guy came out from inside the store for a smoke. The first thing I noticed, right off, was the smell. Of him as he walked past and then of the cigarette as he smoked it. They both stunk, horribly.

As this younger man was standing in the designated as far away from everything as you can get smoking spot he would inhale, cough, exhale, cough, repeat until cigarette was gone. I was suddenly struck with this thought of "wow, and how long did you do that".

So then yesterday afternoon I spent some time in the garage dismantling the Kawasaki and the neighbors came outside to smoke. Same thoughts as earlier in the day. They smoked several times in the course of the day and every time it hit me just how much I could smell it and how much it stunk.

What surprised me is that through all of this I had not one craving. Absolutely no desire to pick one up. Not even a little. In fact, the exact opposite. I started thinking about how much better I feel now that I don't smoke. I can breath. I can taste things, I can smell things. I'm not controlled by a habit. I was thinking how nice it is to not cough when I wake up and then instantly want to smoke.

When I do things now I'm out of breath because I'm fat, not because I'm killing my lungs. I fully support a persons right to smoke if they want to. But I wonder how many truly realize just how hard it will be to quit if they ever decide to. I know I didn't. Not really anyway.

Smokers seem to (and I'm speaking from personal experience here) develop a sort of odd denial. Even though you know the truth you ignore it. You know that nagging cough is from smoking, but you blame allergies. When people comment on the smell you simply pass them off as being rude assholes. It's kind of strange and difficult to explain in words. If you've smoked you probably know what I'm talking about.

I am so glad I quit. I don't miss it (99.9999999% of the time). I feel better, I smell better, I can breath better. In fact, I can't think of a single thing that is worse off for me having stopped smoking. Yesterday was a fantastic reminder of that.