inheritance

We as mental health consumers have a higher rate of smokers than the general population. I was a smoker for 35 years. It started out as a teenager just being cool, but after I got sick, I found the habit a big help even though I knew it wasn't good for me. Also, I had suicidal ideations everyday that I fought, so what did I care. This is a peice I want to get printed in the newsletter, CHOICES, a consumer run smoking information presentation service.

Inheritance

It’s been 10 months and I still sometimes want a cigarette. I have to reinforce myself by thinking, but I’m a non-smoker.

Ironically, a CHOICES presentation started me thinking seriously about quitting. They came to our peer support training class with their breath monitors, jars representing the amount and look of mucous in your lungs, fact sheets on the various toxins in tobacco aside from nicotine, et al. How could you not consider quitting? But what clenched it for me was my grandfather’s cough. My grandfather died about 3 decades ago from emphysema.

My grandfather had crystal blue eyes with bright green flecks (and yes, he was black). But, when there was a change of emotion, those eyes turned green. As the emphysema got worse, he had a cough that would go on for minutes and get out of control. And, in  the greenness of his eyes, I could see an honest fear as he shook uncontrollably. That should have made me stop smoking then. But, I was young, immortal and depressed.

 My grandfather’s cough clenched the deal for me, even from the grave; because 10 months ago, I had that cough.

It was a cough that you can’t control ending in a gag as if you would throw up. I felt as if I was coughing up my lungs and then gagging on them. My insides shook. I thought of my grandfather.

When I reported this cough to my primary care physician, very concerned, he said, “It’s a smoker’s cough.” As if to say: I’ve asked you to quit, you won’t, these are the consequences.

But there was another reason. Having over the past 5 years through proper medication and recovery tools regained a healthy sense of life, I want to do everything to preserve it. I am now hopeful for the future. So, not only did I quit smoking after 35 years, which my college friend of 32 years cannot believe, I go to the gym if only to cycle or walk for 30 minutes. I am now trying to change my eating habits, with the help of a wellness coach. It’s important to me to eat healthier, thereby losing weight, even though it’s hard. We all know how easy it was to blow up on psychotropic drugs.

However, even with all this in my head, I remember that I thoroughly enjoyed smoking cigarettes. The only thing that could really make me give it up, was my grandfather’s cough. So, I did.

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