I suppose it’s best to start at the beginning when trying to redirect your life. Isn’t that what a psychologist would say? Find why you started the behavior in order to change the behavior. I started smoking my sophomore year of college. I was 19 and old enough to know better. Even though I had friends that smoked before, I never picked it up until then. In high school I was active not only in theatre but marching band as well. I needed all the air I could get running around that football field, so smoking wasn’t an option. By sophomore year of college I was tired of being a goody-two-shoes. I didn’t smoke or drink all freshman year, but I didn’t judge those that did. Everyone else was more than welcome to do it, I just didn’t want to. I was a member of a sorority house, and a bunch of us girls had gone to the other college in town to cheer on the fraternity men during their rush. I asked a fellow sister if I could bum a cigarette just to see what kind of reaction I would get out of her. It was, of course, shock, and we all got a good laugh.
Now I wasn’t one of those sheltered kids who go crazy when getting to college, but I did want to push previous boundaries. Smoking was one of those forbidden things that I had grown up absolutely forbidden to do. My father and grandmother, being former smokers, both knew how addictive it could be. So, it was more of a rebellious behavior for the folks at home, but an acceptable one for the folks at college.
I started out slowly. I would buy a pack before a party, smoke 2-3 cigarettes the night of the party, and then put them in my freezer for a month. Not a big smoker at all. When I would come home for vacations, I would quit. I guess, around junior year, I started smoking more often. I worked in a restaurant when I was on school break and if you had already had your break, the only way to get a moments rest toward the end of a long shift was to go in the back room and smoke. Then, with some of the jobs I held during those college years, I was around smoke and smokers all the time. I worked at a local bar my senior year and 5th year. It was all down-hill after that. I was hooked.
Since then, I am what anyone would call a smoker. I smoke almost a pack a day. There was a time when I was at least a pack a day, sometimes maybe a pack and a half. I have a particular brand I like, and won’t smoke anything but that brand and specific kind. (that’s when you know it’s bad.) But the truth is, I’m old enough and have become myself enough that I don’t need to push previous boundaries like I did in college. I know who I am and I like me. So really, smoking isn’t about rebelling anymore, but about an addiction. One that is keeping me from improving on who I am. Maybe all that peer pressure is finally sinking in. J