I Don't Smoke Cigarettes

At the age of nineteen most of my friends smoked cigarettes and I wanted to be like them. That is not the best of reasons for doing anything is it? I would go out at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning to buy some because I couldn't face the thought of not having one ready in the morning when I first woke up. It did not take me long to realise that I was throwing my money away and would face inevitable health problems as a result if I kept on smoking. I generally smoked about 20 a day, more if I had a long day. Two years after I started I quit, cold turkey. It was hard but forty years later I am not one bit sorry I gave it up. Years after quitting I would dream at night in my sleep that I was having a smoke and wake up in a cold sweat until I realised that dreams don't give you cancer, and then I began to enjoy the dreams and even look forward to them. That is when the cravings went away and the dreams stopped. That is also when I knew that I had beaten it.