THAT'S IT!!! I QUIT!!!

I did not start in high school like many people did. No, I was 25 years old and had a decent job. I remember how it happened. I had been having a stressful day and just wanted so badly to not feel stressed the way I was. So on break I turned to a smoker next to me and said, "Can I bum one?" At first she didn't want to give me the cigarette, but I managed to talk her into it. Once I started smoking, I didn't want to stop. 

My biggest problem when it comes to smoking is that I actually like it. I enjoy the intake and the release of however many carcinogens I am putting in my body all at once. I have tried to quit before but have always returned to my master - the cigarette. The last time I quit was the worst - when I realized just how much smoking does affect the brain's pain inhibitors. I was smoke-free for three weeks and then one day the pain hit me. And I had been smoking so long that I had no idea how bad it had gotten. I resigned myself to smoking and never trying to quit again.  Then came the doctor's visit when he told me I had chronic bronchitis. As a singer, that's the last thing I need. That, and my cigarettes that I was bound and bent to not let go. 

For the past week I have been coughing all the time. I knew I wasn't sick; I knew it was the cigarettes. Then today I took a selfie while I was out on the balcony having a cigarette. I looked at the picture. It looked gross to me, a lit cigarette between pursed lips. So that was it. I have to quit. I am tired of the cigarettes making me feel like I have walking pneumonia. Enough is enough. I really, really want this to be the end.