Message 30 of 68 in Discussion

From: MSN NicknameimageMsArmstrongKIS

Sent: 4/11/2003 3:14 PM
I really like this one, because it gave me a good way to think about smokers now that I have quit.
Other times when I have quit, I have played a little mind game where I decide to think smokers are stupid and disgusting and I can't believe I ever did that. But that never felt right to me and now I realize that it's because I didn't have an understanding of why people smoke.
I was having a discussion with my professor for the substance abuse awareness class I am taking for teacher certification. She is a never-smoker. She asked me how I could stand being in a restaurant now, when somebody lights up. She told me how rude she considered it, and that her kids would sometimes go right up to the smoker and say something. She asked me if I supported the new ban on public smoking in New York.
Well, I don't go to bars or restaurants very often (too poor!). I don't love it when somebody across the room lights up. But I know now that they are not doing it to make me angry or to be rude. I never was, when I was a smoker. I just didn't consider it rude, really. I didn't know that the smoke was gross. All I knew was that I really needed to smoke.
When somebody in a restaurant lights up, I'm not sure the proper response is to boo or hiss. Mostly I just feel sorry for the person, because of course they are not trying to be rude--They are feeding an addiction. I've been very pleasantly surprised how much easier dealing with my own cessation from smoking, and the current smoking of others is when you see it as an addiction instead of as a habit.
Now that I understand how much maintening an active addiction was stealing from my life (up to and including my ignorant rudeness towards those surrounding me), I am finding it easier and easier to live with the idea of never smoking again. I still get craves but they are easy to blow off in light of the fact that the alternative is so grim. Conversely, I am finding it easier and easier to deal with current smokers, as well--not as evil, rude people, but as people who are under the power of a force that is stronger than they are.
Alex
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