In Order To Stay Alive, I Had To Quit Smoking Cold Turkey

Yeah, I remember when I had my first cigarette. I was 13-years-old and I lit it up. I didn't inhale though. I walked around with it making glamorous moves like a movie star. I thought I was cool.
All the cool kids at my school, smoked ciggs and  pot. And me, being so unpopular, I wanted to be just like them, so I took up smoking.
For the first year of smoking cigarettes, I didn't inhale, but I smoked a pack a day. It was so easy back then to buy ciggs out of the cigarette machine.
When I was 14, I was sent to boarding school. And I did inhale. I just loved smoking. It made me feel glamorous. Powerful. With it.
Over the years, I smoked up to three packs a day.
I was hopelessly hooked. I just couldn't stop.
My fingers had nicotine stains on them. My teeth were brown. The white walls of my apartment turned yellow from the tar. My clothes smelled like cigarettes.
I had been smoking for 30 years.
And then one night, I woke up coughing, hacking, wheezing and I had trouble breathing. This went on for a week. I kept on telling myself that I would never, EVER have another cigarette again. But the following morning, that promise was broken.
Finally, I had to put the smokes away and I did.
And from then, I quit cold turkey.
Let me tell you, it was hell. For three weeks, I had to lie in bed, trying to fight the nicotine withdrawals.
I gained 40 pounds, eating like a pig.
Every time that I would have a craving for a cigg, I would have a piece of cake or pie or something else that was fattening.
This went on for a year.
That was three years ago. I am now smoke free.
And I lost 12 pounds.
I still crave smokes, but I know how bad my health will get if I started up again.
I was dying before.
So that's my story of my cigarette  smoking. Smokers, I hope  you take it from me. Cigarettes are slow killers.