My affair

I started smoking when I was 15.
At first it was to fit in with those I hung out with. I never really enjoyed the experience but thought it was necessary to "fit in"
Then my mother and step-father divorced and we moved to Blacksburg. After riding the bus a few times to school, I decided it was not for me and promptly started riding the public bus to school. This involved me waking up very early to walk through a very affluent subdivision to catch the bus.
During these walks I discovered the wonderfulness that is smoking. I would walk and listen to the Cure's Boys Don't Cry cassette on my Walkman and feel like I was in a another world.
This was all a secret from my mother...until the day she intercepted one of my walks home and detected the stench of nicotine and pleasure on my breath.
She knew that she could not cease the smoking, so she only gave me lecture and let me go.
I spent my senior year of high school in a haze of smoking and Plastic Passion.
Upon graduation, I left the safety of home for greener pastures and ended up in Maryland. I was 17 years old and 19 months and the legal age to purchase tobacco was
18 years old...I never encountered a problem purchasing my Marlboro Milds though. I always seemed a bit older than I really was and life was good.
I smoked until 1994, when I got a really bad case of strep throat.
It was October (which I know because it was time for the Simpsons Halloween special) and it was so bad I was coughing up blood. I went to the emergency room, received a prescription and stopped smoking for 2 years.
It was not until my girlfriend (fiance at the time) decided to end it all that I started back again. I had gained 80 pounds and when I started again I lost it all.
I moved to Richmond, VA and met my future wife. She smoked also and we courted in a ardor of love.
Then my wife became pregnant in 1998. She stopped smoking immediately and I continued. I wanted to quit but just couldn't.
I worked in a call center and it was too easy to walk outside and light one up during a break.
...and so it continued.
It was about 6 months ago that I came up with a great idea...at least to me.
I would only allow myself to smoke on Fridays and when I was drinking or around other smokers in a social setting.
This has worked, mostly.
There have been a few extra smoking sessions, but for the most part I am smoke free...at least 6 days a week.