“Standing at the back door, she tried to make it fast. One tear hit the hardwood, it fell like broken glass. She said, ”˜Sometimes love slips away and you can’t get it back. Let’s face it.’ For one split second she almost turned around but that would be like pouring rain drops back into a cloud. So she took another step and said ”˜I see the way out and I’m going to take it. I don’t want to spend my life cheating. Waiting to wake up one day and find that I let all these years go by wasted.’” ”“ Carrie Underwood

Before I started smoking cigarettes many, many years ago I was told several times that quitting the habit is one of the hardest things anyone can do. But when I was at the invincible age of 14, I started smoking anyway. I developed the attitude that I can quit anytime I want to, I just choose not to right now because I like smoking.

I mean, it’s not like I’m addicted or anything. I could quit tomorrow.

Fast-forward nearly two decades and a peek in my purse and you’d still find at least one pack of Camel Lights and an array of lighters at any given time. I was that person who always had a butt lit or it was just a matter of minutes before another one came along. Smoking was just about the first thing I did in the morning when I woke up and the last thing I did at night before I fell asleep.

I would change out of pajamas late at night and drive to the store if I noticed I wouldn’t have enough to last me through the morning. And I always noticed whether I did.

As a result, smoking became affiliated with just about everything I did, said, felt and experienced. When I got angry the first thing I did was find a way outside to smoke. When there was something to celebrate I did the same.

Over the years, I watched with an almost morbid fascination as others around me tried to kick the habit. I saw people try the patch, the pill, the gum, lozenges and chew sticks. With all their best intentions, nearly all of them reverted back to smoking again, with only one exception.

A few months after my daughter was born, my mother, who had smoked for the majority of her adult life, was near my daughter and coughed, just a little, but enough to wake her up. She decided right then and there that she would stop smoking to be around for her first-born grandchild. And unbelievably, she did. After that day she never again touched another cigarette, walking away from a pack-a-day habit without ever turning back. That was going on eight years ago.

Pretty cool, huh?

Even though she showed me that quitting was possible I still wasn’t ready to put my own habit aside. I had gotten through my pregnancy OK, but now there was no big deal if I smoked. I’m only hurting myself, and now my attitude morphed from I could quit someday to not caring at all if I did. Hey, something’s going to kill me, right? At least I get to smoke along the way.

The years of tobacco use started catching up with me though. I started noticing I could no longer laugh without coughing. The distances I could walk without getting out of breath grew shorter with each passing year. And there were days I’d wake up in the morning with a feeling in my lungs like they were about to burn out of my chest. But I kept on ignoring the obvious effects on my health. That is, until one fateful day last spring.

We had family visiting us from out of town, one of whom smoked as much as I did. They stayed with us for a week, and every time I headed outside for my nicotine fix she joined me. Normally I would love the company; addicts always do. However as the days rolled by there was something in her side-stream smoke that seemed for some reason to be assaulting my lungs. There was really no rhyme or reason to it at all, there was just something in her brand that made me want to run from the smoke.

Trying not to be obvious, I attempted to distance myself from her while we were smoking, only to turn around and have her right by my side. By the week’s end, I had cut my own habit down to just a couple cigarettes a day but still had completely lost my voice and it hurt to breathe.

I realized that, whether I was ready to quit or not, it was now or never. It seemed asinine to keep going on a habit that I knew would kill me and was literally making me sick. I set a date a couple days away to quit, and lo-and-behold, I did. Just like that. No pills, patches or fanfare, I just didn’t smoke again.

I would like to say I made it through the weeks that followed with grace, not letting both withdrawals and the loss of a coping mechanism get the best of me. But that would be an outright fabrication. I was angry, and mean, and just plain awful to be around. I gained weight, lost confidence and said adios to my skinny jeans and my pride. Crying for no reason was also a bonus prize. I was a total train wreck.

Thankfully that dark and torturous period of my life was nearly a year (and a lifetime) ago. Quitting wasn’t the non-issue I believed it to be back in my teens. It was, hands down, the most difficult and nearly-impossible thing I’ve ever attempted and accomplished to date. I can proudly hold my head high and say, thanks to the inspiration of my mother, that I haven’t touched one of those things in nearly a year. I can laugh with all my belly’s might without a single cough and run up stairs without a second thought. And though it was hard, I’m grateful I forced my way through and I’ve come out on the other side of a nasty and potentially fatal addiction.