The Start of my Smoking Habit

I've been a smoker for more than 30 years. I started at the age of 11 when I found an old pack of Kent cigarettes in my mothers dresser draw. She had quit smoking 3 years earlier but never threw them out. You can only imagine how stale they were. The first taste of that cigarette should have been my first and last but instead it was just the beginning for me.

Both my parents smoked along with other family members and many of my friends.  Smoking was very acceptable then.  Smoking made you look cool and smokers were popular.  Three months before my 13th birthday my mother died of cancer. This should have been my second clue not to smoke but it was never mentioned in my house whether the smoking caused her cancer. When someone had cancer back then it was mentioned in a whisper or called the "C" word. 

Did the cigarettes have anything to do with her death?  I'll never know.  No one spoke about my mother's cancer.

Once I began to buy my cigarettes, my brand was Winston. I think we paid somewhere between 25 and 50 cents per pack then.

For the first 3 or 4 years I didn't know how to inhale, but I knew how to make some wicked donuts. From there I taught myself how to exhale the smoke from my nose. Once I learned to do that I figured everyone would think I was inhaling. Eventually none of my friends would give me a cigarette because they would complain I was wasting the cigarette. After numerous coughing fits I began to inhale. The coughing fits were just another ignored clue that I shouldn't smoke.

When I was 15 I switched my brand to Parliament and have been smoking that brand ever since.