A bad habit.

![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmR6PVSZzVVjoAsDiTBcAqte3HyQLZQkQEopTRkTiRtgWr/image.png)
[F](https://pixabay.com/es/photos/humo-retrato-cigarrillos-mujer-4914808/)

The bad habit of smoking started in my youth, when I was 17 years old. I saw my classmates doing it and decided to accept their invitation to accompany them to smoke.

I must say that I felt good when I did it, I had a feeling of owning the world when I smoked. But that was a fallacy, what I was accomplishing was damaging my lungs which I did over the years.

I started having difficulty breathing thanks to respiratory tract infections and yet I wondered why I was getting so sick. I saw other people smoking and I didn't see any of them with my problems, so smoking was not the cause of my problems.

When the time came to go to the specialist and he told me that my habit of smoking worsened my condition, that was when I opened my eyes and realized what it was doing to my body.

So I decided to quit smoking for good. I did it when I had to come on vacation and spend the days on call at the hospital to get the money to continue studying. The first week I had to work for 72 hours straight and I didn't smoke because I never wanted to smoke in the hospital, much less in the bathroom and as the days went by, I got busy with other things so as not to think about cigarettes. Until the weeks went by and I saw that I could control it very well.

It was not very difficult for me to quit. After spending more than 10 years smoking when I decided it was time to end it, I did, I quit. No withdrawal crisis. I just kept telling myself... "I can keep smoking and kill my body or I can quit and continue to live".

And here I am, at 60 years old, without smoking since I was 27 years old and without falls and relapses. Just the thought of living better was enough encouragement.

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 Here is my entry to the contest hosted by @supo1.  Participate by clicking [here](https://beta.steemit.com/hive-170327/@supo1/steem-inspiration-contest-or-freedom-at-last)

Thanks to @wakeupkitty for inviting me. I'm invite to @sacra97, @mllg.

![@gertu(13).png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXbADx1jWvabb5bwd7tm1wQftNLe1Pg5ccprGHLMiP6Jk/@gertu(13).png)

I'm @gertu from Venezuela  to the world.