{"id":58095,"date":"2025-02-02T14:37:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T14:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58095"},"modified":"2025-02-02T14:37:48","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T14:37:48","slug":"45-years-of-tobacco-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=58095","title":{"rendered":"45 years of tobacco freedom!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It was 45 years ago today that I lit the last cigarette I ever would attempt to smoke … only to snuff it, toss it and turn my back on a nasty habit I had acquired at the tender age of 15.<\/p>\n

I was 30 years of age when I quit the habit cold turkey. My bride had been badgering me to do so, in that I had developed a “smoker’s cough.” I was smoking two packs a day, man! I wasn’t feeling well that day, so when I lit the cigarette, I damn near choked on it. My immediate thought in the monent was: What the hell am I doing to myaelf?<\/em><\/p>\n

I knew the answer. I was killing myself. I was not prepared to die, given that I had a beautiful wife and two young sons who told me they wanted me to part of their lives.<\/p>\n

I knew nothing about the cost that the habit would bring to those who still light ’em up today. Cigarettes sell now for about $7 a pack. Multiply that by two and that’s $14\u00a0 each day going up in flames in my house. Ninety-eight bucks each\u00a0 week, and $5,096 annually.<\/p>\n

Wow! I can think of many more productive and enjoyable ways to spend that kind of dough.<\/p>\n

And healthier, too!<\/p>\n

As I look back, I believe today that decision — made immediately and acted on with dispatch — was among the smartest acts I have commited in the long life I have been granted.<\/p>\n\n

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It was 45 years ago today that I lit the last cigarette I ever would attempt to smoke … only to snuff it, toss it and turn my back on a nasty habit I had acquired at the tender age of 15. I was 30 years of age when I quit the habit cold turkey. … Continue reading 45 years of tobacco freedom!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[10124,4291],"class_list":["post-58095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical-news","tag-kathy-anne","tag-smoking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58096,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58095\/revisions\/58096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}