I am addicted to a product that has been around for a very long time. It is considered legal, if you are over the age of eighteen. Cigarettes are my poison. I have been addicted to them for forty-two years.

The first time I smoked, my twin sister, my best friend and I, decided to buy a pack of cigarettes out of the machine at a neighborhood service station. (They called them service stations back then, because they actually gave you  the service of filling your tank with gas, checking your oil and other fluids and your tire pressure.)

I don't remember if buying the cigarettes was something we discussed at length. I do remember they were twenty-six cents per pack. Such a deal! We did discuss which brand we would buy. All three of us were certain that we wanted a filter cigarette. Like today, Marlboro was a popular brand, so that's what we decided we would smoke. One of us put the money in the machine and to this day, I'm not sure what happened but, out popped a pack of Pall Mall, unfiltered. We groaned in disappointment however, we were determined to do the deed. We asked the service station attendant for a pack of matches and he willingly obliged.

We took our booby prize to the canyon , near our homes and lit up. There was coughing, gasping and the spitting of tobacco from our lips. We agreed that unfiltered cigarettes had to be the worst cigarette in the world and we would be sure to buy Marlboro filtered the next time.

That's how my addiction began; thinking I was cool and sophisticated. It's amazing how our culture buys into whatever the marketing business is pushing. How many purchases made because people just, have to have, whatever the latest commercial is heralding? Car pusher, band-aid pusher, cigarette pusher, drug pusher.

Forty-two years ago, there were no health warnings on cigarette packs. Truth be told, I don't know if that would have stopped me from smoking. I'd like to think I would have been smart enough to heed the warning but, mortality wasn't on my mind, at that age.

Now, you would think mortality would certainly be on my mind forty-two years later and it does cross my mind. Though the cigarette packs now have the cancer warning and cigarettes are banished from airplanes, eating establishments, bars and most people's homes and they stink up your hair, your clothes, your house and sometimes, don't even taste good, I still smoke cigarettes. That's what an addiction is; against everything that makes sense, you do it anyway.

I love my first cigarette in the morning, with my cup of coffee. I also, like to smoke a cigarette when I am driving and when I take a break from working hard. The problem isn't going without a cigarette when I have my coffee, when driving my car or even when I take a break from working hard. The problem is when I've gone without and my body begins to CRAVE that nicotine. CRAVE IT!  I'm talking about the I've GOT to have one NOW craving, when I can't THINK of anything else, can't concentrate, don't TALK to me, I'm ranting and raving and I become SUPER BITCH!

I tried to quit, once. My daughter was nine years old. She is now forty. I look back on that time with deep shame. It was my second day without a cigarette. I became such a raving lunatic, my daughter said, "Mommy, please have a cigarette!"

And I did.

Though I know it isn't socially acceptable anymore and my perfume probably doesn't do a thing to cover up that nasty cigarette smell and depending where I am, it's a bitch to find an area where I can light up; and it's not good for my health and there are times, even I don't like the dry taste, I still smoke. I smoke because I have a nicotine addiction and I admit, I am powerless over this demon that is poisoning me!

Does anybody have a match?