Portrait of an Ex Smoker: Part One

Posted: February 5, 2016 | Uncategorized | 0 Comments

By Sean Marshall

Smoking is addictive, dangerous and one of the hardest things a person will ever have to quit. When a person does quit it’s important to share their story no matter who they are. It may just inspire others to do the same. In this case it’s Alex Kennedy. Kennedy has always had a love of music. Playing his guitar at a young age and attending all sorts of alternative music events over the years.

On the 25^th of December 2015 Kennedy woke up and had enough. “I just didn’t have a craving for a smoke,” he says. He explains that he wanted to see how long he could go without smoking and it just continued on from there. Kennedy comments on how he was tired of waking up with a sore throat and dried out lips. “I was getting board of always smoking. I felt like it was time to quit,” he says.

Kennedy began smoking in his teens like many do. “I’m pretty sure I was seventeen or eighteen,” he says. He speaks about how he began “I was at a party, had been drinking and someone offered me a smoke, I figured what the heck and tried it.”

He talks about how he continued to smoke because he just felt like it. “There was no real peer pressure, a few months later I just went out got some cigarettes and began smoking.” Kennedy is quick to point out that most people who smoke don’t just do it because of one factor it’s often many.

One factor smoking gave him was a routine. It was one aspect in his life that was constant. “I was just out of school, working in a kitchen, I don’t know what exactly was my next step.” He did know that if he wanted a break smoking got him one. If he needed to clear his head smoking seemed to do it for him.

He explains that smoking became a comforting part of his and many others routines. That when smokers get up in the morning the first thing they do is often reach for a cigarette. Have a coffee in the morning pair it with a smoke, drive to work while have a smoke. “It wasn’t too hard for me to initially quit but learning to do all those other things without a smoke can be difficult.”

“You get used to just holding a smoke in your hand it’s almost weird not having something there most times.” Kennedy does say that he sees others struggling because they’ve been smoking for years and don’t know what to do with themselves. “I’m 22 so I haven’t been smoking so long that I would have to change the way I live entirely but it’s got to be tough for those that have too.”

Continue to follow Uprise’s blog posts for the exciting conclusion!