For a period of about five years, I smoked cigars. My father had done it most of his life and I guess I just wanted to be like him, but I smoked about five or six full-sized cigars a day without any thought to the second hand smoke it was producing or the affect it could be having on those around me.
I had heard about the effects of second hand smoke and people had complained to me before, but I would typically just point my cigar in a different direction or sort of wave the smoke out of the way. It was not that I really believed that I was helping matters that much by doing those things, I just felt
that people were basically whining when they complained about such things.
I absolutely hated it when someone suggested that I quit smoking, and I actually got into numerous arguments about the subject. I was pretty set in my ways.
In my junior year of college, I declared psychology as my major, and began learning a lot about different psychologists throughout history, including Sigmund Freud. I greatly admired Freud, as my own personal philosophy about the cause of mental disorders and unhealthy behaviors was most in line
with his way of thinking.
I remember reading a biography of his out on my porch, with a cigar in one hand, and my girlfriend right next to me, taking in all of my second hand smoke, and feeling really proud that I, too, smoke cigars like my new hero Sigmund Freud.
Then it got to the part of his life where he developed oral cancer and had to have multiple surgeries because of that fact. I am proud to say that at that point, I put my cigar down and never picked another one up.
I had never really thought much about second hand smoke, because I would go down to a local pub once a week to play darts, shoot pool and have a few drinks, and I was used to being around it. Smoking was allowed at the pub, so I was still exposed to it on a semi-regular basis.
For whatever reason, I did not visit the pub for a few months, and when I went back, I could really tell a difference. I smelled the smoke almost immediately as I entered the pub, and it was not long before I actually started to feel a little sick to to my stomach.
Besides the more important fact that it can cause cancer, second hand smoke also gets into your clothes and, even as an ex-smoker, it got to the point where I could always tell if someone had just finished smoking, and I could tell whether they had smoked a cigarette, cigar or pipe.
I do regret my attitude toward second hand smoke for all of those years, because now that I see what it does to people, I wish that I had not been so blind.