"Ouch. Stopping smoking is damned hard. Repairing trust is even harder." --Ah, one of my My Space friends

When I find myself in times of trouble, I have to remember the what the little piece of paper inside a fortune cookie from the past said, "It is always darkest before the dawn." It's not always easy to see or remember this great bit of advice when you are in the eye of a hurricane. Little reminders often come though, such as in the form of the above comment that a women made in response to something that I wrote in a poem that I posted to my My Space blog about the feelings that I had upon learning that my son had picked up a pack of cigarettes and had started smoking the death and disease that the killers at the cigarette corporations package within.

I heard on the radio, yesterday, that sixty percent of all cancer in this country(the USA)is caused by cigarettes. Smoking is good business for the American Medical Association and its members, as well as good business for the sick and evil people who work within the cigaratte industry. But why my son?

Peer pressure?
Rebellion?
A cigarette goes well with a beer?
It's the thing that skateboarders do? (Should I have then tried to keep him in baseball?)

Wasn't the death of our dear Uncle Dave due to inhaling enough to warn him off? Can't he look at his step dad's thus far losing battle to quit as a sign for him to stay away from the death sticks?

I smoked for almost twenty years. At the end of my habit, I was often coughing blood, I was always full of phlegm, constantly trying to clear my throat of it, and grossly spitting it out. I had bronchitis. I coughed all the time, yet I reached for a cigarette the first thing in the morning, every morning, upon waking up. It took me six long years to quit smoking, after the day that I officially realized that I did not enjoy smoking and was only do it because I had to, i.e. I was hooked.

Shouldn't the example of what cigarettes did to me, what they did to Uncle Dave, and what they are doing to his wonderfual step dad be enough to keep him away from cigarettes?

The answer is no, and I am not sure why.

Since my son hid his smoking from me, lied about it, in fact, my mind wandered. I assumed that he was drinking. I thought that he might be stealing. I realized that I was paying for the cigarettes that he had so far smoked, with money that I had given him for food, with money that I had given to him so that he'd have a dollar or two in his pocket while he finished high school.

My mind wandered so far that he was going to wind up like Jim Carroll, as Jim Carroll chronicled in his book, "The Basketball Diaries," sticking a needle in his arm to get high on heroin and sucking dicks in a bathroom to pay for his addictions; extreme yes, but as Ah almost said, once trust is broken, trust is broken. I have a very vivid imagination, and I have been down paths with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs that I was greatly hoping that my son would be spared from going down.

I always thought that honestly telling my son the truth about my alcoholism and my several decades us of drugs and cigarettes would spare him having to experiment with these things himself. I was wrong.

On I don't know how many of those nights where he asked me to spend the night at Grant's or Lilliana's, he wasn't just skateboarding, he wasn't just playing guitar, he was smoking it up and boozing it. I know the truth now. Will I know the truth this afternoon when he comes home from school? Will I know the truth tomorrow when he is out and about on his weekend?

I am hoping that my son can shoot straight with me, from here on in. I assume that I now know the worst of what was going on behind my back. Why lie to me anymore? I got pissed this time, and I'll get pissed off even more, if I get lied to again.

Stopping smoking is hard.
Repairing trust is even harder.
Thanks Ah.