Sandra B's Story
I started smoking to be accepted, I was trying to be cool. When I first started, I got sick, spitting up getting sick. I really couldn't stand the things (cigarettes). However, I wanted to be a part of the night club scene, which I thought was cool. So once I got past the initial sickness and conquered smoking, I finally settled on the Kool Filter Kings soft pack as my cigarette of choice. Kools became my buddies for the next forty-four years. No matter what was going on in my life, I could always light up and feel better.
First, let me say that my father nor mother never smoked, drank, or cursed. They were what I called "square." More specifically, they were church people. The kind they used to call "holy rollers". When I came of age, I looked onto these types of people with shame and disgust, and the last type of folk I wanted to be associated with. No matter how badly I acted, I will always remember one of my mothers favorite sayings "it's just nice to be nice". My reaction was... Please!...or so I thought at the time.
It was easy to get started. When I started to smoke a pack costs 17 cents. Then a pack costs 20 cents, where it stayed for quite a while. As the cots continued to climb to 50 cents, I promised myself that if the price ever got to a $1.00, I would quit. Of course by that point I was totally addicted to nicotine, which opened the door to trying other things, which led to other addictions. But, I must admit, through all my addictions, and I've had quite a few, my constant buddy was always nicotine.
After completing numerous treatments, and being clean and sober for years, I started my journey to stop what was in my case the biggest addiction of them all, nicotine. I tried patches, nicotrol, gum, smoking cessation meetings, you name it, and I tried it. Everything that had helped with other addictions could not stop my smoking. Even when I started raising four grandchildren, some with asthma and chronic bronchitis, and one who was two months premature, with multiple health issues, I was never able to quit.
One day, at noon day prayer, I heard a female pastor explain her bout with cigarettes. I felt so relieved because I thought the world of this lady. She was so very much like how I wanted to be. She told me how hard it was for her, but how she kept praying and believing in God. When I told her my story, she held me and told me that if God did it for her, he would do it for me. So from that day forward I began to pray and believe that he would do it for me also. You know sometimes it takes someone who has had to fight a battle to help someone in their fight. People who have never smoked don't know what its like; all they can say is don't do it. They don't understand it's like telling someone to stop breathing. If you can't speak about the feeling from personal experience you can't tell me how to overcome.
I feel so much better now going into my second year of not smoking. I am loving it! Of course I still suffer from the effects of smoking for forty-four years, such as shortness of breath, asthma, and all the other symptoms of things I don't claim. But for the first time in our lives, my grandchildren and I are enjoying a smoke free environment in my home and my car. They are so happy they don't have to spray their clothes with freshener to take the smoke smell away. I noticed that they did not have as many colds this year. I can truly say THANK YOU JESUS!
Sis Sandra
Ernestine Brock's Story: I've Been Delivered
My name is Evangelist Ernestine Brock. I was a chronic smoker from the age of 14, which was in 1961. As the years progressed my habits increased and it became a powerful obsession in my life.
I smokes Lucky Stripes, then traveled on to Camels and Virginia Slims. When that wasn't enough I started smoking Kools, Kool Milds and Kool Lights.
I quit for an year on my own one time, then got into a bad argument and graduated to 4-packs a day.
In 1989, I got chonically sick from going outside in all types of weather to smoke, since they banned smoking in the work place. Once I got well I went out and bought two packs of cigarettes thinking I could handle it, but I had a set back in my illness and that's when I talked to God. I told him that I knew I needed his help. I told him the only way I was going to be able to do it was to convert my whole life over to him and God took the taste and desire of smoking from me that night.
In June of 1990 God saved me with the Holy Ghost. I have not looked back or touched a cigarette since then. For 28 years I smoked and from 1990 to 2008 I have not smoked. To God be the glory, that's 18 years clean from tobacco.