Article April 28, 2014 Issue

No more tobacco addiction

Bruce Smith

I have seen God’s unwavering, unstoppable love expressed in many ways, not the least of which was a healing I experienced in gaining freedom from addiction to tobacco.

As a young adult I toyed with tobacco products such as chewing tobacco and with smoking cigarettes and cigars. In surreptitious moments after school, I would experiment with them so I could find my place among the “cool kids.” And I found that my initial distaste for these products disappeared. At first, I could stop and start up this habit any time I wished. For years I went without any tobacco at all, and then would take up some form of it and use it until moved to put it down again. This occurred several times and I was very smug about the ease with which I could “quit.”

But one time I picked the tobacco products up and found that I could not quit. Never before had I felt defeated and enslaved like this. Despite my best efforts to shake the habit, nothing worked. I tried a variety of over-the-counter aides: nicotine gum, chewing gum, and other patent concoctions. I finally determined that I was in a serious mess and that I had better get down to praying about it.