by Haruo » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:01 pm
April Fool's Day, regardless of where it falls in Lent or in Easter, is a date of significant spiritual import to me. It was on April first, 2000, that I was relieved, by what I choose to believe was divine intervention, of my addiction to tobacco. It had been several years since I had even thought seriously about quitting. It had been quite demoralizing the times I'd tried, and I think it had been over 25 years since I had managed to go more than four days without the stuff. But that day, I woke up, and I only had one cigarette in the apartment. I smoked it, and then as I recall, I said (out loud? Don't know) "I don't think I will go get any more." And I haven't. I was miserable with withdrawal symptoms for the first couple weeks, and always in the past the misery of such symptoms, not unlike the hay fever I'm suffering as I text this, had driven me to smoke more, not less. I didn't believe I had really quit until I was past the four-day mark, didn't even tell Verne I had quit because of the humiliation I knew I would feel once I knew he knew I had started up again. And it wasn't till maybe a week into it that I realized the day I had quit had been April first
But of course once I realized that, I also realized that I could start smoking again any time I wanted to, all I had to do was say "April Fool!" and IT WOULD BE OKAY. By the grace of God, with apologies to mÿ atheist friends, for the last 18 years I haven't had any significant craving or desire for a smoke, nor have I smoked, apart from secondhand, with or without the desire.
Haruo = Leland Bryant Ross
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