{"id":51,"date":"2014-10-20T13:18:03","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T13:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/stories-of-my-life\/?page_id=51"},"modified":"2015-02-15T06:39:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T06:39:14","slug":"i-quit-smoking-at-the-age-of-eight","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/stories-of-my-life\/i-quit-smoking-at-the-age-of-eight\/","title":{"rendered":"I Quit Smoking At The Age Of Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"

So at what age did I start smoking? Around 7 and a half. And what did I smoke? Only cigarettes. I remember the feeling. It was really beautiful. Really relaxing. But the effects on my body were\u00a0negative. I started noticing a drop in my athletic performance after the first few cigarettes. Kids that I use to outrun in the playground were now running side by side with me. I feared the cigarette would make things worse; but I was hooked.<\/p>\n

I would sneak up easily and pick up the small bits of cigarettes my dad threw away and run upstairs to\u00a0smoke them. At first, I sat on the floor, with the door closed, listening for the sound of footsteps coming\u00a0up the stairs. But after the first ten cigarettes or so, I became much bolder, and sat on the window ledge like an expert and puffed away.<\/p>\n

It was a divine sensation; but beware, the effects on my\u00a0body were\u00a0not so divine. And if I had continued in this way, I had a good feeling it would not have turned out very nice for me, in terms of my health.<\/p>\n

I guess God<\/a> had a plan\u00a0of cleansing me of this habit before it got worse, and I’m eternally thankful for His divine intervention.<\/p>\n

I would look carefully at smokers to see if I was smoking as good as they were. I noticed one of my neighbors one night as he blew smoke through his nostrils and I wondered how he did it. I kept pondering upon it, trying to figure out the art of blowing smoke through the nostrils. I would inhale the cigarette, and exhale but no smoke exited. I kept looking to try to figure out how they got they smoke to come through the nostrils.<\/p>\n

Then one night I observed as one of\u00a0my neighbors swallowed a bit and then the smoke exited through his nose, and I thought “ah, so that’s the trick: you have to swallow the smoke”.<\/p>\n

I had gotten\u00a0in the habit of procuring whole cigarettes by this time, and I wanted to amaze myself.So I stood in front of the mirror, in the closed room and took a good pull. I swallowed. What happened was nothing that I expected. I started to choke. I fell on the bed, and started to roll. A really unpleasant sensation gripped me. I prayed to God<\/a> to save my life, with the vow that if He saved my life I would never smoke again. Some minutes later, I started to recover slowly.<\/p>\n

It was officially over. I could no longer smoke again. I could never forget the vow I made to God<\/a> that day. I remember the words of the bible<\/a> “it is better not to vow than to vow and not keep it, for God<\/a> has no pleasure in fools”.<\/p>\n

Indeed, I am thankful for God<\/a> for saving my life; for freeing me from the addition of smoking; and more than anything in the world<\/a>, I vow to keep my vow of never smoking again.<\/p>\n

Many times throughout my life I was pressured by peers to “take a pull”, but of course, I never did, and I never would.<\/p>\n

Related: The day I almost drown.<\/p>\n

Related: Why I can’t drink mariuaanna anymore<\/p>\n

Related: I fell to the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So at what age did I start smoking? Around 7 and a half. And what did I smoke? Only cigarettes. I remember the feeling. It was really beautiful. Really relaxing. Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nI Quit Smoking At The Age Of Eight - Stories Of My Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Patrick Carpen explains what led him to quit smoking.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/stories-of-my-life\/i-quit-smoking-at-the-age-of-eight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Quit Smoking At The Age Of Eight - Stories Of My Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Patrick Carpen explains what led him to quit smoking.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/patrickcarpen.com\/stories-of-my-life\/i-quit-smoking-at-the-age-of-eight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stories Of My Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-15T06:39:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/patrickcarpen.com\\\/stories-of-my-life\\\/i-quit-smoking-at-the-age-of-eight\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/patrickcarpen.com\\\/stories-of-my-life\\\/i-quit-smoking-at-the-age-of-eight\\\/\",\"name\":\"I Quit Smoking At The Age Of Eight - 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