When I was eleven years old, my best friend Michelle Baker and I thought that we would look more grown up if we started smoking. My parents smoked, so we devised a plan for me to steal their cigarettes, and then Michelle and I would meet behind K. J. Clark Middle School to smoke. We thought smoking would make us more popular with the older kids who hung out there. The next morning I sneaked …showed first 75 words of 593 total…

…showed last 75 words of 593 total…mistake of picking up a cigarette again. Much like a heroin addict, I go though withdrawals. When I am unable to get my nicotine on a regular basis, I become a hard person to live with. All the reasons not to smoke, particularly the health risk to which I have subjected my family and myself, should be enough to make me stop, yet I still smoke. The hold this addiction has on me is incredible.