> Good on ya, Mike! You deserve all the praise we can heap on you. > Staying off is incredibly difficult, expecially if you want to live a > 'normal life' with other drinkers around you. > Don't even know you, but I'm proud of you!
Thankee Keith. It does get easier as the years pass. To tell you the truth, quitting is harder with alcohol, but staying off cigarettes is harder. I haven't had a cigarette since 1983 and I *still* dream about smoking every once in a while. Very addictive stuff, nicotine. I had an uncle who was alcoholic all his life. Big, strong guy, natural mesomorph, healthy as a horse, almost literally never sick a day in his life. So guess what he died of? Lung cancer, even though he quit smoking in the 1950s. All that booze didn't do him much harm, but the ciggies killed him. His death was especially hard on his family because he was a real hero to his many grandchildren, a real rock, a great influence on them (despite his drinking, which he kept pretty well hidden from them). It's just a crying shame he didn't live another ten years--he would have seen all of them into adulthood, and been there for their teen years. Man, anybody who thinks that the years that smoking takes off your life don't matter.... --Mike
