I chose to write about the trend in adolescent smoking. The reason I chose to write about this is because I am a smoker and am currently trying to quit. My parents are smokers though my father quit for approximately ten years and started back shortly after I graduated high school. I smoked my first cigarette (if I remember correctly) when I was 18 and out of Basic Training and had never had one before, however I did occasionally smoke a cigar with the boys while playing cards after a hard night of studying. I am now twenty-six years old and am currently struggling to quit this nuisance. I was able to kick the habit when I was twenty-two or so, for about two years but regressed due to "stress" (not a good excuse), and unfortunately have not been able, or wanted to quit until recently.
             As I think back to my younger years, I try to remember what made me want to smoke. I don't think it was to fit in or to be cool. I don't think it was my parents, they always told me not to smoke (of course) and would have beat me mercilessly while they forced me to smoke cigarette after cigarette after cigarette... if I had been caught, but I didn't smoke at that time. I'm sure it wasn't television commercials, because I don't remember seeing any in the hundreds of thousands of hours of watching T.V. as a youngster.
             I think I started smoking out of sheer boredom while I was in the military. There wasn't much to do in our free time, no places to go, no people to see and no one to tell me not to. I also think to myself, was there anything that could have prevented me from smoking, some type of early intervention. I do remember in 7th or 8th grade a lady came to speak to us about the dangers of smoking, but all I can remember about the whole thing was that she actually lit a cigarette in the class room, took a puff, put her mouth against a white cotton t-shirt and blew the smoke through it. In retrospec...