I am an addict. Now, for those of you that are preparing yourselves for a goofy post or want to continue reading out of morbid delight in hearing about sleepless nights of withdrawal in gutters, you're in the wrong place today.

My addiction is something that I can operate around, that allows me to lead a normal and productive life, and is even easily supported by and helps support communities and individuals. Even though I fight against this addiction (and win more often than not most days), it is always here. It will always be here.

Cigarettes.

Because of cigarettes, my mother is lying in the hospital in an unresponsive state. She is dying. The morphine has taken away her pain and for that I am grateful. For the first time in two years I think she has reached a place that doesn't cause her agony at every waking moment. It does not haunt her sleep and dog her footsteps.

For 9 days I have been at the hospital nonstop, with only a brief break for an hour or two to step away and collect myself. Last night, finally, my body and mind could not take any more and I collapsed for ten hours of sleep at home. Regardless of not wanting to, my body refused to continue.

I have cried. I have raged. I have prayed and wished and hoped and pleaded for a miracle. I have even tried to bargain with the forces that be to take some of my time on earth and give to her. Eventually, you can only accept and that is the hardest thing I have ever done. But accepting does not mean that the tears and pain have left. It does, however, on some level help me come to terms with what I can and cannot do for her.

It hurts to see her lying there. Her body is slowly slipping away, her vitals dropping with each hour, but slowly, so slowly. I saw her today for four hours and stepped back away to come home because I needed to release emotions away from the hospital, away from her ears so she does not feel any negativity from me.

When I am with her, I talk to her. I tell her about everything I have ever loved about her, about our lives together, our activities. I laugh. I kiss her. I hold her hand. I hug her gently so as not to hurt her body, her unresponsive body, because the cancer has wasted away at her flesh until all that is left is bones and fluid. Her skin weeps at the slightest touch beyond a careful clasp or fingertip stroke.

It's easy to brush aside cigarettes with a contemptible wave or flick of the fingers in the realm of addictions. Cigarettes don't leave the addict convulsing on the floor, clawing at the walls and hallucinating throughout withdrawal. Cigarettes are not seedy and dark, placing the addict in extreme situations of inhumanity. You do not see many people that put themselves on the street to hook for cigarette money and cigarette money alone unlike with other drugs.

But it is a drug. And it is an addiction. The effects are merely take longer to feel and witness.

Cancer, emphysema. To continue with life attached to an oxygen tank, to feel each breath as a stab in the chest and throat. The activities lost forever. I knew a woman once that had smoked for so long that even after she quit, she could no longer ride a bicycle. She couldn't get enough air to peddle continuously, even on a flat surface.

I have watched this addiction slip in, settle comfortably on the couch and take away my grandmother and mother, slowly, subtly, painfully.

Cigarette addiction is something is that is frowned upon in society currently, but the drug itself is still easily available. There are many support groups for addicts available locally for specific drugs, but it is still difficult to find one for cigarette smoking alone. A group that isn't an impersonal 800 line.

I have gone weeks, days, months, almost a year without smoking. The amount of time always varies. It is an insidious beast because of its availability. At any time I can slip into a store and purchase a pack. At any time I can tap someone on the shoulder and polite ask to "bum" one. It is everywhere even though society is trying to slowly weed it out. It persists and the little beast that every addict has, regardless of substance or activity, preys on that.

To me, an addiction is literally like another entity that sits inside of me. It takes a lot to silence the bastard and no amount of duct tape can do the job for long. It bids its time, waiting.

Have you ever been stalked or perhaps watched a show in which someone or some animal has? That is an addiction. It first erupts into a fury of rage at being denied, but eventually subsides over time and willpower. Then it lingers. Like the victim of a stalker, you go about your day and you know that you're being watched. Over time, the feeling fades a bit and your shoulders relax more until you barely recall the sensation. This is the moment I fear when I don't smoke (and right now, I don't) because it's here that the beast sneaks up and bites again.

"Just one cigarette won't matter. I haven't smoked in months. I can control it now."

It feels like being a puppet. Someone strings you along, throws some lines into your head and out of your mouth from a tarnished script. Persuasive words on some levels. Easy words. Excuses. And every addict wants that excuse, that reason to fall back on when asked by others or themselves "why". Why did you go back again? You were doing so well.

"I had a rough day, such a rough day. Just tonight."

"It's just one cigarette, one pack. I'll quit again tomorrow."

"What does it matter, anyway? I've done it for so long already."

"Gonna die anyway." I never used that excuse, but I've heard it plenty and it makes me so angry. Do not say this until you have watched someone you know and love wither before your eyes, disappear into a chasm of unrelenting pain because of this damnable drug. Death is a path we all take, but the agonizing process it takes because of cigarettes is unspeakable and should not be taken lightly.

The frantic washing of hands, mouthwash, perfume while you try and erase the scent of it from your skin and breath so no one notices.

Much like smoking, alcohols beast is just as persistent. I come from a large extended family. With Irish, German, Scottish, and Cherokee, my family is bred to drink. I say that mainly in jest, but partially not. I was lucky in that I noticed when I started liking that little bite of liquor or other alcoholic drink too much.

"I can't wait to get home and grab a [insert here]."

Thank goodness I cut that off quick. Cigarettes, strangely, helped me in that regard. I noticed early on the signs because I have the same ones for smoking. Now, I don't drink. Ever. Ever, ever. And, thankfully, I don't want to. Nick of time.

But that damnable beast still holds cigarettes over my head because I didn't catch it in time.

As children and even as adults, we have a desire to fit in. There are even psychology terms for it. Multitudes, actually. Normative social influence - an urge to conform to seek the approval of others. Informational social influence - to conform because you want to be right. The list goes on. Essentially we, as people, find ourselves always getting stuffed into particular groups to define ourselves, to find meaning and assurance in our lives and actions. It is through our social identity that we determine, on some levels, who we are, who we relate to, our opinions and goals. Please, note that I say this only on some levels. On others, obviously, we are individuals, unique and capable of introversion.

The point of my mention for social identity is that there are always going to be groups out there that partake in whatever activity (crack, cigarettes, LSD, violence, rape, etc) that will assist in providing a fertile ground for addiction to persist, to continue with its needed excuses and avenues of entry into the lives of addicts. You can't escape it, especially cigarettes - sold in every gas station or grocery store, smoked on every corner outside, dramatized and elegantly recaptured in movies and television shows.

The worst part is that the results of this particular drug (whose components include many different drugs including DDT, a horrifying pesticide that was outlawed in several countries - USA as well - because of the damage it reaps over the environment). It takes years, decades for the consequences of smoking to become apparent and they are horrifying.

Emaciation from tumors, chemotherapy, radiation. The sickness, the weakness. The helpless frustration. It doesn't hurt just the addict. Like all consequences of drug use, it hurts everyone that also cares about the addict. Little by little, that person is eaten away, consumed by the consequences of their addiction until they are little more than a shell of themselves.

The actions of the past cannot be changed. Remorse and anger, frustration and exasperation over the past is useless, hurtful and unnecessary. But the past teaches. Why else are the elderly revered (and in many cases SHOULD be revered)? Because they have a long past, ripe with lessons learned from observation and experience.

Do not hate the past, but accept it and learn from it. Don't live in the past. Live now. And don't live in the future because then you'll always be looking forward and never realize where you're at.

I may only be an addict for cigarettes, but it has taught me to live day by day. Today, I have not smoked. The day isn't over, but so far I have not smoked and that's great. I do that for everything now, acknowledge what I have accomplished for the day as I'm doing it - not after, not before.

I wrote this because I felt that I needed to, not for any other reason. I'm posting it only because I think maybe some can relate, maybe someone will even realize something with it. I'm not a professional or a therapist or anything along those lines. I just needed a moment to vent aloud, to explain things to myself.

Mom, I love you.