Breaking The Habit

I started smoking when I was about 13 or 14. It all started with my best friend, Ed. He talked me into trying a cigarette. It sucked, I coughed my eye balls out, and I told him he was a stupid fuck for smoking. Then evil fucking woman had to get involved. I don't remember how much longer it was. I believe I was in 6th grade at this time. We were hanging out at this place called The Tunnels; which is a cool name for what were actually easily accessible sewers.

I remember this day quite clearly. I'm going to try to remember the name of all the girls who were there. There was Brittany, Christina, Jessica, and Lianne. Then there was Poser-Ass Dustin. He was a small kid, sort of a runt who was my friend. He sucked with girls. Then there was me. I was awesome with girls. We were all playing truth or dare at the tunnels, and these bitches got me to smoke. God damn bitches. That was the first, and only time I had ever let peer pressure allow me to do something stupid.

I've had plenty of peer pressure to drink, smoke weed, etc. Never gave in again. But I had one week day that involved four hot bitches making out with me, AND I was only 13. That fucked me up good though. I kept smoking. Never stopped. Eventually I was able to steal enough money where I got people who were over 18 to buy them for me, I'd just give them a pack out of a carton. It was a good arrangement.

There's a lot of down sides to smoking for a person like me. First off, the biggest and most important reason I decided to quit was because of baseball. Motherfucking baseball. I played for 8 seasons, from tee-ball all the way to the last year of Little League, which is senior league. I was unable to play that season due to smoking. I was able to smoke regularly and play ball for a good three years, but I started going to school less and less because I was out of control at this time, and I went to the try outs and ended up having to just go home because I was about to pass out multiple times from the heat. I was losing my vision often due to my extremely shitty condition. It sucked, so I had to call it quits.

I have to go back and change this though. I've made a few major fuck ups in my life. Getting home-schooled was one of them. I wasn't some shitty baseball player. I was on every single All Star team I was ever eligible for; 6 to be specific. I pitched, played First Base for 5 years straight, always batted either 3rd or clean up. I was the fucking man. And I still am the fucking man, to be perfectly honest. Just because I haven't played in three years doesn't mean I can't shake the rust off and brush myself off, get the fuck up and get back on the field.

Back to my original point, which was I never went to an actual high school. I never had to be a part of that bullshit system that happens at those schools. I never had to deal with it. Which was good to a certain extent, probably the reason I'm such a free thinker. But I missed out on the fucking glory. The glory of playing baseball in front of my peers. It's one thing to play in front of family and your teammates' Moms and Dads. It's a completely different thing to play in front of people who don't want to cheer you. People who you have to impress. People you have to entertain. It's a whole different feeling.

It reminds me of a good story. I was about 15 or 16, and I was just as big of an asshole then as I am now. I was pitching in this game, and I was having a pretty bad night. I had hit a few batters, and parents were getting pretty upset. I throw very fast, around 65 mph when I was 15-16. I roll a bowling ball 24 mph without even trying too hard, so I have quite an arm. I was really hurting these kids, and parents started bitching at my coaches to switch pitchers. I ended up yelling out something like "Why don't you shut your mouth and watch the game." Something to that effect. Then some coach from the other time started yelling at me, like he was my fucking coach or something. I told him he wasn't my coach and to shut up. Then I got yelled at by my coach.

Then I yelled at everyone, telling them the first amendment protects my right to free speech and I can say whatever I want. I probably looked stupid citing the First Amendment in that situation, but I still felt like a rebel. I didn't quite get it like I should have at that time. It was good stuff. I ended the inning with my mad pitching skillz. I got up to the plate with two outs and two runners on and I was the ultimate bad guy now. It was fucking awesome. I was literally being booed, at a fucking Little League game. And I absolutely loved it. The were cheering so hard every time I swung and missed. I remember I had two strikes on me, and they were just really against me, and this kid pitches the ball and I just nailed it into the center-left field gap. Base clearing double, bitches. One of my proudest moments in baseball.

This stuff was my life for a long time, and I miss it very badly. That's why I'm quitting. Now when I say "I'm quitting", I don't mean I'm thinking about it or planning on it. I have not smoked a cigarette in almost 48 hours. It was pretty crazy how it happened. I was sitting around just being lazy, thinking about how it was about time to get started on college and get myself learning about psychology and what not. So I was trying to find the website for the Central Florida Community College. I googled "CFCC", and found the page. I'm looking around and I see "Athletics." I think "Wow, I didn't know they had an Athletics program." Then I see it; Baseball. So then I start getting excited, trying to figure out how I'm going to get in so I can play.

Then I see it. A link on the baseball page that says "Want to play?" I got excited, like little boy on Christmas and quickly clicked the link. This is what I found. I can play for their school and I don't even have to attend there. I can earn a scholarship to get my AA so I can move on to a real college too. It works out perfectly. Not two minutes after I found this page, I decided to quit. I took my cigarettes, put them a drawer, and went inside. No more smoking in the garage bullshit (which is new, since I moved). Time to get my lungs up and running properly again, work out, brush the dirt off my shoulder, and start training. I'm an excellent baseball player and the essential skills needed don't just fade or go away. One might obtain a bit of rust, but you certainly don't lose skills. I'll make it with this team. It isn't an option for me not to. Then when I do, I can be back on the right track that I jumped off of the day I let four girls talk me into trying a cigarette and pretending to like it. I will right that, and be on my way to re-obtaining my glory.

(I haven't posted in a while due to me working a gazillion hours a week so I can live in this big house I moved into, but ignore those typos I'm sure I made. I'm too lazy to proof this right now. Thank you.)