a public service announcement

Smoking is bad for you.

Have you heard this enough in your life? Do you need help finding a way to quit?

To be honest, I've never smoked a day in my life. Not a single thing. I'm probably the only person I know who didn't experiment with smoking 'something' in college. (By the way, this does not mean I was Straight Edge Girl in college. I just made drinking my vice.) So before you smokers assume I'm going to get all self-righteous on you, I promise you that I won't.

It's hard to quit stuff that you're addicted to that aren't good for you. For example, I LOVE sour candy. Can't get enough of the stuff. And now I have cavities. That's what happens when you indulge in something that isn't good for you.

I recently had the pleasure of helping a co-worker quit smoking. Actually, he's a former co-worker as he has since been fired from his job for not doing it. Work, that is.

But Ed (let's call him that, shall we?) is a young man of maybe 22. The kind of guy who would flirt with the cute girls who attended our health fairs even though he was being paid to work (yup, that firing = Karma). He's a good looking guy, I guess, if 'young' and 'baby-faced' is your thing.

So one day, during one of Ed's many smoke breaks, I informed him that smoking was bad for him. He told me that he already knew but he had tried quitting and it didn't stick. And then I asked him if he liked having sex (hey, I do this with random strangers when I do outreach. I have no qualms about asking a personal question). Naturally, he replied 'yes'. Then I said, "Did you know that male smokers are at risk for decreased sexual function? Meaning, if you keep smoking, don't expect to get it up when you're older." He answered, "Yeah, right." I replied, "Oh you don't believe me? I'll be happy to show you the research study that proves this."

The next day, I emailed him a link to the study abstract.

His email reply? "LOL. Ok, I'm quitting right now."

Ed never took a smoke break again.

So the threat of lung cancer or emphysema didn't work. But the threat of ED...yup, that did the trick.