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How do I make amends to the children who, seeing my example, started on a smoking habit? Some of them will die of smoking-related causes. Many people who smoke for a long time do die of it. Those kids’ early death will be part of my legacy. I’m remembering all that time I worked around youngsters….

Are there people whose physical health was damaged by my second-hand smoke? Someone who smoked as much and for as long, as I did certainly brought some others to an earlier grave. A person at a Nicotine Anonymous meeting said, “My mother died of my father’s cigarette habit.”

Will an apology somehow make it all go away?

Cigarette smoking entails an attitude of defiance that not only says, “I can declare no reverence for this life that God, my mother and father gave to me, so I will align myself with those willing to throw away what is precious in favor of feeding a stupid habit. I will even declare as I smoke in the front of the building, ‘while you and your family pass by on your way to services that I don’t give a damn about this gift of life and, therefore, anything but this butt.’”

I’m sure you will believe me when I tell you that, as a smoker of many years, starting from this moral and spiritual bankruptcy, my ethical bearings were consistently compromised. “Anyway, what’s the point of trying? This cough will take me next week, most likely anyway!”

When we don’t really care about ethics enough to be considerate of others, if you’re ‘not even trying’ because you don’t really care about much, then it is, indeed, a short step to serious sinning. Smoking cigarettes perpetuates the abandonment of anything important and, I speak of my experience—it certainly involved a significant deviation from moral choices.

I am four years without a smoke, an anti-smoking activist and enjoying a wonderful role in others’ recovery from mental illness in my work in the recovery movement. Still, against nicotine, victories are slow in coming. Going to Nicotine Anonymous fellowships, they make great clubs to belong to, helps many get off and stay off of cigarettes essentially at no cost. One just need want to live without cigarettes and you are encouraged to come. Search online under Nicotine Anonymous for meeting info and such.

So now, with the help of NIC/A I’ve got the “monkey off my back” and that has contributed massively to my harmonious relationship with myself, my body, and my God. I consider that now I am certainly a good nominee for sainthood.

Do it! I dare you! Canonize me! Just don’t forget—I’m “the mass-murdering saint” unless someone comes up with a better title!