PROGRESS

It gnawed one grandmother's nose from her face. It consumed my other grandmother's pancreas. It melted my grandfather's organs so quickly we're not sure which one it began feasting on first.

Cancer.

Cancer from smoking. From inhaling smoke. From inhaling the smoke exhaled by others.

Every eight seconds someone in the United States - a mother, father, friend, child - dies using as directed a legally manufactured product. They often die of cancer. From cigarettes.

Stupid people die. Stupid smokers - I've thought before.

I don't easily understand why an adult with a radio, a television, a newspaper, common sense, with any information from the last twenty years concerning the fatal effects of tobacco would raise a cigarette to their lips, set it on fire and inhale their venom into their lungs and bloodstream. I don't easily understand, but I understand. I do now. I understand why David smokes at least.

No such poll has been conducted to my knowledge but nine out of ten doctors I'm sure would agree that cigarettes are a healthier alternative to heroin. I've never lost a grandparent to heroin yet I know from stories like David's its hooks are longer and sharper and it's death more gruesome than Marlboro's.

David smokes so he won't shoot up. That's progress. I met David tonight at a homeless program, and as is the case with many jubilant recovering addicts I've met over the years, David was eager to tell me his story of regret and redemption.

Pot. Acid. Mushrooms. Cocaine.

Heroin.

Lost job. Lost house. Lost hope.

Jesus.

Lost drugs. Found smoking.

Then church. Church - a place where David felt like a stupid smoker and not a healed heroin addict.

David has me looking past my dead grandparents tonight, past the burning paper/failed IQ test in his hands, past tonight to his past. I'm seeing the mountain of progress through the smoke. I'm seeing myself more clearly.

I'm reminded that there are more than a few warm vices in my own hands these days, unhealthy alternatives to the more dangerous poisons of my yesterdays. I hope someone doesn't write me off as stupid because I stumble over these. After all it was only yesterday I couldn't get up to stumble. That's progress.

Be patient with me and David. Be patient with yourself. We're all getting well, one addiction at a time.