Cigarettes are disgusting.

The companies that produce them are just making money off of your addiction.

I remember when I was growing up, I saw so many ads about why cigarettes were bad for you. I watched my mother struggle to quit many times, and never being successful. She was hospitalized when I was in elementary school. She always told me she was probably going to die young, die before my dad. She'd give me a piece of gum from her purse and it'd be covered in ashes. I once fell asleep on a road trip and she had been using my water bottle as an ashtray; I woke up from my nap and took a sip without realizing and ended up with a mouthful of ash and smoke.

I hated seeing what cigarettes did to a person.

In middle school, I remember someone once offered me a cigarette while walking the track during gym class. I refused and told them I had no interest. High school, I didn't really spend time with or have friends that smoked cigarettes. I was on the swim team and did weight lifting, so the athletes around me were not smokers. I do look back and feel that I was a little naive at the time. I truly didn't think that many people my age smoked.

When I started at university, I realized that more and more people were smokers.

My boyfriend admitted he smoked in high school, then quit, but then he started smoking again. At parties, people would start smoking when they were drunk. I realized that many of my friends would smoke cigarettes when drinking, or had at least done so in the past.

Once my boyfriend starting working in the restaurant industry, his addiction to smoking grew.

I don't really know how much he smokes every day, but he definitely uses at least one pack a week, if not more. It's easy to hide from me since I don't see how much he smokes when we aren't together, like when he's driving, at work, or while out with friends. He always used to say, "I'm not addicted, I can stop anytime I want to," but that's not the reality anymore.

I know it can relieve stress and can also be a social habit.

I know it's hard to break once you have an addiction. And that's also why I don't understand why you would pick one up. According to the CDC, 'cigarette smoking is down, but about 34 million American adults still smoke'. However, the CDC also reports that 'Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, accounting for more than 480,000 deaths every year, or about 1 in 5 deaths'.

Cigarettes are a waste of your money and a waste of your health. There's nothing beneficial to them, and the positive effects anyone feels is only a result of feeding the addiction.

Just don't start.