i had a turmor removed last year, again i sill smoke over 40 a day etc.....didnt give me a new outlook on life. i know (knew) many people who never smoked, kept fit, ate well and dropped dead young, i know many that smoked and lived long.
now the reason i have no intention of getting old and grey, is i visit my old man who has alzheimers, like his father, cant even wipe his own backside and lives in a world of his own. no dignity. i have noooooooooooooo intention of ending up like that. plus i have kids (which is the main reason for being alive) so done all the things i wanted or needed to do.
But mate... 'old and grey' doesn't = Alzheimer's. Not everyone gets it, just as not everyone gets cancer. My dad, bless him, smoked heavily (and Capstan Full Strength, too) for most of his adult life, drank very heavily for most of it too, ate lots of greasy fried food, etc etc... yet he was 77 when he died, and he was still as sharp as a tack mentally. I don't know how old you are, but I know that we all go through years where we feel invincible - like nothing can touch us. In many cases, though, it's what we do early in life that determines how we're going to be later on. My uncle smoked heavily up until 5 years ago, when he was forced to give up because of smoking-related emphysema. He's 81 now, and also still sharp. He's just bought himself a new laptop! And all he ever says is that he wished he'd packed up smoking years earlier, before it took its toll. He was always very fit, see, and losing his fitness over something like smoking was a big blow to him.
You say now that you don't want to be 'old and grey' (nowt wrong with being grey, btw... ask George Clooney, Richard Gere, etc), but getting older is such a great thing in itself - providing your health is pretty ok otherwise, and even if it isn't. I'm 52 now and am enjoying my life much more, in so many ways, than I was when I was 22 or even 32. I have better insights, I've found different things to enjoy. I still run, cycle and swim. My race times are as good as they were in my late 20s, too... but the benefit now is that, because I'm a 'veteran' runner, I've got better chances of winning races in my age category - so I'm actually winning more races now than I ever did! If you'd asked me at 32, though, if I was looking forward to being 52 and grey....
aaagggghhh!!! Perish the thought!!! Who wants to be
that age? Well... I'm now looking forward to my 60s!
The other thing is, I came close to death a couple of years ago... and I'm glad I came out the other end.
I know it sounds hackneyed, but life's a journey and an adventure. It's like going on a long wildcamping trip that is completely unplanned! You don't know what each day will bring, and you don't know what it's all going to add up to... but it does add up to something, and you can't really know what until you get going on it and keep doing it.
Meantime, though... if you enjoy smoking and drinking, carry on doing them. No one should stop you doing what you want to do. Like I said, I enjoyed a drink, and drank more than I should have for years. But I didn't really worry about it. It's only when it started to catch up with me that I thought 'Hm... what's more important to me now?' And I realised that I am - old and grey as I am (well, oldish!) - actually enjoying my life.
Maybe you'll discover another way of looking at it one day - maybe when your kids have got kids of their own for you to be proud of. And if you're as lucky as my dad was, then maybe you'll not have to worry about giving those things up. Life's for living, after all. :wacko:
