By John Perry

Robert Nesbett was in his 19th year of addiction.

His mornings had fallen into a familiar but unwelcome routine.

Before leaving his bed, he sat on the edge hacking through another nagging fit of dry, raspy coughing.

Coffee no longer had much flavor. But by holding the mug to his lips, the steam helped open his sinuses, and he could once again smell the aroma, for a little while, at least.

After breakfast, Nesbett lit his first cigarette of the day.

At the lavatory mirror, he was unhappy about the way his teeth looked. To conceal them, he smiled less often. No matter how diligently he brushed, they remained as nicotine-yellowed as his bedroom’s draperies.

Dressing for the office, he discarded a shirt when he noticed the little circular hole burned into the front. He wondered why he had bothered to send it to the cleaners.

Buttoning his next shirt, he tried to ignore the stains between his index and second fingers. No amount of scrubbing helped.

He worried about his health. Moving through the day, he had shortness of breath. For about a year, he couldn’t take a deep breath without coughing.

But anxiety increased his nicotine craving. He lit another cigarette. But he couldn’t taste it. Not anymore. Not for a long time.

“I had been smoking a pack a day for 18 years, and there was absolutely no pleasure associated with the act anymore,” said Nesbett, a chief architect in Aviation’s planning, design and construction division. “It was pure addiction.

“I hated the fact that a little cylinder of tobacco was controlling my life.”

A pulmonary specialist showed him a series of photographic slides comparing healthy lungs to those blackened by years of cigarette smoking.

“I knew that was happening in my own lungs, and if I didn’t stop smoking right then and there I would die,” Nesbett said. “I smoked my last cigarette at 5 p.m., Friday, Nov. 7, 1977.”

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