Collateral Damage

Recently, suicide has battered and bloodied three families in my circle of friends. 

The first loss occurred when a friend committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. He was organized and thorough:  he left typed suicide notes and had placed a call to the police immediately preceding the pull of the trigger.  Another family, another loss occurred when a young man's car careened out of control while driving drunk.  You might think that this is an example of a horrible accident.  However, he was drunk, he was not wearing a seatbelt, and he failed to take a familiar turn.  He sit a tree.  The tree survuved; he did not.  He was reckless and impulsive.  The third loss was a friend who died in his home. He fell down a flight of stairs in his home - after a three-month long drinking binge.  The police found him. Intervention had failed. He refused help. His behavior was a slow, deliberate act of avoidance of responsibility.  All three deaths were brutal, horrendous, and selfish.  Painful. 

All three left behind grieving loved ones who were committed to them. All three had other options available. Now, their children, spouses, parents, siblings feel abandoned and betrayed.  They carry a heavy weight of confusion and anger; bewilderment and sadness have become their forever companions. 

To choose death over life is difficult for most of us to understand. The self-loathing and deep depression necessary to commit the ultimate act of self-hatred is rarely experienced.  Yet, there is a subgroup of people who choose an early death by a more subtle, socially acceptable form of suicide: the smokers.

For more than 50 years, the medical community has clearly communicated to the general public that smoking will kill the smoker: a slow, painful death. Ugly and disfiguring.  What has been ignored is the collateral damage. Forget the air pollution and secondhand smoke effects for now. Smokers shorten their lives and bring grief to their friends and families.  

I call the question:  If you smoke, who is your collateral damage?  Child?  Grandchild?  Spouse? Me?