He was twenty years old and entirely too cool to even acknowledge a little high school nerd like me. His hair was dirty blond, his skin was deeply tanned, and he may have had beautiful eyes, but I couldn't look into them to discover their color for any reason; inviting criticism wasn't high on my priority list. Spending time with him, however, was and I was thrilled when he said he might stop by, if nothing else was going on. I was fourteen, home alone for an extended period for the first time, and... a complete moron.

I don't do anything "just a little bit." When I engage in something, I dive in head first without testing the water. One of the last things I remember about that day was waking up momentarily next to a bountiful puddle of my own colorful vomit on my bedroom floor with my pants down to my knees and hearing my father say that he'd take care of me after he'd driven my best friend home. Several hours later, I woke there again to a darkened, silent house. In the wee hours of the morning, I crawled up the stairs to my parents' bedroom, where I swore I'd only had ONE (never ending) glass of sloe gin. I cried, lied, and begged for mercy. The next day, I spent hours trying to scrub the carpet clean. I was grounded for months. I didn't touch another drop of alcohol for more than two years.

When I was sixteen, I started babysitting for my best friend's cousin. The cousin and his girlfriend both worked at a local pizza place and paid me, after the first few weeks of cash, with cheap beer and cold pizza. We'd sit around drinking every night after they got off work until I had just enough time to crawl into bed at home before my father's alarm clock went off at 4 a.m. By the middle of my senior year in high school, we had a routine: we drank until I was nauseous, smoked some weed to settle my stomach, and occasionally fired up a crack pipe for fifteen minutes of invincibility when we had $20 after buying beer. My morning routine changed, too. Instead of worrying whether my hair had reached the proper height, I was raiding the medicine cabinet and downing a bottle of whatever was in my parents' mini-fridge as I showered. I slept through my classes, so I could start all over again that night.

In February of that year, someone finally noticed that I was drunk in school. I spent a month in a lockdown rehab facility, where I played along until they started talking about sending me home. The night before my "graduation," I walked out. My best friend's mother let me move in with them and I stayed there for three months. My aunt took me in, let me finish my senior year, and shipped me off to college at the end of the summer. I was "sober" for almost ten months before I started drinking again. I hid my drinking from the Voice until I was raped and found out about my pregnancy. As of this moment, I've been sober for 5,831 days (or 15 years and 356 days).

Compared to my current addiction, quitting drinking was insanely easy. Really, getting sober was the only course of action available to me. Maintaining sobriety is the difference between having this blessed life with my nuclear family and hearing snippets of second and third-hand gossip about how well my daughter is doing in school or how my husband has moved on and is dating again. I've picked up some tools in the last 15 years that have proven useful in keeping me on track. It's rare that I think about drinking at all; usually, these thoughts are momentary regrets that I can't taste a new concoction that sounds tasty or, at its worst, that I can't be more like "normal" people. Fortunately, I know what a steaming pile of poo that is.

Yesterday, I bought NicoDerm CQ. I've been smoking at least a pack a day for the last 18 years, minus the 28 days I spent in rehab and six months back in 1997. This morning, as I was considering all of this, I ran out to buy what I hope is my last pack of "Newport 100's in the box."

Even as I was driving to the gas station, I knew it was a bullshit excuse.

"You didn't finish reading the user's guide. You can start off right tomorrow morning."

I'm already bargaining with myself and I haven't even tried to stop yet.

I have just as many good reasons to quit smoking as I did to quit drinking:

1. My father needs a smoke-free environment to recover in. Someday.
   
2. I'm scared to death of cancer and the increased risk I've imposed on my husband, daughter, dog, and cats.
3. I'm tired of coughing with every change in air temperature, chest congestion, and sinus problems.
   
4. The cost per carton has risen to $57 and I could definitely spend that money on something more rewarding.
5. I hate the taste, smell, and the film coating the walls of my office.
   
6. I want to live the best quality of life I can for as long as I can. 
7. I want to grow old with my husband.
8. I want to spoil my child's future children.
9. I am a strong, independent woman and I don't need this freaking crutch to cope with stress.
10. I miss smelling subtle scents.
    
11. I have no idea what food actually tastes like anymore.
    
12. Measuring time in ten minute increments or scheduling around the need to smoke is stupid, and insane.
13. I have been smoking for more than half of my life. If I were still pegging my jeans or depleting the ozone with excessive hairspray use, I'd seek professional help. Why is smoking any different?
14. As a non-smoker, I would no longer contribute a minimum of 7,300 cigarette butts, 365 packs, and 37 cartons to the local landfill yearly, further reducing my destructive impact on the environment.
15. My dog avoids me when I'm smoking.
16. Smoking provides a barrier between me and those around me that is unneccesary.
    
17. Now is the best time, for everyone involved, for me to quit smoking.
18. If Uncle Doc can do it, I can too.
19. This is the last holdover from my using days.
20. Cuddling after sex rather than getting up to smoke ftw.

I wish I didn't make that excuse and buy that pack. At least I recognize it for what it is. I'm not going to consider this my first failure. I'm not going to throw out the pack. Today, I'm going to enjoy my Sunday. We have a mailbox to assemble and erect. There's been some consideration given to grilling. Dinner will definitely consist of meatloaf burgers, corn on the cob, fresh fruit, and salad. I might even be feeling spunky enough to finish up the laundry. Later, I will finish reading the user's guide. Tomorrow is a new day.

His mostly-gray hair is shorter than usual. It juts up and out in random patches on top and lays completely flat on the back of his head. He's clean-shaven for the first time in weeks today. His right arm is swollen, heavy with fluids that his disabled kidneys cannot process. Occasionally, he coughs; his face reddens with the strain, but these episodes are silent. The ventilator and IV pump provide a variety of interesting, and sometimes alarming, sounds. He mouths his words less carefully the first time than he does the third time and, when frustration at our incomprehension boils over, he points vehemently at the laminated sheet with the alphabet on one side and pictures on the other. He's been bedridden for 61 days.

When we walked in, he was staring at the closed blinds on the enormous window three feet from his bed. He greeted us without a smile, but scooted up slightly in the bed. I showed him a card I bought for him to give his wife on Mother's Day, reading it to him. Talk about an awkward purchase. What does a man say to his wife when no one else is around? Especially a man who so seldom speaks? It was sweet and seemed to reflect the way he has lived, ending with a sentiment something like: "But, most of all, it means that I will spend every day of my life with the woman who means everything to me." He nodded and said it was a good card, but he wasn't feeling up to signing it. I slid it into the top drawer of the nightstand and said that maybe he'd feel like doing it later, or tomorrow. He did have dialysis today and that's tiring.

The first question he asked was whether I'd talked to his wife. She was doing yard work when I saw her and said she would be up to see him later. He nodded at that news, and frowned. We babbled on about the news and mundane happenings that take place in daily life, but his interest peaked when I asked if he'd heard about Chrysler. We talked about the automaker's bankruptcy and the unfairness of setting a time limit on negotiations with Fiat. He hadn't heard yet that Wagoner was forced to resign and looked genuinely concerned at the news. He shook his head and rolled his eyes when I told him that Wagoner took a $20M severance package, though. He asked who replaced Wagoner, but I didn't know. I assured him that I would find out and report back to him tomorrow. Apparently, Wagoner was replaced by Chief Operating Officer Frederick "Fritz" Henderson.

He asked, only once, what time it was. There's no clock in his room. He's asked every day for the last three days about the time. It passes slowly for me, as a visitor; I can't imagine how slowly it passes for him. He flipped through the channels on his television over and over, finally settling on the news. Twice more, he asked if I'd spoken to his wife. Several minutes after the third inquiry, he asked me to go call her. Thankfully, she was getting in the car when I called.

She walked in, freshly showered, but still looking tired, and headed directly to the left side of his bed. His eyes brightened, opening wider than they'd been the entire visit, and he patted her side several times before running his fingertips over her belly. He smiled, resting his hand on her shoulder until she donned gloves and could hold his hand. We made polite conversation, the four of us, over his bed and then the girl and I excused ourselves.

This year marks their 40th year of marriage, yet my father literally came alive when my mother entered the room. I won't pretend that they don't have their differences or that they never fight, but I can never remember a time when my father expressed any sentiment short of complete adoration for my mother. Until I saw that subtle interaction at his hospital bedside, I'd almost forgotten that they were more than my aging parents. They are lovers and the best of friends. Though I have made grievous mistakes in my marriage, this is the love I aspire to have: a strong, enduring love that cannot be stemmed even in the worst circumstances.

My father grew up in a farming community in Indiana, the youngest of 14 children. Many of his siblings were having children of their own by the time he was born. As one of the few children left at home, he experienced more in the way of privilege than those already gone, but he was, by no means, truly privileged. His parents, both of them, worked long hours in their family owned restaurant. Perhaps that is where he gleaned his work ethic from. He graduated at the top of his class from Tri-State University, enlisted in the Navy and served in the Vietnam War, and then settled down in Detroit with my mother. He worked for General Motors as a design engineer for 31 years, at which time he became an employee of Delphi, an affiliate of GM, in the same capacity. In 2001, he was forced to take a medical retirement after a stroke that left him with limited mobility on the right side of his body.

I remember taking factory tours as a child during special events for GM employees and their families. More than anything, though, I remember hearing my dad pour Grape Nuts into a bowl at almost exactly 4:10 a.m. every morning. Dad worked long hours and had hard days, but his job provided us with a house in a nice suburb and nearly everything we ever wanted or needed. In the years before he retired, I learned that my husband made more than $10,000 per year more than my father after 30 years on the job. As a retiree, his yearly income is less than half what it was with social security benefits as well as his retirement plan.

An overwhelming number of people look at the automotive industry in the United States as this bloated machine of inefficiency, throwing handfuls of money at fat Union rats. In truth, I would have to agree, in part. The union did extremely well for itself in negotiations, absolutely. Overtime pay and union-negotiated benefits were excessive, by some standards. However, unions were necessary and, arguably, still are. What I don't think people realize is the impact the auto industry has on Detroit's economy, as well as the national economy.

In September of 2008, the automotive and parts industries employed 732,800 workers directly around the country. The Big Three manufacturers employed 239,341 of those workers in the Detroit area and in greater Michigan. Approximately 33% of all workers in the industry, then, were employed in Michigan. Michigan's population as of 2007 was estimated at 10,071,822, which accounts for 3,785,661 households in Michigan, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A stunning 6.3% of those households include employees of the Big Three automakers. It is not an unfair assumption to say that the primary income of those households is derived from the automotive industry.

Congress and the White House have been quick to judge the industry, but rarely speak about how the Big Three arrived at their current position. While it is true that there have been excesses in the industry, you cannot completely disregard the steady decline in profit margins the companies have experienced over the last decade. Auto prices have dropped consistently and incentives have increased in order to move cars off the lot. This downward pressure on pricing is a reflection of the actual economy. In the last nine years, costs of food, energy, and gas have risen to outrageous heights, driving the middle class' discretionary spending into the ground. In addition to rising prices, the average household's income has either fallen or remained stagnant, sacrificed to corporate cutbacks. Ed Wallace, an author for Business Week, offers up the Chevy Silverado Extended Cab truck with a V8 engine as a prime example of this downward pressure in pricing. The Silverado listed for over $27k and sold for $25k in 1995, but was recently offered for as little as $14k.

The media and government are also highly critical of the automakers for failing to produce "green" cars that use alternative fuel sources. I have yet to hear anyone propose a plan for funding the billions-of-dollars transition all of the plants would have to go through to change over current operations to greener production, though. With shrinking profit margins, how are these companies supposed to change over while maintaining their current commitments? The government is issuing deadlines and making demands, but what do the hundreds of thousands of people dependent on an income from the automakers do while their plants are overhauled? Are they supposed to join the 22% (which is almost three times the national average) of the population in Michigan that is already unemployed as of March of this year?

Allowing the Big Three to fail, all or in part, will have a devastating effect on the Michigan economy, which has already been rocked. Michigan felt the recession sharply more than two years ahead of the rest of the country, despite the lack of national media attention to our plight. It was almost as if the rest of the country believed that a "one state recession" was actually possible and was no indication of what was to come for them. The truth is, the Big Three's demise doesn't just effect the 6.3% of the state's population directly employed by the industry, but suppliers in several states, packaging plant employees, dealerships, and a string of people right on down to the waitress at the local diner.

It angers me to hear people speak so dismissively of the Big Three and, more generally, of the thousands of people in my state dependent on them for a livelihood. We're every bit as real as you are, with many of the same obligations, responsibilities, and needs.

We have homes, whose values we've watched plummet. My house, for instance, is worth less than half of what I purchased it for just five years ago. One in every 136 Michigan housing units has received a foreclosure filing. That accounts for 33,184 foreclosures in Michigan between January and March of this year.

We have children to feed, clothe, house, and educate. Several of the public schools in the Detroit area issued pleas recently for donations because they were out of toilet paper, hand soap, light bulbs, paper, and funding. One area school was literally doling out toilet paper by the sheet to students. As in, one sheet per student.

Two years ago, I was a waitress for a national family dining chain. I received approximately 18% of my weekly tips from employees at the local Ford plant. Try to imagine, for a moment, losing 18% of your income. Let's say you make the national average of $48,200 (data as of 2006) and were forced to take an 18% pay cut. That's a loss of $8,676. What would you have to sacrifice to make up for that loss? Cable? Vacations? A second car? For most servers, an 18% decrease is the difference between making rent and being evicted.

It's not just about cars and car companies. It's about hundreds of thousands of people.