Serendipity

I stopped drinking and smoking for one particular reason. Want to know why?

As cliché as it sounds, I fell in love.

Yup. That’s it. End of story. Simple and straight to the point.

…Except it’s not that simple. Let me explain.

Eleven years ago, I met my wife and her sister. I wasn’t a heavy drinker or smoker, but it had become a habit—a crutch I leaned on to calm my nerves when I felt overwhelmed or stressed. A year into my relationship with my wife, I realized something important: my relationship with her was never going to be just about the two of us. It would always include the people she loved, especially her sister.

Loving my wife meant loving her sister too—and I did. It became part of my responsibility to protect and care for her, not just as my wife’s sister, but as someone who had become my sister too. At times, I even felt like a parental figure to her. She was growing up, watching me, learning from me.

That’s when it hit me: if she saw me drinking or smoking, and eventually picked up those habits herself, could I look her in the eyes and tell her I didn’t like it—knowing full well that she could turn around and say, “But you do it too”?

I couldn’t live with that. So I stopped.

It wasn’t hard because I was addicted. It was hard because I knew how much influence I had over her life. I love my wife and her sister so deeply that our lives have become intertwined in a way that’s hard to separate. Loving them meant becoming better—for them and for myself.

Sometimes we give ourselves excuses for why we can’t give something up. To those people, I’d say this: find something that gives you purpose. For me, it was them. I can live with disappointing myself—but disappointing them? That’s a weight I’m not willing to carry.