One day I was hanging out with my cousin and we were talking about different things. Then he lit up a cigarette because he is older than me and he smokes a lot. I was kind of bothered by the smoke so I told him to turn it off because it was also bad for his health. He told me that I was right and he turned it of. He said to me, “I don’t only damage myself by smoking it, but, I also damage you.”

“ Are you serious”, I said.
“ Yes because the smoke I release from my body comes to you which is very bad,” he said.
“ You know a lot of things about how smoking can damage you and you still don’t stop smoking?” I said.
“It’s because I’m addicted to it,” he said.

After we talked a while for this subject he told me a story that happened to one of our friend Henri. He started to stay with some boys who smoked a lot, but he didn’t smoke at all and that’s why his parents never worried about him. After some months, Henri started feeling bad and he got really sick. His parents couldn’t figure out from what he got sick from. Then they sent him to the hospital and the doctors started to look at him. The main doctor made some questions to him. He asked Henri if he smoked but, of course Henri never smoked. Then he asked him, “ Do you stay near to people that smoke a lot ?” and Henri’s answer was yes.

“That’s the problem that this kid has,” said the doctor. He has stayed near to people who smoke a lot and that affects him too. The air that they breath out Henri gets it in which is damaging. Now he has some lung problems and it’s hard to say that he is going to be well soon again.

Henri’s family started crying and felt hopeless that Henri was going to become well soon. I felt really bad about them and Henri, so I tried to convince them that Henri was going to get well soon. I was scared too that he wouldn’t because he looked very bad.

Two weeks passed and there was no improvement. I made some research for people who were in the case of Henri. Most of them got well, but the other ones didn’t. I was scared about Henri because he looked very unhealthy.

After two days I went to the hospital again and surprisingly I saw Henri standing up and doing a lap in the hospital. “What do you think are doing?” I told Henri.

“Oh don’t worry about me because today I’m feeling great,” he said. I couldn’t believe that he said that because he had been sick for many weeks and I thought that he wasn’t gonna get good.

What I learned from this that I didn’t know was that even if you stay very close to people that smoke a lot you can get harmed by it in two different kind of ways. One of them is that, you start smoking too because you see them smoking and you say: why don’t I try it either and the other one is that if you don’t smoke, but stay close to smokers you will get sick because the smoke that it releases and you breathe it in can harm you a lot.