Even with those who know and like me, I must be careful. While most of my friends are people who, if they don't smoke themselves, are tolerant of the pastime, there are many whose good opinion of me would change to either pity or disdain, as if I harbored some dark perversion, if they learned of my habit. My in-laws are deeply religious, and I'm not sure that there aren't a couple of them who would, reluctantly, turn me over to the Police for my own good. They would surely pray for my soul. The possession of my soul is what it's all about.
Heresy is about choosing, and a heretic is one who chooses an unacceptable dogma or creed.
My wife and I have accepted the idea that our lives and bodies are our own, and that we should be able to decide for ourselves what to do with them. We claim an inalienable right to prescribe our own medications, our own painkillers, and our own therapies for dealing with the diseases, trials, and stresses of life. In these insane times, this is heresy bordering on treason. Heresy did not end with the conclusion of the religious wars of the seventeenth century. Secular religions with new orthodoxies have arisen, and these new orthodoxies have defined new heresies.