Correction: The columnist should have mentioned that although VIP Tanning was the only place where she purchased a membership, she tanned in other locations as well, including outside.

I've never had as much as one puff of a cigarette.

I'm really proud of that.

For me, it was simple. Don't start. Cigarettes are addicting. I already have one addiction — nail-biting. If you think you bite your nails, come and compare them with mine. I guarantee you, it will be no contest. I will beat you "hands down." Pun intended.

I grew up in a time when there weren't a lot of secrets about the dangers of smoking.

It's not as if we were kept in the dark about the health risks involved with lighting up. Although I don't discredit those Truth campaign advertisements, which claim conspiracies and hidden messages from tobacco companies, I've always grown up with this simple message: Smoking is bad.

I heard it in school and from my parents. Plus, the smell of smoke is terrible.

Until we hit college. Then smoking became more than a smelly habit that causes lung cancer and a potential addiction. It became something social.

It also became something to do while drinking.

Despite the fact that I'm quite social and really do go out every weekend, I still don't use excuses and don't light up any cigarettes.

But until recently, I did partake in something similar to smoking. It's dangerous, addicting, has short-term benefits and long-term repercussions. It even is linked to the onset of cancer and becomes fatal in extreme circumstances.

I was a tanner. I was a novelty heart-sticker wearing, coconut-smelling, orange-hued addict.

It's embarrassing to think about how much money I dropped at VIP Tanning in East Lansing this summer. I spent it on fancy, tingling color enhancers, after-tan moisturizers and extensive tanning packages.

My parents told me I was nuts. When I went home this summer, they said I looked unnatural and fake, which made me think they were the crazy ones.

I thought I was at my personal best, aesthetically. My body was glowing, toned and tanned. My skin color wasn't exactly a natural look for me, seeing as I'm 75 percent Irish and naturally about as white as a sheet of paper, but whoever thought I looked anything less than stunning must have been out of their mind.

I didn't think I was too tan. I got out of the tanning bed every day and fantasized about how much better I could look tomorrow. It was as if I had body dysmorphic disorder, and I wasn't able to objectively look at my body anymore.

I tanned every day for two months. On my busy days, I would set an alarm so I could wake up early just to fit tanning into my schedule. I was addicted.

At the gym, I was surrounded by people with tanned, toned bodies. No matter how dark I was, I could never keep up with the gym crowd. Trying to be like them was both my biggest motivation and my biggest downfall.

At my job, I wanted to keep up with the other girls who always came in with perfectly curled hair and the latest fashions.

Being so dark made me feel pretty, confident and ironically enough, it made me feel healthy.

But I was far from healthy. I was destroying my skin, and I just couldn't stop tanning.

It's only in hindsight that I can see how disgustingly orange I really was. Sad to say, my parents were right all along. My orange and weathered skin was unnatural and made me look about as colorful as an Oompa Loompa.

The only reason that I started tanning was because my friends had. It became something social, like smoking, something to do to relax after a long day of classes.

That's why smoking and tanning are so similar — on paper they sound bad, but it just feels so good at the time.

Whenever I stopped to think about the future of my skin, I would worry for a brief couple of moments, then push the scary thoughts to the back of my brain.

I was only 19 and the future seemed far away. I would joke to my friends, "I mean, you're going to die anyway, right? Why not just look good doing it?"

Finally, tanning just got too expensive. I reluctantly decided to throw in the towel.

When my color faded, I felt uglier.

It's sad my confidence was based on the color of my skin.

I got a scary jolt into reality when I woke up one morning with a mysterious mark, which resembles a mole, on my face.

At first, I ignored it and figured it was a pimple that would leave on its own. But when it lingered on my cheek for weeks and even turned a shade of black, I knew I needed to get it examined.

It didn't end up being cancerous, but I do need to frequently get it examined. I'm confident with myself no matter how tan I am, and I think my friends are ridiculous for continuing to tan.

There are better things to spend money on than tanning, and as a college student, I am far from being rich. I realized that the reasons why I even started tanning were social, and it had turned into an unhealthy addiction like smoking.

I thought I was so powerful for resisting cigarettes, yet I was participating in something equally as dangerous.

Staff writer Michelle Ortlieb can be reached at ortliebm@msu.edu.