By my best estimate, this will be the 793rd written correspondence regarding cessation that's reached the ears of the internet.
My first go at quitting occurred about 12 days after starting, back in 1999. I was driving home after working an 8pm - 4am shift at Eat n' Park, feeling especially punchy and blasting Radiohead in my 1994 tempo, partly to ensure alertness as I hit the highway but mostly to celebrate the aura of failure and despondence that I've cultivated throughout my late teens/early adulthood. Radiohead, as you can imagine, is ideal background music for such an itinerary. Those were weird times, as I'm sure all of us experienced moments where, in retrospect, we'd want to tell our younger selves something along the lines of grow the hell up even though that's exactly what we were doing anyway.
I was down to the filter on my Camel Red (or "Kamel" Red, since R.J. Reynolds would try anything to encourage coolness in smoking). I smoked it quickly, because January is the opposite of an optimal time to have the windows rolled down when going 70 on the parkway. And the weather contributed to what I did next. Hell, that may have been my only motivation.
I tossed the filter through the open driver's side window, and then grabbed the pack of cigarettes (which must have had 17 or 18 cigarettes in it), and threw that out as well.
Sorry, nature.
Impulse decisions are the underdog when it comes to permanence, and I'm sure my choice to toss $3.00 (those were the days, when packs did not cost as much as a fast food meal) onto a snow-dusted highway was more of a statement about control and reliance than it was a genuine desire to quit. When you're just 12 days into smoking you don't display the usual symptoms...I didn't spend the first 30 minutes of my mornings coughing. I didn't wheeze when exercising. Even my clothes were, for the most part, free of stale smoke.
20 minutes later I was back in my apartment. 30 minutes later I was asleep, or falling asleep to The Matrix on my iMac (usually before the part where they're escaping the agents that have captured Morpheus...there was a scratch on the DVD that would make that scene freeze). I woke up the next day, started a pot of coffee, and then waltzed across the street to Sunoco and picked up three packs of Camel Lights.
The financial impact of smoking is more alarming to me than the health detriments. The coughing and wheezing are part of my normality, along with the knowledge that a flu or heavy cold seems to drag on for weeks. I anticipate waking up and working to clear my lungs of obstructions, usually succeeding at some point in the shower, when the humidity and light pounding on my back loosens everything up. I can speed through two packs a day on the weekend, when I'm home and there are plenty of windows to smoke out of. When I'm at work I manage a cigarette an hour, sometimes more if the day is particularly stressful. I rarely buy cartons of cigarettes, instead opting for daily trips to CVS or a gas station and buying cigarette packs in pairs. At CVS (which is the cheapest place around to buy my band), it's $10.98 after tax to buy two packs. $11 a day, almost every day...between $300 and $330 a month, more if I buy the occasional pack at the convenience store near the office, or a bar.
Besides my mortgage, smoking is my most exorbitant monthly expense. It's unjustifiable, even if I took that $300 and spent it on monthly supplies of really good scotch, or started a Faberge egg collection. Wasting money is wasting money, but I have the impression that there are better ways to waste it, at least. Ways that don't so immediately contribute to my physiological state.
My most recent (and most earnest) attempt at quitting was December, 2011. My wife at the time and I both got on Chantix, and both agreed that we're probably going to be miserable and bitchy and have nightmares, but smoking was already an expense neither of us could afford. I think we lasted 5 days...and most scientific studies on cessation suggest that our urge to pick up a cigarette after that long was 100% psychological, as the period of nicotine withdrawal was on its last legs.
Chantix, by the way, is my enemy. Back in Houston when I talked about quitting with a doctor he prescribed Wellbutrin, which was classified as an anti-depressant but had the side-effect of encouraging smokers to quit. I didn't feel any less depressed (I don't think I was self-reflective enough, at the time, to be depressed), but I also did not find smoking any less desirable. Chantix, however, made me goddamn insane. I could not keep liquids down with any certainty, particularly in the morning. I would have awful night terrors. Sweating was a constant. I'm pretty sure I smelled different, too. More medicinal.
Smoking was something I did in private for years..."private" in the sense that I did not openly share that information with every person in my life. My roommates knew. My girlfriend knew. My coworkers knew better than anyone, as most of my post-work plans involved the New York Times crossword, a cup of coffee, and a late night in the smoking section. Most of my relatives did not know. My parents did not know. They found out maybe six or seven years ago, when I was rushed to the hospital in what I now believe was the first ever case of H1N1. The attending nurse asked if I smoked, and since I genuinely thought I might die, I answered honestly.
That pseudo-privacy turned cessation into a covert operation. If 15 people in my life knew I smoked, then maybe 3 knew when I was trying to quit. It's an entirely backward rationale, fueled by the flawed notion that quitting smoking is a sign of weakness...because it makes me feel weak. That's what made something like agreeing to quit on the "Great American Smokeout" day a terrifying prospect.
I would have thought that the marketing department at the American Cancer Society (if they have one) could have conjured up a more appropriate name for this day. It's prone to misinterpretation, to me. I would have gone with Stop Expediting Your Death Day or Save $5-$10 Day or, more self-deprecating, Stop Being Stupid Day.
It was just another e-mail from the "Wellness" team at my office. The same people that send out offers for discounted massages and lets me know when the next meditation class is being held, or where to pick up my pedometer for the Walktober (now THAT'S a clever name). I read it, and dismissed it in my usual stubborn manner when it comes to people telling me what to do. I'll quit when I'm ready to quit, dammit.
A few minutes later I got a message from Cindy (name changed in the event that coworkers don't appreciate being mentioned on such a permanent platform as a blog). I've known Cindy for years, almost as long as her husband, who worked in the same department as me 11 years ago. She asked if I was doing the smokeout and if she could "adopt me". Adopting a smoker meant generally encouraging their decision to quit, loosely keeping tabs on their whereabouts, motivating and trying like hell to quell urges.
I didn't respond right away. I had no intent on quitting, even for a day.
A few hours later Gabe walked up to my desk and asked me if I'd been adopted yet. I said that I hadn't, and he mentioned that his entire team wanted to sponsor me.
It's a weird mix of gratefulness and embarrassment. The latter because I felt typecast, as if being a smoker was a characteristic that people used to describe me. That wasn't a particularly surprising sensation, particularly at work, where I'm not prone to sharing life stories. People will see what they see and don't usually speculate on the rest. At happy hours, during lunch, after work, I lit a cigarette. That may have not summed up my soul in the way that I angrily presumed it did, but I didn't give them a hell of a lot else to work with.
But the former was something I did not expect. That these people cared. That they were willing to sacrifice time and energy to encourage me to do something difficult.
So now, in my inbox at work, there's a stack of "adoption papers". And on November 21st, from at least midnight to 11:59pm, I will not touch a cigarette. I will probably stuff my face full of gum (nicotine or otherwise). I will probably take advantage of an e-cigarette purchase I made weeks ago. I will probably take hourly laps around the office. I'll probably crumble, at least once. But people have my back. And they'll pick me up and brush the dust off and say I know this is hard...that's why we're here.
It is hard. But maybe, when the day is done and my heartbeat is slower than its been in years and my blood isn't rife with carbon monoxide, I can fall asleep with a few more friends than I started with...because maybe you're not a friend until you've followed me through a fire. It doesn't matter if you come out the other side unscathed or not, but you held my hand, and you walked with me, and that means a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment