Kicking Butts

Today (or yesterday, depending on how you calculate it) marks six months since I smoked my last cigarette. Thank you, thank you. Six months was my goal. I told myself that if I made it to six months, then I have gone from “I’m trying to quit” to “I’m an ex-smoker.” I smoked for over 30 years, at times two packs a day, but around a pack a day the whole time. This is absolutely the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I’ve seen studies that state it’s harder to stop smoking than kick heroin.

I can believe that, because heroin is a physical addiction. If you can make it through a couple of days, you’ve beaten it. Smoking is a lot harder because in addition to the physical addiction of nicotine, there’s the psychological addiction. Nicotine is hard enough. I tried to quit several times and the lack of nicotine made me crazy. And by crazy, I mean very angry and mean. To the point where my wife went out and bought me a pack of smokes and said, “Here, smoke, I can’t live with you without cigarettes.”

OK, you can kick the physical addiction in a few days, or at most a few weeks. But the routine is harder to beat. There are so many things associated with smoking. Get up in the morning, grab a smoke to get you started. Ahh, a cigarette with my morning coffee. Nice. After meals? You bet. At the bar with a beer? Sure, of course! That last cigarette before bedtime? It ends the day just right. And of course, let’s not forget that basking-in-the-afterglow cigarette after sex.

There are a lot of things you have to give up if you’re going to quit smoking. Just giving up smoking isn’t enough, you have to change your entire life and your entire routine. Caffeine is a trigger, so no more coffee, or at least decaf for awhile (three months for me). Alcohol is definitely a trigger, so the beer is a big no-no. It’s not like going on a diet and saying, “OK, I’m going to stop eating junk food.” That’s easy. You just don’t eat that anymore. But “junk food eater” is not an identity. “Smoker” is part of who you are.

It’s not a “habit.” It’s your life. When you leave the house, you have to make sure that you remember your pack of cigarettes (and a spare if there’s only a few left in your opened pack), your lighter or matches, and something to carry them in. That rules out just walking out the door in a T-shirt and shorts in the summertime. At the very least, you need to have jeans and a shirt with a pocket. I normally had a jacket, even on the hottest days.

You also have to allow for smoke breaks throughout the day. An overseas flight? Twenty hours without a smoke? Forget it, I didn’t want to see Australia anyway. I don’t care if nobody needs to use the bathroom, we’re stopping at the rest area anyway. We’re in a rental car! Three hour line for the new Batman ride? Uh, you kids go ahead, Dad will wait for you in the smoking area.

As I said, I tried to quit several times. I tried all the methods. I tried the patch, the gum, hypnosis, subliminal tapes, and as mentioned above, cold turkey. Chantix was finally the thing that worked for me, but after I had started the regimen I learned that some people were having horrible psychotic side effects. Additionally, my insurance didn’t cover it at all, so I cut myself off after three months instead of continuing the recommended six months. Blue Cross, answer me this. If I kept smoking and got cancer, you’ll pay for my chemotherapy and all the expensive treatments, oxygen tanks, and experimental drugs, right? So why won’t you pay $125 per month for something that will help me quit smoking?

I learned that Illinois was banning smoking everywhere, so that’s when I decided that it was time to at least cut down. I still couldn’t commit to never smoking again. That’s a tough word, never. It’s pretty final, isn’t it? That was probably what stopped me the previous attempts. The taxes weren’t enough, and the bans weren’t enough to put me over the top. What decided it once and for all was when my daughter told me that she was afraid I would die before she grew up. That was it. I called and made an appointment with the doctor the next day. If you know me, you know that me going to a doctor voluntarily is an event in itself.

When I quit, I promised myself that I would never become one of those militant holier-than-thou reformed ex-smokers. And so far I haven’t. I feel that I’m in a pretty unique position to offer some advice to non-smokers. And here it is: lay off the smokers, will ya?

The poor smokers can’t smoke inside now, and they’re treated like pariahs. I’ve told this story before on the message boards, but it’s worth repeating here. Once when I was outside on the sidewalk having my cigarette break, a mother and daughter walked by. The little girl yelled (loudly), “Look Mommy, that man is smoking!” The mother replied, “Yes, he’s a bad man for smoking.” Then she grabbed the child’s hand and pulled her away fast, giving me a dirty look. I couldn’t believe she actually said that. I’m a bad person? Because I smoke? That’s what you’re teaching your children?

Give them a break. They are physically and psychologically addicted to a substance that they know will kill them. But remember that they probably didn’t know that when they started. When I was 12, there weren’t warnings on every pack, and nobody checked for I.D. I bought my cigarettes from a machine down at the gas station for 65 cents. My friends (and everyone else) told me that it was cool to smoke, and if I wanted to be cool I needed to start smoking. They forgot to mention the part about needing to smoke after I got started.

So lighten up. That guy smoking his cigarette, 15 feet away from the door in -20 wind chill, isn’t hurting you. Just because you can smell it doesn’t mean it’s giving you cancer, so get over it. You should be more worried about the soccer mom’s SUV/minivan spewing toxic exhaust. But it’s a lot easier to tell 20% of the population that you don’t want them to smoke than tell 100% of the population that you don’t want them to drive three blocks to the store instead of walking. If you’re serious about “clean air,” Illinois, start with that.