My last cigarette was smoked on August 30, 2005. Suzie and I were joined in wedlock on that date two years prior. As our nuptials approached and for a goodly period before that, my daughters and her daughters often hammered us about needing to leave tobacco behind. To shut them up, I said that we would quit two years after our wedding. I’ll be damned if they didn’t remember my promise.
Suzie’s crutch was a pill called Wellbutrin. I had read that heavier smokers had better success with Nicorette gum, so that was what I used. In my heart of hearts, I did not think I would be able to pull it off. Despite that, I started weeks ahead of time psyching myself up for the huge challenge. I began with a 100-count box of gum at the 4 mg nicotine strength. Then I did two boxes at the 2 mg strength. When I finally switched to regular rather than nicotine gum, it was early February and only a few 2 mg pieces remained.
I found that my level of addiction to nicotine was lower than I thought. The gum label said you could use up to eight pieces a day, but I never used more than four. The oral fixation was apparently a big deal for me. One piece of the gum might last me four or five hours, way beyond the 15 minutes it takes for the nicotine to be used up and long after the not-too-good-anyway flavor was gone.
Though I read a lot of material about quitting before leaping off the cliff, I never saw anything about what turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle for me. Though cigarettes are stimulants due to their nicotine content, most smokers will tell you that they get a sense of relaxation from them. I was doing okay early on, but something was missing. About a week after my last cigarette, I discovered that the relaxation did not come from the nicotine. No. It came from the deep breaths taken with the first drag or two on a cigarette. From that point forward, I was pretty much home free. Every time I felt like I needed that relaxing feeling, I’d suck in and exhale a breath or two of air in much the same way I might take a couple of long drags. It worked for me.
I’m glad I quit and wish I had done it sooner. Whatever long-term health consequences there will be, I don’t know. It is my hope that the stories you hear about how pink your lungs get a while down the road are true. I breathe better now. I’m not always hacking and coughing anymore. Being a non-smoker is a good thing.
All that said, I have a few smoking stories that might provide a chuckle:
Some comedian was on the Tonight Show back in the Carson days. As Dean Martin used to do, this guy was holding a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other. All during his stand-up routine, this fellow waived and poked the cigarette hand around to add emphasis or color to his stories and jokes. Near the end, he let the cigarette catch his eye then looked sheepishly beyond it at the audience. He said, “Yeah, I know I should quit, but I’ve made a commitment here. I’m in it for the duration. Besides, the way I figure, maybe two or three months from now there’ll be, what, three or four of us treading water out at the three-mile limit.
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One day about 13 or 14 years ago, a co-worker passed by some smoker buddies and me in the parking lot of the building in which we worked. It was a below-freezing day, and he said, “I don’t know how you guys can stand being out here in the cold to smoke.”
I said, “Well, what you don’t understand is that when the nuclear winter does come, I will be used to the severe temperatures and you will not. I will live, and you will die. The bonus is that the radiation will cure my cancer.”
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People smoke with their booze and with their coffee. They smoke after meals and after sex. There are some folks, though, who smoke during sex, some because they're good at it and others because they're bored.
Now that the smoke is gone, I can see myself better in the mirror.
