Smoking

A response to Karinita who asked me how I'd quit smoking.

I started smoking at age 13. I quit just over 3 years ago, on December 5th 2005 at 9:33 a.m. (I was 47) my oldest daughter and I shared our last cigarette. We both had about a 1.5 pack a day habit. It was a cold snowy night and we had seven smokes left between us. I was buying 3 packs of cigarettes a day. (Jesse was broke). I didn’t want to go to the store. But if I didn’t go then I’d have to go first thing in the morning.

I was a fiend. I could never imagine quitting. I quit once after a surgery but that only lasted a few months – Then I was just mad at myself for smoking all the time. I was pretty much in a constant dialogue about smoking. I had to have before and after cigarettes and during. And when, late at night, I’d had the umpteenth cigarette and was hacking up lung tissue – I’d relish another smoke. It seemed that when I was congested I’d crave a smoke more – depraved.

I finally began to ask myself, “Why is it that you don’t deserve oxygen, Meg?” I separated the smoker in me from the nonsmoker. And I took care of both of them. I know it sounds strange but I had to embrace the smoker in me. If I beat her up I’d just drive her to smoke!

That night I said to Jess, “I don’t think I’m ever going to go to the store and buy cigarettes again.” She understood.

Now here’s the part that worked for me. I prayed my ass off when I went to bed. I prayed down to my toes. I prayed `til I wept. I asked, no commanded, my dead (smoker) relatives to intercede. I said, “Mom, Dad, Bill, I smoke and it is your fault that I smoke. If you want me to quit then you have to take it away from me, because I cannot quit. I will never quit unless you take it away.”

I begged. “I give this smoking to you, Aunt Jane and Uncle Bud!” And I also demanded that I not gain weight, since that had long been my rationale for not quitting. I prayed on my dead mother’s rosary beads. Any God I could think of, I invoked. I prayed with complete passion to be saved from smoking until I could not keep my eyes open any longer and I fell to sleep.

I never smoked again. I don’t remember it being particularly hard. Every other time it was impossible. I did not gain weight. I used cinnamon sticks as pretend smokes. I could suck air through them and they were the right size. Also sugar free cough drops. I announce that I used to smoke quite often and especially to the people who used to bug me about it the most.

“Hey, guess what, I don’t know if you are aware, but I used to smoke.” I tell myself I can have as many smokes as I want just not the first one.

I remind myself how much I love being a nonsmoker all the time. How good it smells. How much easier to be active – how much cleaner the house stays – how all those piss-ant nonsmokers can just shut the hell up. There are lots of perks and savings as you well know. Your hair smells better – and you feel great about yourself.

Karinita, you deserve oxygen – so tell the smoker she can have a cigarette but then she has to let you have some air.