Where Is My Mind?

I tried to break my streak today, and I tried using the smoker's code to do so. I feel pretty dirty about it as I hate violating smokers code. Let me explain.

As I've stated before, I'm on site for my job doing an all-week training session. This particular session is pretty high pressure in nature to begin with; ten hour sessions each day filled with executive speakers and specialty positions giving us Powerpoints on different products and aspects of the business in order to "enable us." With these presentations come quizzes and tests that contribute to a final grade, and that final grade is used during the yearly review to determine if you get raises/are fired. I finished towards the bottom third of my training class in the previous two trips out here, so I had additional pressure to get my shit together this week.

The reason why I picked this week to stop smoking, of all weeks, still eludes me.

Today was our last day of graded material. We had our last quiz, last presentations, and final test. I kicked its ass. I haven't done that well on a final since, well, ever. I did this by locking myself in my hotel room to study all week, and it paid off. I haven't been social, I haven't even eaten meals with people. I didn't want to get caught up in the social gatherings, and put myself near smokers.

Well, I felt pretty awesome about the whole ordeal, and I wanted to celebrate. My excuse-machine called "my brain" got right to work. "Just one, to celebrate! You've gone 4 days without a smoke, and you just accomplished a major goal with a lot of work. One celebratory cigarette wouldn't hurt. Just go ask the guys! They'll give you one for SURE."

The guys are Jay and Martin. They're the guys in my class who smoke. We had formed our little smoke community, which comes with certain responsibilities. We all know a bit too much about each others' personal lives at this point, and definitely are closer than we are to most of the rest of the group (or at least I am with them.) It comes with the territory of 3-4 breaks of 10 minutes a piece every day for half a year.

I mentioned responsibilities. The smoker's code. I'll probably devote an

entire post to smoker's code at some point, but one will suffice today. This particular item dictates that if a man is a smoker, you must give him one if he's out. Now, there are exceptions of course:

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1.) If you only have one left in your pack, even if you're smoking one at the time, you have the right to reserve the lastie without judgement.

2.) If you don't know the guy in question, AND he doesn't have his own lighter, he's probably not a regular smoker and you can withhold the smoke.

3.) If it becomes a habit, use your own discretion as to when to cut him off.

I did not fit into any of these categories (I even had my own lighter because I feel naked without it) So I asked Jay if we could go out to celebrate. He knew I was trying to quit, and said "no."

"What?"

"I'm not going out, and neither are you."

"... *harumph*"

"wait, are you pissed?"

"no, Jay, you're right. I'll just take a walk."

And with that, I was gone. I walked around outside pantomiming a cigarette in my hand , hoping it'd make me forget there wasn't anything there. It didn't. I have to thank Jay for saving me from myself, I know it's for the best. I just feel badly now, trying to use Jay. I have no intention of ever buying a pack again, and I knew that at the time when I asked to bum that smoke. I asked anyways, flying in the face of all I hold true.

I am a firm believer in Item #2, if a dude isn't a smoker for real he should ball up and buy a damn pack. He is entitled to a borrowed cigarette if he will have them later to pass it on should the opportunity present itself. A "pay it forward" type of situation. I, however, was looking for Jay to subsidize my weakness. If I'm going to break, I should man up and buy a pack.

Not tonight, though. Off to celebrate like normal people: with lots of booze.

SO MUCH RAGE I WOULD LIKE TO SMOKE BUT I CANNOT.

Two Summers Past

I was smoking quite a bit during this summer, and putting on a sketch comedy review with some friends. Now that I'm thinking about it, we entitled the group/show "Everybody Smokes" because the whole group did, and it was a topic of conversation during a break. We had been tossing around a ton of ideas, but after someone had said it we knew right away that that's what we wanted to be called. It defined us, and it defined that summer.

I was working on that show during this particular memory, working on it at my friend's house (that I was practically an inhabitant of) with that friend. We were looking over a sketch he had written about Moses' conversation with God regarding the Ten Commandments. We were also discussing the many pros and sparse cons of going to the corner store to pick up 40s (40 oz bottles of malt liquor, Mickeys to be exact).

But these were fairly commonplace occurances, as the whole thing was. I guess I remember it for the way it felt. For a moment, I had stepped outside myself. I was gazing at my surroundings (while still telling Alex, my friend, that his sketch got too wordy towards the end and I didn't care if that was the point), and I was appreciating the moment I was in. The moment felt timeless.

So I lit a cigarette.

It was one of those perfect cigarettes. The inhale has just the right amount of burn to it. The weather was warm and a little humid, but only enough to remind you of the season. The air was embracing and almost encouraging me to keep doing what I was doing. The surroundings were familiar, but for a moment were more beautiful than normal. Alex lights one too, and we keep talking about the sketch, but we both know neither of our hearts are in it anymore. Eventually we both shut up and Alex puts on some music.

We both have a couple more cigarettes, largely in silence (save the music).

"You having another one?"
"Yep."
"Me too."

The whole "moment" couldn't have been longer than 20 minutes, but it was one of the more relaxing 20 minutes of my life. In a world with too many things to do, too many pressures and too many chances to screw up, the opportunity to have nothing on your plate except a number of cigarette butts and empty beer bottles was one of those small victories that can make you feel like maybe everything will be alright. You can watch the smoke hang in the air curling itself into oblivion and have an actual moment to yourself.

I'd be curious to know if Alex had felt that way too, if the moment was supernatural or an invention of my own overactive imagination. Either way, it was a smoking memory to treasure, and one of those "types of cigarettes" that I will truly miss.

Getting ahead of myself.

I'd like to be explicitly clear: I am fed up with smoking. Future posts may suggest the contrary, but I have felt fed up and ready to quit for the better part of a year and a half. I have spent this past year smoking 5-10 cigarettes a day, which equates to at most an hour a day, staring down at the smoking stick of leaves in my fingers and hating myself. Drowning in self loathing because I couldn't find the willpower in myself, couldn't be bothered to not do something. I would go to great lengths to keep myself stocked, and when I ran out I stopped at nothing until I had one in my mouth.

There are a bunch of reasons to stop, and I've repeated each one to myself so many times they're almost second nature to recite: My breath smells. My teeth are getting yellow. Girls hate it. People hate it. You have to go outside in the winter. Non-smokers respect you less. It isn't professional. It's expensive. It's inconvenient. It's rude to excuse yourself from a group of friends, and even ruder when all those friends but one also smoke. You can't smell, reduced taste, and you're stuck with a constant 5 year cough,

Oh, and get this! One of my friends was reading the internet, and that friend told me the other day that cigarettes cause cancer! Good thing she reminded me, otherwise I would never have known.

The biggest downside I've been focusing on lately, however, isn't necessarily a constant side effect. As I've smoked for 5 years, I have built up an immunity to feeling like shit from smoking a cigarette. However, every once in a while, I get swept over by a wave of soul shaking badness. It's really a hard feeling to describe; it's almost as if your insides want to become your outsides, but they're trapped by that damn skin, and you're nauseous. More often than not I'm hung over when this happens, but sometimes I am just not at peace with the smoke and it's a truly awful feeling.

And that's really what motivated me this time more than anything else. On Saturday, after a night of NO DRINKING, I smoked 2 cigarettes within an hour of each other. The first one made me feel like shit. Then, of course, I did it again, and I felt like shit again. I couldn't stop myself, and I knew it. It was then, standing on my back porch playing my ukulele, that I first played around with the idea of quitting and blogging about it. I was out with my roommate but decided not to mention it; too many times I confess my hair-brained schemes in just such a situation only to have them go nowhere.

There was nothing profound about it, I simply looked at my pack like I normally do on my first of the day, to check if I need to go to the nearest gas station. I saw that I was pretty low and thought "you know, I should be hitting my last one when I get to O'Hare." From there, the idea took root. And now we're here: with me rambling to try and forget my cravings and watching Sarah Marshall. Tomorrow is another day.

Yes, I am avoiding you.

I am on a half hour break at work. My second today. Normally, I'd be pumped. I could actually go to the bathroom, grab a snack and some water, AND have a leisurely cigarette. I wouldn't have to suck it down like normal, and then I'd have a bit of a cough for the next 20 minutes.

Now, on day 1, I am avoiding anything that could set me off. I'm cutting my awkward conversations shorter than normal. Not allowing myself to look outside, or else I'd longingly gaze at a world I am denying mysef access to. No physical symptom is making me want a cigarette, I am not experiencing any sort of pain, however I feel incomplete.

My pack isn't in my pocket, and I am painfully aware of it. I keep searching around my pockets as if I'll find some lost cig that I'd easily excuse myself to smoke. "It's just a fluke, and I paid money for it. Be a shame not to smoke it. Just this once."

But you haven't quit till you quit, says Eric Shine, and I haven't even begun.

Re-intention

I still remember it through the haze: It was cold, I was drunk, and life was fairly simple. I was in my... sophomore year of college? It was some version of winter I wasn't a fan of and I had separated from my friends for a moment to stare down at my first cigarette. I was in the middle of two sidewalks meeting at an X in the middle of some quad, and I was having trouble standing up. "Holy shit, these actually give you a buzz. That's why people smoke them." Granted, I probably didn't put that sentence together quite so successfully at the time, but hindsight makes me a smooth motherfucker. The friend who gave me the smoke, Peter, came on over and asked me what's the matter?

"This is my first cigarette DUDE." I replied.

"Really? Paulie!!!! You want another one?" I think he said.

I replied with "Hell yea I do." or something to that effect, and I had my second cigarette right there with the man who proverbially broken my cigarette cherry not 5-7 minutes before. I don't remember the exact conversation because, well, it was 5 years ago and I was pretty damn drunk. However, I do remember looking down at that cigarette and staring intently at it, with almost a morbid curiosity; and I do remember that my good friend Peter was the one to give me that fated Camel Turkish Gold.

That was 5 years ago now, and I have been a smoker ever since. I now smoke roughly a half pack a day, and that's an accomplishment down from a pack a day. I'm 24 and starting to feel the consequences of my choices: constant coughing and wheezing, a checkbook that always seems lower than it should be, my wardrobe and car smell to high heaven, and my hands are permanently frostbitten. You'll notice that nowhere did I list any side effects like "being ridiculously cool," and that is by design. Cigarettes, I have learned, are really far from it. But I digress.

My goal is to quit. My goal is to quit smoking, and to blog about it. You see, like most smokers I have tried to quit any number of times. I was "successful" a couple times, spanning a month and an impressive 4, but I always came back for more, inevitably smoking more often than before. I realize they are bad for you. I REALIZE THEY ARE BAD FOR YOU. All smokers do; we're not dumb, and we don't need you to remind us. Let your friend smoke in peace.

*ahem*

Both of my previous attempts were squandered when I let stress get the better of me and made the mistake of "buying a pack for the one smoke and giving the rest away to my friends." Only I didn't give the rest to my friends. My brain came up with a litany of excuses to explain away the next fix, and sooner or later I was back at it. Since then I've tried any number of mental acrobatics and smoking plans to try and quit, and 95% of the time I can't get past hour 4. With all my closest friends being smokers, my girlfriend being a smoker, and my car trying to be (that was a bad car joke, friends) there were simply too many temptations and helping hands to stay strong.

That is why I have chosen to quit now. I am in Potomac, MD for a work convention for a week. There are only 2 smokers here and they hate bumming to people. I smoked my last cigarette outside of O'Hare Terminal 1, and it was a Camel Filtered. (at least they weren't Camel Lights, amiright?!) Packs here are 10 bucks a pop, and all they have are Camel Lights, and the entire Marlboro suite. In other words, temptation will be at a minimum.

As to why I've chosen to blog about it? Well, the idea is it'll be part therapeutic, part data collection, and part anecdotal. All with the goal of exploring the smoking culture as a whole, both as a personal issue and a social one, as a means of not only venting some of that nicotine rage but also as a means to keep myself honest. I think addiction is an interesting topic, one that I enjoy tossing around in my head.

It will not be easy, and I will not like it. There are parts of smoking I still very much enjoy to this day, despite how shitty it makes me feel on a near constant basis (in addition to the other amount of awful side effects of being a constant smoker). All good things do come with a price, however, and my lungs are now writing a check that my body can't cash anymore.

A good friend of mine told me once "you haven't quit till you've quit." and I am going to do exactly that. I aim to stop smoking cigarettes entirely, as of right now (or around 8pm CST yesterday), and I promise to be transparent with how many I smoke. While I've obviously quitting before, it's been a long time since I've had this much drive. So I'm calling this a re-intention, another attempt at realigning my priorities and making this number 1: not thinking about which Black-Ops perk-set is the best. I am Re-intent on quitting, and NOTHING WILL STAND IN MY WAY.