The One With Aldacron

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 14. By the time I was 16, I was smoking a pack a day. Over the years, I made several attempts to quit smoking and failed miserably. The first, and actually most successful of the failures, was when I shipped off to Army basic training.

I remember standing outside an airport in South Carolina, waiting for a shuttle bus to pick me up and carry me to Fort Jackson. I had a new pack of Newports (long story) in my pocket and was smoking one after another. When the shuttle bus appeared, I crushed the pack and tossed it in the trash. During the eight weeks of basic, I didn’t miss smoking at all (though one guy managed to get a carton, of which brand I don’t remember, smuggled in and was nice enough to give me one cigarette for free).

On graduation day my father and sister drove up from Atlanta to watch the ceremony. That night, we stayed in a motel in Columbia. On my way out of the hotel to explore the area, I saw a cigarette machine in the hallway. I had absolutely no urge, no compulsion, and no desire to smoke a cigarette. I was, for all intents and purposes, a nonsmoker at that point. I still don’t know why I put money into that machine and pulled out a pack of Newports. Had I just walked on down the hall, I may very well have never smoked again. Unfortunately, during my later efforts to quit I was plagued by urges, compulsions, and desires to smoke.

I really bought into the propaganda that giving up cigarettes was difficult. I often blamed my failed attempts on alcohol, since I was a fairly heavy drinker and smoked quite heavily while drinking. Once I quit for three weeks and was quite proud of my display of will power, until I got stumbling drunk at a birthday party and someone handed me a smoke. The next day, my will power was a memory. It was easy to blame the alcohol. I often wondered why it had been so easy in basic training. Was it because I was forced to do it? Was it because I had only been smoking regularly for a short time and hadn’t yet become addicted? Was it because I was so busy that I just didn’t think about it?

Just over two years ago (when I had long since switched back to Marlboro Lights), I threw away a nearly full pack of cigarettes and never looked back. No urges, no compulsions, no desires. I didn’t use nicotine gum or patches. There was no gradual decline in the number of cigarettes I smoked each day (a tactic I had tried before). It was cold-turkey. The only regret I have is that I didn’t do it sooner.

I had often been amazed by the ability of some people to quit smoking cold-turkey. I thought they must have some sort of iron will. When I asked how they were able to do it, some told me the first two or three weeks were difficult, but after that it was better. Those people usually answered my next question, “Do you ever want a cigarette these days,” with statements like, “every day”, or, “all the time.” A few people told me it was easy to quit and that they had no desire to ever smoke again. I am now one of the latter. Now, I understand why it had been so difficult before, why so many people fail, and I know what the difference is between the two types of former smokers. It all boils down to one simple thing: you have to want to quit.

Looking back, I can see that all of my failed attempts at smoking were initiated because people close to me urged me to quit. The warning label on the box reminded me every day that smoking is a killer. My experience working in a hospital had shown me first-hand the effects of cancer. I knew I should quit, but deep down inside I just didn’t want to. I enjoyed smoking. Having a cigarette in one hand and a cold beer in the other was fun. Smoking helped me pass the time when I was bored and seemed to help me calm down when I was stressed or angry. A cigarette after a good meal was extremely satisfying. I had many reasons to keep on with the nasty habit.

Trying to quit smoking is like trying to jump off of a cliff – if you don’t really want to die you aren’t going to jump. Maybe it’s a nicotine addiction that makes it so difficult, but I really don’t think so. If that were the case, I most likely would have gone through severe withdrawals of a scale alchololics and drug addicts go through. I have yet to see a recently-quit smoker suffer from DTs or other symptoms of addiction withdrawal. No, I firmly believe now that it’s all a matter of mental state. If you want to do it, you will. If you don’t, you still might succeed but it’s going to be difficult.

My motivation for quitting was my health. I was unable to walk up a single flight of stairs without gasping for air. I was having difficulty breathing at night. I often had headaches and pains in my chest. I couldn’t run more than a few yards without being winded. Seventeen years of smoking had taken a physical toll on me and I knew it wasn’t going to get any better. Everything that had once seemed enjoyable about smoking suddenly seemed absurd. I kicked myself and called myself names for having let it go on for so long. I had a complete paradigm shift — smoking wasn’t fun, it was insane. Now, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me feel queasy, especially stale cigarette smoke. Once I mentally accepted that cigarettes are the enemy, my body adjusted to treat them so.

If you are a smoker and you are contemplating quitting, my advice to you is this: don’t quit. That may sound like strange advice considering everything I typed above, but there is sound reasoning behind it. If you are contemplating quitting, then you really aren’t ready to quit. Any attempt you make is going to have a high chance of failure. You’ll likely find yourself wasting money on nicotine gum or patches, or other products that are marketed to help you quit. Even if you do succeed, the chances are high that you will be in that first group of successful quitters I described — the ones who had a difficult time quitting and who continue to crave a cigarette. For those people, being a nonsmoker is a lifelong struggle. Some of them will even lose the fight, picking up the habit again even after years of having dropped it.

If you are going to quit, you want to be in the other group — the ones who don’t have to fight with themselves and who never crave a smoke again. That means you have to come to the realization that you truly don’t want to smoke anymore. You aren’t just going to think to yourself, “I don’t want to smoke anymore”, and make it true. It has to be a paradigm shift. How you get there is entirely up to you. Some people may need to convince themselves everyday until it happens, while others may get there in a brief moment of reflection. However it comes, you’ll know it when it happens. When it does, you will be able to easily walk away from cigarettes and never look back.

Now, if only I can manage to apply the same principle to chocolate and ice cream.