Quitting Smoking

Some time ago, I asked my fiancé to set a date for me to quit smoking. He eagerly said, "Christmas!" but that wasn't about to happen and I told him as much. His next proposition was Pascha (Eastern Orthodox Easter). By then we would have been chrismated into the Church and so it seemed only fitting. I agreed, thankful that I had nearly eight months before I had to worry about quitting.

I've been a smoker since I was fourteen. Imaginably, kicking the habit is a near impossible task. To be honest, before I'd started dating Corey, I had it in my head that I would quit some time before I got married - no one wants to try and start a family on bad health. But what I hadn't anticipated was how difficult wanting to quit would be. If I wanted to quit, I would have quit a long time ago. I wanted to smoke. Smoking was a thing I did almost by principle. For me it is the ultimate rebellion against authority (and by authority I just mean everyone who told me not to smoke). I used to view self esteem as a choice - I shouldn't have it just because people say I should have it . . .what makes me so special? What makes anyone special? I can damage my lungs if I want - how much is my corpse worth among thousands of those living who will all die at some point anyway? (kidding!)

Consumption. Always consumption. I probably gained 15+ pounds when I quit. . .the first time. I remember praying a prayer that went something like this: “God, even if you have to make me sick to give me a reality check, do that. Because I really don’t want to quit smoking.” So, I got really sick. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t have any energy. I couldn’t move without losing oxygen. Mostly, I sat around writing and watching TV (shows I was into at that point: Bones and Doctor Who. Bones=disappointing. Doctor Who=never really disappointing.) Meanwhile, I ate a lot, slept a lot, and got angry more often. Smoking was a good way for me to deal with anger. We all do something when we get emotional: pray, smoke, eat, sleep, write, exercise, read, drink, yell at someone, etc. Of course, some of these are more healthy than others. But the unhealthy things are the easiest to do. When I stopped smoking and was sick and emotional and demanding, I ate. I ate a lot. I was a picky eater as a kid, but as an adult I discovered the joys of food. Sour cream wasn’t a thing for me until recently. Why did I ever think it was gross? It’s probably one of the tastiest things ever. And green peppers. And the chicken bacon ranch pizza green pepper sour cream combination. Working at Dunkin Donuts at the time didn’t help much either. Why wasn’t I introduced to maple icing earlier in my life? And Boston Cream? I love custard. It’s way better than regular pudding. I probably ate 20 Boston Creams in the duration of my employment there. (At the time I was reading Bossy Pants, a memoir by Tina Fey, who recommends that everyone should enjoy being a little overweight for little bit of time in their life. You should read it.)

Despite my new food vice and the wonderful feelings of euphoria and lethargy that came with it, I kept thinking about how delicious a cigarette would be after a good binge. I was also gaining a ridiculous amount of weight that I refused to acknowledge until trying on a bra in the fitting room at Kohls. In the fluorescent light, I realized just how big my belly and thighs had gotten. (I should explain: I was trying on a bra to wear under my WEDDING dress. The bride must always lose weight before the WEDDING, no matter how skinny you are. Am I right?) Somewhere between Christmas and late January, I started smoking again, in hopes that I would actually be able to drop the weight and keep it down. It didn’t work. But I pretended it did. It was easy because from the front, I didn’t look all that bad.

But others brought it to my attention. Some people didn’t even deny that I looked fat when I asked (the true friends). It was a gradual process, this decision to lose weight. . . Quitting smoking. That’s what I’m writing about.
When Pascha started to draw near, I started to understand just how scared I was to actually quit smoking. How could I be expected to quit after I’ve been doing it for so long? It’s like I would become a totally different person. Maybe I would be a yelling, eating machine-monster. Maybe smoking was what calmed my personality down enough to make me loveable. The sad truth is, no matter what I believed about self esteem or how condescending it seemed when people told me have it, there was a good deal of self hatred in me, and it was increasingly uncomfortable.

It was not that I thought smoking and eating – the things I was putting into my body - was filling a void. It was numbing my awareness of the void. People can suffer any amount of things as long as they don’t have to think about how they’re suffering.
I persuaded Corey to let me switch to the e cigarette on Pascha. That way, I’d still have something. I’m currently using the e cigarette. The product leaves me satisfied. I have the highest dose of nicotine, so it’s the closest to smoking I could possibly get. Granted, it doesn’t feel anything like smoking. It feels like small, portable hookah that wakes you up in the morning. Sometimes, because I don’t have to go outside to inhale it, I forget about smoking altogether. (But that’s only sometimes).

I’d like to imagine that in the next couple of years I won’t be smoking at all, that I will have slowly lowered my milligrams of nicotine until there are none left for me to crave.
Once, I asked someone why we are supposed to love ourselves, what makes people worth loving. His reply was “because they breathe.” Ambiguous as it was, the answer satisfied me. And I came to the conclusion that it is hard to get through this life when you loathe yourself.

Having self esteem is not easy. You have to reprogram your brain, work diligently at developing new patterns of thinking. Things are almost more sober as you face the things you’ve avoided while self medicating. It requires taking yourself seriously, not making yourself one big joke.

Still, I find myself stepping outside with my e cigarette and pretending to flick my ashes off the balcony. It’s a ritual associated with cancer, bad teeth, breathing problems; but it’s a ritual that is dear to me. In simpler times people thought it was trendy and calming. I associate it with the relief one feels at the end of the day when getting into bed, and the hope that the new tomorrow will be different.

Here’s to the progress of healthier living. Here’s to the progress of quitting smoking.