Ugh, I feel gross even just writing that title....I'm sure I wasn't always as sneaky as I thought I was, but if this is new and shocking to you, sorry in advance. I was never a pack a day smoker, but I definitely have had a pack somewhere on me - in my purse, in my car, in the secret spot in my garage - more often than not in the last decade and a half. This blog is to dig in to the why to evaluate and help others stop themselves, or their kids, from starting.
I was pretty careful to never be photographed w a cigarette, so here's me w a straw circa 2017 because I'm STILL worried about those tiny lip wrinkles I'll probably get anyway from my Diet Coke addiction...
--
My first cigarette was in an anonymous Bloomington basement. I was hanging out w my Junior Boyfriend (v cool to me, a Freshman), and there were lite beers, bongs, and smokes going around this....get together? They said party, but it wasn't like the parties on teen movies. Just a bunch of loser buddies hanging out and getting high in the basement of someone whose parents were "cool." I was slowly sipping a beer to fit in, but declined the bong when it came around. In my quick-thinking lie, I said "no weed, I just smoke regulars." Is that a thing? Does anyone call them "regulars" or know what I'm talking about?? So my buddy, Brady, calls my bluff and says in that case, we should light up. Sure, I replied super casually, like I definitely do this all the time. I sat there w a smoke in my mouth, waiting for it to catch fire while he held the lighter and he whispers over "You have to suck in, dummy." And that was my first ever drag of a cigarette.
I kept smoking through high school for the cool apathetic factor. After the dramatic break up w the junior (and subsequent reunions and equally devastating breakups), it was part of my edgy emo identity. My other emo friends smoked and we took turns blaming each other when parents asked why we smelled so bad after hanging out. I snuck them to my basement room and smoked out the egress window. I stole them from coworkers who carelessly left them in jacket pockets in the back room (they wouldn't miss just one or two, right?). I paid double for them when an 18+ friend (usually a coworker) agreed to grab a few packs for me. All of that until my 18th birthday, when my only other two 18 year old friends and I did the "because we can" party and hit the strip club, the casino, and bought my very own pack for the first time.
The first time I quit was for basic training. I had been smoking for 3 years by then, but less so as I had also increased my yoga and running in preparation for training. I had no issue quitting for 9 weeks of basic and into AIT, but easily picked it up again on a first weekend off. Between weekends, I started chewing, partially for the nicotine, but mostly for the Army factor and just to say I did. They never checked female gums for chew residue, only the guys got busted for that one.
Home from training, I dropped the chew habit, and picked up uptown hipster smoking - mostly in coffeeshops and streetcorners w friends. I lamented the impending Clean Indoor Air Act that would eventually ban indoor smoking for my friends and I. That would become irrelevant as I got pregnant before it was enforced, and once again, I quit for the large majority of my back to back pregnancies and tiny babies.
Quitting smoking while married to a smoker is not easy. When Sterling came home from his second deployment, we did it to unwind after a long day with toddlers, we did it on date nights because smoking always felt needed after a couple drinks, and even if one of us tried to quit, the other usually had an emergency pack somewhere we could fall back on.
Smoking is also where I've met some of my best friends. Smoke breaks at the VA were w some of my favorite people and crowding into the mini-shelters in cold or rain forces friendships real fast. Smoking with other moms who would sneak out of book club or mom's night would make us share a secret that made us feel a little closer and edgier than the rest of them. Bumming lighters from strangers made for fast friends and interesting conversations at bars. Other than the poisons and toxins you're breathing in, the ACT of smoking - taking a break from what you're doing, getting outside, taking deep breaths, being social with a cross section of your primary group - was all great. So I justified it that way for most of my adult life.
I've quit and started multiple times in there, too. After a heavy night out, on milestone birthdays, and as I watched my friends' parents and loved ones die of the ravaging illness that lung cancer brings. It wasn't until my post-election depression, where I committed to stop w the coping methods and just feel all the pain, that I really quit smoking. I've slipped up and had 5 total - sometimes just for the camaraderie or the break - in the last year. But I have not bought a pack and I have no intention of starting back since November 2018. This time, it should stick.
--
So, what started as being cool at a party w a bunch of losers became taking away probably half a decade off the end of my life when I'll have grandbabies and retirement and free time. Dumb. So how could I have avoided this whole thing? Here's kind of a shocking answer - I don't think I could have.
I could feel in my bones when I was a little kid that I needed to know what smoking was like. I was curious about it for years before I did it. I pretended my McDonald's straw was a classy long holder like Cruella deVille had, I breathed in candle smoke to try to catch the same relaxation adults clearly showed it had, I was a total dork about it. Neither of my parents smoked, and I don't have that same curiosity for meth or crack or plenty of other addictions, but I feel like somehow, I was just born a smoker. When I talk to smokers - current and former - many say the same. Even now, and I predict, even in 10, 15, 20 years smoke-free, I'll have it in my bones. I will ALWAYS want one when I drink. I still think it kind of looks cool and goes with a impassive identity I wish I could master. I will still be a little jealous and wonder if I'm missing out on a new BFF by not going outside when they do. I think it's in me, but I think I need to manage it.
So what can I tell my kids, because I see the same bones in my sons that I saw in me? I can tell them that none of that is worth the radiation therapy and the stoma that my cousin has to live with, or the 48 hours of gasping breaths I had to watch my Great Aunt pain through in her final days, or the years of devastation I saw it put on my friend when she lost her mom too soon. I can look for the signs and call them on their BS when they try to cover it, I wish someone had even once caught me and yelled at me and scared the coolness out of me. Research says if I can get them to hold off until adulthood, we have better odds that they won't be hooked. Ideally, I'd love for them to try it, check the block off that need to know, hate it, and avoid it. But that's what I wish happened to me, and here I am writing about 17 years of the other side instead. So all I can do is be honest about my own experience and hope that convinces them to skip it all together.
I'm finally willing to always be a smoker without a smoke and learn to live contentedly in this role, and I hope I can inspire other friends, and my next generation, to join me.
Comments
Post a Comment