GUS (Gave Up Smoking) is a community support diary for Kossacks in the midst of quitting smoking. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are quitting or thinking of quitting, please -- join us!
You can also click the GUS tag to view all diary posts, or access the GUS library at dKosopedia for a great list of stop-smoking links. Check it out!
I don’t remember my first puff. I don’t even remember my first whole cigarette. The cigarette I talk about as my first was the first cigarette I needed.
It was the first week of January, 1994. My uncle killed himself the day after Christmas, my grandmother found his body on New Year’s Eve, and the day in question was the day of his funeral. I was sixteen and in my junior year at boarding school. The entirety of the ordeal had, thus far, taken place on my winter break, and I was two days away from heading back to campus as if everything was fine. All day long I had been with my family, talking, listening, supporting, doing what needed to be done—my mother was a mess; my grandmother was nearly catatonic. That morning, before my mother woke up, I had taken three or four cigarettes out of her pack and secreted them away in my underwear drawer. I held on all that long day and evening, and when she and my brother were asleep, I sat in my bedroom closet and smoked all of those cigarettes, and cried.
Those cigarettes gave me time for myself. They gave me time to take care of myself emotionally. They were a refuge. They were my friends.
I could hardly walk away after that.
I smoked happily and faithfully until New Year’s Day of 2000, despite several bouts of pleurisy and pneumonia, despite the increasing cost, despite the fact that I knew the cigarettes were the worst kind of friend to have. The guy I’d later marry had been on my behind to quit for some time, and I had said that I would stop after the New Year. For me, that meant "March, maybe." For him, that meant "when the ball dropped." After a knock-down, drag out verbal boxing match that involved me pitching my cigarettes out the window of a moving vehicle in a rage, he bought me a box of patches and I—sadly, reluctantly—put them on and stopped smoking.
I was as evil as I could possibly be for about sixteen weeks, but I loved my future husband and his daughters more than I loved to smoke. It wasn’t even close. But it took a lot of effort for me not to hate him for taking my cigarettes away. Cigarettes represented my time-out from the world. They represented the space I put between my soul and the madding crowd, if you will. "Let me smoke a cigarette, and then I will make your lunch." "Let me smoke a cigarette, and then I will scrub the toilet." It was the thing I did for myself, the way I took care of me. Sometimes it felt like all I had. But I wanted to hang on to my family, to get married and to have children of my own—so I quit.
Remarkably, I stayed quit for seven years.
In late 2006 and early 2007, as my marriage fell apart, I started bumming the occasional cigarette from a woman I worked with. Then I bought a pack of my own and kept it in the glove box of my car. But it was when I got the keys to my apartment and a friend came down to spend the weekend cleaning and unpacking with me that I first stood outside, in the open, and smoked. After seven years, I was a smoker again—because I could be, and because I needed that friend again. That space between me and the rest of the world, that time for myself—I felt like it saved my life more than once during those first days of my separation, when I was trying to figure out how to be a single working mom and a full-time student and worrying that I would spend the rest of my life alone and rushed and miserable. When I was smoking, I wasn’t alone and rushed. And, as they say, two out of three ain’t bad.
I’ve known for over a year ago that the cigarettes had to go. In September of 2008, it turned out that the joint pain, excessive fatigue and frequent illness I’d been suffering from for two years wasn’t all in my head, after all. I was diagnosed with systemic lupus and put on a regimen of medication to try to stave off some of the damage the illness had done to my lungs and my kidneys. I read up on lupus; it turns out that lupus has an 80% five-year survival rate, but one of the four or five suggestions as to how to stay healthy on any lupus-related website is "Do not smoke." I’ve had pneumonia three times in the last year and a half, because of the lupus, and I have multi-system involvement. None of that is good news.
My boys are four and six years old. It was pretty obvious that I had to quit.
A few things have happened over the last few months—for one, the financial situation in our house got out of control, and I couldn’t justify the cost of cigarettes anymore. Also, my weight ballooned over the course of the last year from the steroids I needed to treat my lupus, and I can’t work out at all unless my breathing improves. And then a friend of mine posted a couple of hard-hitting blogs about his father’s battle with smoking-related cancer... including photos. And it occurred to me just how badly I never want my boys to write such a blog, or to see such things. I’m a smarter woman and a better mom than this. And a few weeks later, when I got the flu, I took it as a sign. I stopped for twenty hours because I couldn’t breathe... and that was fifteen days ago today.
I’m not out of the woods yet... but I’m getting there.
Thanks for reading. How is it going for everybody this weekend?
Current members of the GUS team! Please post a comment in the butt can if you would like to join, or if your name is here in error:
1BQ, 3rdGenFeminist, Abra Crabcakeya, addisnana, AfroPonix, alstradamus, amk for obama, andsarahtoo, Anne933, aoeu, arcadesproject, Archie2227, ArthurWolf (in memoriam), awkawk, bamablue, barnowl, bgblcklab1, Bike Crash, BirderWitch, bleeding heart, blue husky, Blue Intrigue, bluestatedem84, BoiseBlue, Brahman Colorado, breedlovinit, BrowniesAreGood, bsmechanic, burrow owl, Cen Den, Chocolate Chris, ChurchofBruce, coppercelt, dadanation, dangoch, demkat620, Dexter, DiegoUK, Dingodude, donnamarie, DRo, droogie6655321, duckhunter, EdgedInBlue, Everest42, Fineena, Flea, flumptytail, FrugalGranny, Garrett, gooners, greylox, gchaucer2, Geiiga, grndrush, High Tide, Im a frayed knot, Indexer, indyada, Interceptor7, inventor, itsbenj, Jahiz, JamesEB, Jeffersonian Democrat, john07801, jmadlc55, johngoes, Jyrix, jvolvo's Mom, jwinIL14, kai99, kailuacaton, Kelly of PA, kestrel9000, khloemi, Khun David, Ksholl, labwitchy, Lady Kestrel, ladypockt, langerdang, LarsThorwald, Last Starfighter, Laurie Gator, Lipstick Liberal, litoralis, lmdonovan, luvsathoroughbred, maggiemay, magicsister, marknspokane, mdemploi, michael1104, Mikeguyver, Minerva1157, MinervainNH, mskitty, nannyboz, ncsuLAN, Nick Zouroudis, one pissed off democrat, Ordvefa, OverTheEdge, paige, PaintyKat, Pennsylvanian, phrogge prince, Positronicus, post rational, psycho liberal, PvtJarHead, red mittens, revelwoodie, rkex, roadlion, rosebuddear, SallyCat, Sark Svemes, seenaymah, Scrapyard Ape, sgary, sheddhead, smartcookienyc, spmozart, SpotTheCat, Tay, theatre goon, triciawyse, trueblueliberal, Turn VABlue, Turtle Bay, uc booker, Unduna, Unforgiven, Vacationland, webranding, weelzup, Wes Opinion, willy mugobeer, Wood Dragon, x
Our lovely and talented diarists appear below, in bold. Open diary spots (italicized and snarkicized) are yours for the taking:
Sun PM: andsarahtoo (THIS DIARY)
Mon AM: 3rdGenFeminist
Mon PM: ChocolateChris (MNF Open Thread)
Tue AM: labwitchy (AM Open Thread, w/photos of China)
Tue PM: You Know You Want To
Wed AM: Come On, It's Fun
Wed PM: Try It, You'll Like It
Thu AM: All The Cool Kids Are
Thu PM: What, Are You Scared?
Fri AM: Just Try It One Time
Fri PM: It's No Big Deal