I don't think most people know it outside the GUSsack universe (and, of course, my partner, who is very well aware) but I smoked for 22 years before finally quitting for good. I tried to quit several times, maybe about 8 times, before I managed to finally shake the cancer sticks for the last time, and there are three husbands involved in my tale.
First off, the one you know, Charles, himself a Kossack. Then, the ones you don't, my ex-husband Christine and my late husband Bob. All three figure in this tale.
I will admit, first, that I am an idiot; I started smoking when I was 25. Not when I was a kid and didn't know better, or thought I was immortal, but as an adult in my mid-20s, someone of whom some sense could possibly be expected. To learn where my sense went, follow me below the fold.
That out of the way, let's continue. A bit more explanation is in order. I have one former husband, my friend Christine. And yes, Christine is transgendered, and was presenting as male when she and I married. I have one dead husband, Bob, who was my second husband. And I have one very much alive and present in my life husband, Charles, whom some of you may know from his occasional comments at Daily Kos.
It was my first husband who got me to start smoking at 25. She had been a smoker from well before we met, and I don't know who got her started or why she started, but I hated the smoke and would ask her to stop. I asked her to keep a log of how many she smoked in a given day, which did indeed encourage her to cut down (sort of like a food diary does for dieters when they really see how much they're scarfing down). I asked her not to smoke around me, and she was pretty good about that, and once we started living together, I asked her not to smoke in our apartment, and she was very good about that, going out to the porch and shutting the door to have a smoke. She'd get down to 3 or 4 cigarettes a day, but didn't seem to be able to quit entirely. I didn't understand at the time. Now, unfortunately, I do.
Christine and I split up because she needed to move into San Francisco and live as a woman full-time, and it was rather difficult to do that with a wife in Daly City. We'd been married a year or so when she started her transition. I was the woman who gave her her first lessons in applying makeup, drawing on my theatrical training and imagination to help her really look good, not clownish as some newly-transitioning women tend to do. I did want to help her not look like a guy in drag. (You ought to see her now. She's in her mid-50s and is drop dead gorgeous; just ask Charles.) We said and did a lot of things to hurt each other as she started her transition, too. She told me things that I will not repeat, because they were (a) incredibly hurtful and (b) not at all true. She long ago apologized for her part, and I for mine; we are terrific friends and have been for the better part of a quarter century. But it was she who started me smoking, telling me that it would blunt the pain of what she was doing to me and what she was going to do.
And you know something? it did. For a while, at least, it made me feel much less emotional pain that derived from what she was doing to me, or any other emotional pain. It became the crutch that I turned to more and more, and pretty soon, I was addicted. Rarely did I smoke more than half a pack in a day, more usually something like a quarter pack, but I did smoke them. They were a resource, a friend in my great need.
So when I met my second husband, who is now my late husband, I was a smoker. And Bob turned out to be, not to mince too many words, an abusive prick. For the 13 1/2 years that we were married, and much of the 15 years we were together, he hit me, kicked me (once after forcing me to the floor), threatened me with death or with abandonment (which carried with it the threat that he would make me pay by myself the hundred and six thousand dollars of back taxes, interest, and penalties that he incurred before we met), and was emotionally, verbally, and mentally abusive to boot. And he hated smoking and smokers. So smoking while I was married to him was, for me, a form of rebellion, the only one I dared to take. Yes, I needed to stay on his good side, and continuing to smoke would guarantee that I would immedidately get punished ... if I got caught. I learned how to sneak smokes, even when we worked for the same company in the same building, and not get caught. It was, besides my beloved dog or dogs, my only friend. The cigarette was something I could rely on to be there for me. And again, it helped to dull the pain.
Fast forward fifteen years to July, 2002. Bob and I had separated, the last of several separations (or so I am told by friends; I do not remember at all) and the one that stuck. I still did love Bob and was grief-stricken when the cops showed up at my door and told me to call the Thurston County Medical Examiner. I knew instantly it was about Bob and that it wasn't good news. When I called, and she answered the phone "Thurston County Coroner", I nearly dropped the thing like a snake that had bitten me. I stuck it out, called a friend, called my mom, called my best friend, and told each one what had happened. My mom immediately flew up here to help me take care of wrapping things up. My friend came over to be with me until my mom could get there, and took me over to my house - the house that Bob had kept, giving me nothing, not even reimbursement of the money my mother had given us as a downpayment - the house that now belonged to me, as a widow, and helped me get in to rescue the cat.
And I kept smoking. I didn't have a reason to quit and I had a lot of reasons to cling to that old friend. Grief - grief so bad that it gave me recurrent bronchitis and kidney infections - and just getting through everything that needed doing, both for the living and for the dead, and getting a start on putting my life back together gave me plenty of reasons to reach for a smoke several times a day.
Then I fell in love, pretty much out of the blue. I had a friend, a guy I had met at a gathering of many friends of mine and Bob's the day I came to give away his special tie dyed and Pagan-themed t-shirts as mementos to his friends. This guy I'd never seen before asked me for a couple of specific shirts, one part of a matched pair that I had gotten for me and Bob with heart-shaped tie dyes and I thought, "Well, I will never see this stranger again, so why not." (Two years later we wore the matching pair to see Crosby, Stills, & Nash at Marymoor Park. Happy ending.) I wasn't looking to fall in love and certainly figured I would never get married again. Wrong on both counts. I've told that story elsewhere and won't go into all the details here; suffice it to say that I was persuaded to get married again and that we have been happy with that decision ever since. And I still kept smoking, and Charles didn't bug me about it, knowing that with me, that was the absolute wrong approach to take, as was threats.
But about four years into our relationship and two years into our marriage, he asked me if I was going to continue to let Bob run my life, pointing out that he'd been dead for four years. And I thought about it, and decided that he was right, and I needed to Give Up Smoking. It was doing me harm and no longer filling a need in my life. Indeed, I hated being addicted to the damn things and had tried and failed to quit several times over the previous 22 years. Once I quit for six months and then started again; the lure was too great, as were the stresses of living with Bob, with rules that could change on the toss of a dime. No longer was that an issue; Charles is easy-going, pretty easy to live with, and always loving and supportive. He never abuses or even hints at anything abusive. I feel safe, and felt safe then, and the old friend had become the ancient enemy. It was time for it to go.
That struggle, the one to finally Give Up Smoking for good, contained a lot of backsliding. I made the decision to give up smoking in May of 2006, and did so with a lot of slips and even more self-recrimination, but in September of 2006, some day I do not remember, I gave up smoking once and for all. The first year or two were a couple of the hardest I have dealt with, especially once I was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease a year later and told that I would need dialysis at some point in the not too distant future. Seems the smoking didn't help that at all, but by the time I had lost so much kidney function that I qualified for the transplant list, I was able to say that well over a year had passed since I had smoked anything. If you're still smoking, you can't get a transplant. My final quit effort had done me more good than I realized at the time.
So for all those who are Giving Up Smoking, keep at it; you'll figure out your own reasons to stay quit midway through if you need them. If, like me, the old friend has turned into an enemy, figure out why you smoked, why you started and why you continued to smoke. Figure out what need it filled in your life. Figure out how to fill that need in other ways, ways that are healthy for you.
And by all means, talk to your physician about quitting! I don't know that I would have been able to quit successfully if not for the support of my family practitioner, who prescribed a generic SSRI, Wellbutrin, that has an on-label (FDA approved) use of helping people quit. He told me how to make it work for me, to set a quit date after I had been on it and gotten it into my system thoroughly, and then keep it. And pretty much, that's what I did. That and the Nicorette patch made my umpteenth quit attempt a successful one.
I'll be around, reading comments and responding, for at least a while. GUSsacks, whatever your quit status, more power to you, and may this attempt be the last one you need.
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