As some of you know, I finally quit smoking ten years ago. I did not do it alone. I had the patch to keep me sane. I started smoking at a very young age and tried quitting several times before I finally succeeded. And, like everything else in my life, there was a political slant as to why I decided to quit. More after the break...
I started smoking when I was about eight or nine years old, okay? There I said it. The late 60s were a completely different universe from where we are now. There were still cigarette commercials on television. I can still sing several of the jingles that accompanied the ads. Both of my parents smoked and both of my grandfathers smoked; neither of my grandmothers smoked and good for them.
In order to save money, my parents would drive to the Indian reservations around the Seattle area and buy cases, not cartons, of Winstons. The entire bottom shelf of our refrigerator was cartons of Winstons. I could not resist. I was the coolest kid in the fifth grade. I had a constant supply of cigarettes and many friends because of it. My friends would meet me as I was walking to school and walk home with me after school, funny how that works.
The other big situation that has changed over the years is the use of cigarette machines. They used to be all over. They were in every restaurant, bar and restaurants that had bars. They had them in the bowling alleys, car dealerships, and skating rinks. The best part about them was that they were usually in out of the way places and never monitored. They were more expensive than stores, but most stores did not sell to children, most didn't.
I was hooked before the first non-smoking commercial aired. It was amazing how easy it was to be a smoker before my age hit double-digits. I smoked at least a pack a day for over twenty-seven years. When I was in my early twenties, I would not go out without having an open pack and two extra packs. By my late twenties, I was getting tired of the habit, but was never successful at quitting.
In my late thirties, I decided to go back to college after nearly two decades of being out. As my education progressed, I found it harder and harder to rationalize smoking. And then, I started to get mad at myself. I have always been politically active and a very progressive, some might say radical, Democrat. I was mad at myself because I was always against Jessie Helms and Strom Thurmond, but it was the profits off of my habit that was funding their re-election campaigns. I was inadvertently funding the very people that were voting against everything that was near and dear to my heart. It had to stop and it did.
As some of you have heard, I have a favorite quitting smoking story. I was attending UCLA, I lived two blocks off campus (rough neighborhood let me tell you), and my doctor was on campus. She wrote me a prescription so I could get my patches from the State of California for free.
The first night, I put on my patch, which was supposed to build up in my system as I slept, and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, my skin was crawling off of my body. I ran to the kitchen, made my quadruple mocha, and lit up a cigarette that I had stashed in my desk drawer. I really couldn't figure out what went wrong. When I stood in front of the mirror before I got into the shower, I noticed the patch was gone. I looked around and it was stuck to my sheet.
I was determined to quit as I was not going to be a source of arch-conservative republicans. The second night, I put my patch on and went to bed. When I got up, same damned thing. My skin was crawling. I made the coffee and lit the smoke. When I looked in my bed, sure enough, the patch was stuck to my blanket. I still have the blanket and there is still a bare spot where the patch ripped all of the fluff off the blanket down to the threads. I am not one to beat myself up, so I went about my day and tried again the third night. I put on my patch, put the smokes away, got out my tea and stuck the coffee in the freezer. Wouldn't you know, the patch was on my pillow the third morning and I was itching for a cigarette.
I went about my day again; however after classes were over, I went to my doctor's office and told her that I had good news and bad news. The good news was that my bedding no longer had a smoking problem. Unfortunately, the bad news was that I still did. My doctor giggled and went in the back. She came out with some heavy duty medical tape. That night, I put on the patch, put some tape over it, and woke up to a new beginning the next day. Just over night, I had no desire for a cigarette.
I am not one to make things a taboo in my life. As soon as something is a taboo, I only want it more. Therefore, when one day a couple of years later, I wanted a cigarette because I thought it sounded good, I walked down to the corner store and got pack of Camel Wides, because that was what I was smoking when I quit. I took one drag, coughed my lungs out, and gave the pack to a homeless man walking down the street. He wanted them, I didn't just hand them over. A couple of years after that, the same thing happened with the same result. I have not smoked, if you consider one drag smoking, since and do not even have the yearning for any cigarettes. The republicans have not profitted off of my weakness in quite some time and that means just as much as the added health benefits of quittting.
The only real advice I have for those of you trying to quit is to concentrate on the associations. At the time I quit, I was known to drink, drug, and smoke marijuana. Cigarettes go incredibly well with all of the above. In order for me to quit, I had to give up all of my vices because they went together like peanut butter and jelly. It might not be what works for you, but keep it in mind as you try to quit.
If any of you GUSsacks need someone to talk to or just vent at, please feel free to contact me. My email address is uc_booker@hotmail.com and you can find me on Facebook under Craig Baker. I'm the one with the picture of the AbFab girls. Good luck!