My husband is one of "those." He's one of those rare people who can smoke a cigarette once in a while. Just when he feels like it. He might smoke 7 cigarettes at a party and then not smoke another one for two months. And not with any special effort either -- he just doesn't care. He likes it, but he's not controlled by it. He's not a real smoker. He's not like me.
He's one of "those."
And if you, like me, are in the process of quitting smoking, you know exactly how magical, mysterious, and absolutely infuriating "those" people are. Because you've tried to be one. Maybe you're trying it again right now...
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I know I've tried it before. It's easy to convince yourself with a well constructed argument that there's no reason you can't be one of those people. I mean, forcing yourself to smoke only a very little would surely be hard, but not harder than forcing yourself to not smoke at all! It's simple math, right?
Huh.
If you've been down that road even once, you know this is a great example of how even simple math can lie. For some reason, unfortunately, most of us will have to learn this lesson several times before we stop trying. Isn't that the cliche definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? I guess we can also use that as a definition for addiction.
Dave Allen's been there:
Have you tried it Dave's way? Where you come up with some reasonable number of cigarettes to smoke per day and committ to only smoking that many? It sounds ideal. You'd get to have your cake and eat it too. "If I only smoke 5 cigarettes per day, that's not a significant health risk, it's not too expensive, and I still get to continue an activity I enjoy!" Once you try it, of course, you realize there's nothing enjoyable about it. Like Dave, you will quickly figure out exactly how many hours and minutes you are allowed between your cigarettes, and you will watch that clock. All. Day. Long.
The only upside is that the torture is temporary. Eventually you'll be back up to smoking a pack and a half a day.
So who are these people who can just smoke once in a while? Where do they come from? What is the secret of their dark power, and how might they be defeated? I wish I could tell you. My husband never touched a cigarette until he was 30 years old -- that may have something to do with it. Cigarettes occupy a very different place in your life when you start smoking when you're 11 years old, like I did. Or maybe it's some rare gene thing. Or maybe my husband is not actually human at all, but rather has been sent here from a distant alien planet to observe human behavior. I've often suspected it, and it certainly would explain a lot of his other strange behaviors, like seeding the floor with dirty socks (perhaps socks are decorative items on his homeworld).
I don't know the answer. I know I'm not one of those people, though. And I think I'm finally at a place where I don't have to learn that lesson one more time. I get it. I can be a smoker (and for me that means about a pack and a half a day) or I can be a nonsmoker. Those are the only two choices I get. That third choice -- the one where I smoke 5 cigarettes a day and get a pony -- that's not on my slate of options.
So...smoker or nonsmoker? That's a tough one. I really like smoking. But hey, I like a lot of things. And this one causes cancer, costs me $250 per month, makes my clothes smell, gives me wrinkles, ruins my singing voice, and forces me to spend 100 hours per year standing outside restaurants. I think I'm going with nonsmoker.
It's tough, but I'm just going to stay focused on the positive:
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And as has become a tradition for me in community diaries, I will close with a musical selection. I pride myself on how many OMGs and WTFs I can get with my song choices, and I've chosen a classic today: