nicotine dreams

I have great news! I haven’t smoked a cigarette since Sunday evening. That’s a solid 96 hours.

I feel good about it. When I quit before, at Teen Challenge, it was forced. Now, at Wayside, it isn’t. I’d been smoking for ten weeks – that is, from the very second I left TC. Ten sounded like a nice, round number to me. More accurately, I’d been smoking for six years – that is, from the day I turned eighteen. (That’s right, I just had a burfday.) Six sounded like a nice, round number to me.

My parents came for my birthday weekend, and the plan was to smoke my last cigarette the day before my birthday – last Friday. Well… that didn’t work out. I didn’t smoke through my whole pack by Friday night, and I hadn’t the strength to simply toss the rest. Yes. I’m ridiculous. So I smoked the rest on Saturday. Sunday, when my parents and I were coming back from our short trip to Wisconsin, I fell further into compulsion and bought another pack at a gas station. I’d recently become a huge fan of Newports, and am even now lamenting how late in the game I discovered them. Anyway, I wasn’t doing well.

We got back to the west suburbs around one in the afternoon, just in time for the Argentina vs. Mexico game. Viva Argentina! At halftime, I stepped onto the porch to smoke because I was feeling anxious, and it didn’t help. Actually, I felt more anxious. This had been occurring a lot over the last few weeks. Cigarettes used to calm me down, but they weren’t doing the trick any more. They weren’t really good for anything except for that wonderful Newport taste – and, of course, the poetic aura to which I’ve become so attached over the years. What vanity!

My parents took me to see a movie after the game, and I had a post-movie cigarette, just like all the other times I’ve watched movies in the past six years. There it was again: anxiety. And this time, there hadn’t been any anxiety preceding the cigarette, so I knew I was in trouble. Or at least my habit was.

I got into the car with Mom and Dad, and told them what was going on, except I wasn’t super clear about it. “I think I’ve become really susceptible to caffeine. Even the smallest amounts make me crazy.”
“It could be that,” said Dad. “The nicotine probably isn’t helping, either.” Saw right through me.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Well, nicotine is an upper, don’t you know.”
“Whaaat?”
“Well, yes!” With feeling now. “The reason most people feel they are calmed is that they’re satisfying their addiction, which has made them nervous. Meth to a meth addict is calming. To anyone else, it’s crazy-making.”
We pulled into the bar-and-grill at which we’d decided to eat. An undertrained young man sat us, sped through his welcome, and darted away. I’d planned on pushing my almost-new pack of cigarettes off on him, but he was too quick for me. My parents and I continued our conversation.
Ahah! There he is again. “Excuse me, sir?” Didn’t hear me. “Sir!” He turned. “Do you smoke cigarettes?”
“Cigarettes? No.” That’s code in the world of pot-smokers for “I smoke pot.”
“Well, does anyone you work with in there” – I pointed into the restaurant because we were sitting on the patio – “smoke?”
“You just wanna give me this pack of cigarettes?”
“Yes.”
“O..kay?”
Pack of Newport cigarettes – and Bic lighter – gone.
“Why didn’t you just trash them?” asked Dad.
“It… didn’t feel right.”