The Stop Smoking House Of Horrors

I love to smoke.  I consider it one of my hobbies.  I know it is bad for me.  It is expensive, dirty, and socially unacceptable for the most part.  I love to smoke like I love to read, it's in the very fiber of my being.

I have been a serious smoker since I was about twenty-one or twenty-two.  I had smoked  before, intermittently, but it didn't hold me in it's Herculean grips until then.  My mom smoked constantly when I was growing up and I found it smelly, gross.  Yet there must have been a certain charm to it or else she wouldn't have done it so much.  At some point at about twelve or thirteen, I stole two cigarettes from her pack of Pall Mall Golds and hid them so I could give it a try.  After all, my mom liked murder mysteries and Knots Landing and so did I, so there must be something to it.

I hid behind the house and tried one.  It made me instantly sick and lightheaded and I decided on the spot that I would never be a smoker. 

Of course, I totally forgot about the other cigarette I had hidden and my mom found it in my dresser during one of her cleaning expeditions months later.  She lectured me and railed and pleaded and finally, made me smoke two cigarettes in a row which made me so sick I had to lie on the couch and watch Bewitched reruns while the room swirled around me and I thought I really was Samantha and could probably walk through walls.

I smoked a bit in high school, but it was more a peer pressure thing.  If the people I was with smoked, I did too, but if they weren't, I rarely thought of it.

I didn't actually embrace smoking as a viable hobby until I started going to bars and everyone around me was smoking so it looked like the thing to do, sort of like wearing power suits with padded shoulders and really big door knocker earrings.

I quit when I was pregnant, simply because the smell of it made me so sick.  I had no problems at all quitting. I breastfed my son, so it was no problem not smoking after his birth.

Until I went to the mall with a friend who smoked.  She was very careful about not smoking in front of me, but we were in her car, it smelled seductively like a dirty ashtray and her pack was right there on the console, tempting me with its tarry goodness.  I grabbed it, asked her if I could have one.  She grabbed the pack back, said of course not, you don't smoke and I wrestled it out of her hand, which wasn't hard since we were barreling down I-96 about 75 miles per hour and then I was smoking again.

I have to quit now.  I always vowed I would quit by the time I turned 40, that I didn't want to die some horrible smoking related death.  Forty came and went and I didn't give it a thought.  Now, financially, I can't afford to smoke.  The money for such a disastrous luxury that costs, between my husband and I, twenty dollars a day, just isn't there.

I'm not having an easy time of it.  In fact, I'm a nervous wreck and if I could sacrifice one of the dogs (probably Boomer) to Satan for a carton of Marlboro Lights, I probably would.

Martin called his doctor and asked for some Xanax to ease us through this without one of us (probably me) being arraigned for something really white-trashy like setting my clothes on fire then running naked down the street screaming obscenities in between licking an ashtray.  The doctor, instead of giving me the calm comfort of Xanax, instead gave us Zyban.  Which I've taken before.  Which made me not want to smoke but also made me mildly insane and manic, apt to do things like bake Toll House cookies at three a.m. and in between batches, scrub my bathroom grout with a toothbrush.

I've found a wealth of information on the Internet about quitting and my dear friend L sent me an ebook she thought looked promising, so now, if I can just get through these next three days, I'll be okay.

Why hasn't a sleep cure for smoking been invented?  They put you for sleep for three days, you wake up, you don't crave nicotine anymore.  Why wouldn't insurance cover that?  How expensive could it be?  The long term benefits would be tremendous. It wouldn't even have to be at a hospital. Set up a room with cots, maybe ten or twelve, let everyone smoke their brains out right outside the door, stick them in their cot, hook them up to a low dose sleeping aid that keeps them knocked out for three days (and probably a catheter, yuck, but you won't be getting up to have a pee and a smoke in the middle of the night) and voila, three days later you are done? 

I'm a freaking nicotine deprived genius

Comments

[Martin]

Yes, "Saint Famine's Day" is upon us. That is what the sailors in the British Navy used to call it 200 years ago. The thought being this. If they got marooned or lost at sea a sailor could manage quite well eating their belts and boots instead of food, but the day the rum/wine/beer and tobacco ran out... That was the worst day. That was St. Famines Day. We knew it was coming and we'll manage I am sure but the weekend does not look bright for now. See you on the other side..

- Martin

[nursenicole]

lisa, lovey...they do have new pill to help you quit smoking called chantix...i would google it and get it from your doctor. i have heard there are some side effects, but if it works, it works...

as you know, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer last year...i finally really quit smoking on my own, but i had valium, but i still miss it sometimes...i feel much better, though...you can do it...my thoughts are with you...