The Split

It was an awful experience - the first two weeks that is.  I tell everyone -and it is really so- that it took me somewhere between 2-3 years to break it off.  As in, from the day I decided I definitely didn't want to do this for the rest of my life, to the actual day I tossed the dirty habit.

I put up no-smoking signs around the apartment and on my computer desktop. 

Then I stopped smoking on the lu. 

Then I began waiting an extra hour after I ate to have that post grub puff. 

I decided to enjoy my minty fresh mouth in the morning and at night instead of the smokey scent I would subject myself and my lovers to.

After achieving this - I was able to stop smoking in the apt, and I stopped others from doing so too.  Man did my clothes smell better.  My cats could breathe again, and the walls no longer had that telling sienna tint. 

This was all parallel to the time that others were quitting too, and as the idea gained popularity, so too did the number of ostracized smokers huddled in dark corners. It got more and more difficult to find smoker communities in New York!  

By year two - I was really only smoking in the evenings or nighttime on my front stoop.  But then I got myself two consecutive smoker roommates.  Once I had this company - I started smoking A LOT...again, but only on the stoop.  So naturally, I started pissing away my life out there to accommodate sucking up  all those sticks.  This was quite idiotic and uncomfortable in the winter time.  Thus I had the additional case to use against my addiction, "Woman you're freezing your ass off to burn your lungs! Hello?!"

I immediately ordered some gum, patches, and Zyban.  Tried 'em all - for the prescribed periods.  Each in their own way, made me ill, and frankly more nicotine dependent.  So, I tried to find other associations to cut. I stopped smoking on the stoop, in my building hallway, and only when I was out and about doing nothing in particular, or on an outdoor shoot or something; puffing outside of schedules as it were.

Around this time - the Big 'Rotten' Apple was getting dewormed by a hardcore campaign to ban smoking everywhere, with graphic print ads on every street corner or in the subways, and commercials on every local tv or radio station about the dangers of smoking... somewhat akin to the old "JUST SAY NO" fried egg ad of the 80s "this is your brain on drugs" thing.  But post 2000 things are way more graphic aren't they - and I started to actually get shit scared, and angry.  Angry because I realised that it was true - and if the tobacco companies always knew the dangers, especially with the preparation of other substances found in cigs, then they were earning profits while being guilty of attempted manslaughter...legally!  What?!!!   Made me think deep about my personal journey with cigs.  
 
 I didn't smoke because of peer pressure, I didn't smoke to fit in; for the first 4 years of my puff-tenure, I smoked all alone.  My parents smoked, I had access, and a big enough house to hide in.  The place stank of the stuff so I didn't have to do the aerosol-deodorant-toothpaste-combo cover-ups when they were around. I never got caught in all that time; I told them I smoked and the backlash wasn't the expected apocalypse.  How could it be when they were my examples?  Well, they appealed to me to at least wait til after I graduated from high school.  I was 15.   
 

But where was the fear then? Well, I'm deathly afraid of narcotics of all kinds - because somehow I was convinced by the media growing up that my life would be fucked and I would surely die if I took them.  That's the rap cigarettes get now!  Why didn't I have these ads then?  If I did - I KNOW I never would have smoked because I would have been armed with the appropriate fears.  And maybe my parents wouldn't have either - or even if they did still smoke, certainly their fear for my health  would have factored in some kind of apocalyptic appeal for me to quit.  I don't say this would be the case for everyone - but there definitely has been a clear lack of the fear-factor in deciding to smoke or not smoke.  When have you ever heard a nonsmoker (of our generation and earlier) say they decided not to smoke because they feared the risk it posed to their health?  No; they often stated their choice as one having to do with lifestyle, the unpleasant smell or taste, how it made them feel, undesirable social associations, etc. 

Getting pissed off and scared made me set a date.  Feb 7, 2008.  I did it.  It sucked.  I wanted to kill myself and  everyone for 2 weeks.  It's a bit like splitting up with a partner in a sense. I've suffered in the trenches of living and the glory walks of victories with one of those things between my fingers and lips.  Cigs have been on the path with me for a while man.  But then, unbelievably, I was fine. I survived the break up, I got over it, and I got real happy, and back in control.  Truth...I still miss it sometimes.  And interestingly - I have a relationship with smoking now that I never thought I could EVER have.  I can smoke socially now - maybe once every two months and be fine!  Who knew?!  I don't advise this though...it's not always a good idea to stay friends with your erm,...dangerous eXes.

bird photo taken on a side street in Prague - it was already dead.