Smoking IS WAY COOL - But I’m Quitting
I started smoking when I was 15 years old. Right after school one day. Marlboro Reds. I didn’t take a half-drag off of the cigarette and just hold the smoke in my mouth. You know, like a pussy. I inhaled all 200+ smoke-insulated toxins. I didn’t cough. I smoked all 20 of those cigarettes before I went home that day.
To say I have an addictive personality is an understatement. I don’t “dabble” in anything I do. I exceed and exhaust. I smoked the shit out of some cigarettes.

It bothers me when people say that kids just start smoking because they think it will make them cool. That’s every kids MO - to be cool. Everything a kid does, from smoking to making fun of the nerdy kid in class to the douchey cloths they wear is because they want to be cool. So, of course I thought I was being cool when I started smoking. I kept smoking, though, because I liked it. I loved it. I liked the way it smelled and tasted and felt.
But, at some point, as I chain-smoked cigarette after cigarette, I assured myself that I would stop smoking before I hit 30. The reason? I read somewhere that people who quit smoking before the age of 30 will face limited to no complications associated with a history of smoking. Not sure if this is true or not.
Either way, I am 29. I’ll be 30 in September this year. I also have a little baby on the way, and I’d like to be a smoke-free dad.
I am not discounting smoking. Smoking WAS cool. I liked it. It gave me something to do when I was bored. It gave me a reason to take breaks at work. It gave me something to do when I was driving. I bonded with other people who smoked, and many times these first interactions occurred solely on the fact that we both smoked. I got laid a few times just by bumming a smoke to some chick or sitting down with a girl who smoked.
Smoking, in other words, has done some cool things. Smoking IS cool. I just decided to stop now.
So, I have been rocking the patch. I used the patch before, and I stayed smoke-free for over three months. It works well. The only reason I think I started up again is because I was drinking. Booze and smokes go together like Charlie Manson and crazy. Now that I am booze-free, I am finding it to be almost a cake walk not smoking. Also, I am fully aware of what real withdrawals are. A “nic-fit” is nothing compared to shaking and puking on a cold floor because you haven’t had a drink.
One thing that does baffle me is when people say that using the patch is not quitting. True and false. True. I have not quit my nicotine intake. However, I have a controlled dosage of nicotine going into my system, and it is gradually removed while I break the whole ritualistic habit of smoking. That in itself is weird. I am so used to lighting up after dinner, after an hour, after pooping, after whatever. I have these strange urges - kind of like people with phantom limbs. I have phantom urges. Not cravings. Just urges. I feel like I am supposed to go smoke. So, the patch helps me cope with that while I slowly wean myself off of cigarettes with what is essentially tobacco methadone.
I’m a cocky, arrogant, undeservedly self-assured guy, but I can safely say I will not smoke again.
On a totally unrelated note that completely contradicts my statement about smoking being cool - I have no idea why people who are adults start smoking. When I was a young impressionable self-destructive teen, it was easy to smoke. How do people who are fully aware of the ramifications of smoking actually pick up the habit? If you are not a full-on nicotine addict by the time you reach legal smoking age, I have no idea why you would actually smoke.
- David C. Garcia

