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