I told my reflection last night before I went to bed. I woke up angry and slapped on a nicotine patch. You're sorry? Well do something about it right now!
Never, never, never again will I ever smoke another cigarette. I'm ready for the withdrawal and the mind hell. I'm ready. Bring it on. Do your worst, cigarettes. I'm ready. This is the day.
I had to trick my own mind. I never would stay that long in the GUS threads and diaries here on DKos because I felt that my addicted part of my brain would move against me and make me over-internalize things and there would be this big build up of angst and then I would go crawling back like I always do. Not this time. I didn't tell myself I was smoking my last cigarette while it was happening last night. If I would have done that, there would have been a regretful farewell ceremony playing in my head. It's hard to explain but when I got up this morning, that was when I decided that last night was the last time.
This awful, awful thing started 20 years ago when I was 18. I had a vague understanding about addiction. I had avoided all drugs and alcohol as a teen but nobody told me the truth about cigarettes in 1991. Everyone lied to me.
My maternal family is over 6 generations deep from tobacco country. If anybody was ever a true bred North Carolinian, it's these folks. My great-great-great-great grandfathers used to cultivate tobacco in slavery and then later as free men who owned their own land. My grandfather started smoking when he was 9 years old. My grandmother used to chew tobacco at school recess. Her mother put it into her lunch bag everyday.
I used to be so angry at them. They smoked and smoked and smoked with the windows closed tight and never thought to open them. They smoked in the car (both of them) taking me to school. They even bought my mother a pack of cigarettes when she was 16 years old because she asked. Another one bites the filter.
I was never going to be like them. "Why do you smoke?" They would tell me, "Oh, it calms my nerves...". Why didn't they tell me it was because they were addicts? Why didn't they tell me the truth? Why didn't they try to stop me when they saw me borrowing their cigarettes and trying them out?
My grandfather suffocated to death from COPD/emphysema in the same hospital my son was born in. That hospital is gone now, torn down, closed. So many things wrong with this picture. Big tobacco continues to downplay the addictive properties of additives that addict people harder and faster and they continue to lobby our govt. for the right to lie to us and kill us.
I went back to the mirror this morning and it felt like I was split into two people. One was apologizing and one was forgiving. One watched as the other slapped on the patch. After some tear filled gratitude, they merged again, one mind and with one goal.
Game on, motherfucker. Let me tell you, cigarettes, all the ways you have ruined my life and what you will no longer do to me.
You goddamn neon green box and you fucking Bic lighter:
You will no longer be my constant companion everywhere I go.
You will not control me by making me scope out exits and designated smoking areas before I even sit down at a concert or restaurant.
You will no longer make me late because I'm standing outside trying to load up on nicotine before I have to get on a plane or bus that won't be stopping for hours.
You will not ruin my new car with smoke odor and yellow nicotine-stained windows and burn marks. I will not be making anymore ashtrays out of Pepsi cans. Matter of fact, fuck you, too, Pepsi Cola. You and those cigarettes were enablers of each other. One makes me crave the other. Bastards. Double jeopardy.
You will not make me self-conscious about smelling like smoke when I have to be around people that I have to impress, like job interviewers and the parents of my boyfriend.
You will not continue to ruin my gums and threaten my teeth that I spend a lot of money to maintain because I don't have insurance.
You will no longer make me feel like a hypocrite by depleting my body of most of the nutrients I could be getting from all the superfood I eat. Blueberries, avocados, acai juice, pomegranate, spinach, salmon, walnuts, etc, etc, etc. I love all this stuff but I might as well be eating McDonald's all day for what I'm doing with these cigarettes to reverse the anti-oxidants and Omega 3 I'm trying to use to stay alive. I'll never live to be 100 like this.
You will no longer make me come up with excuses to drop my martial arts classes. I'd have the fucking money easily if I wasn't spending it on cigarettes and Pepsi which leads to me being depressed and buying more dumb shit.
You're done making me look like a loser when I'm working out and sparring with people 15 years older than I am. I'm pathetic. I get punished by Sifu because of you. I think he thinks I'm weak because of you, cigarettes. He tried to help me with my sit-ups and was surprised to feel the hardness of my abs as I'm struggling to get enough breath to sit up. "Do you work out at home? Why can't you breathe but you have hard stomach?" "Because I'm a smoking loser, Sifu!" and then I cry and make excuses not to come back for months because I have enough problems. You will not humiliate me again and make me put off my dream of being a Kung Fu master. It's been my dream since I was 8 or 9.
You will stop making me put off laundry because the washer and dryer is in the basement and I live on the second floor in a duplex. I shouldn't be out of breath carrying a basket up a few flights of stairs.
You will give me back my singing voice that I have secretly been cultivating to amuse myself since I was a child. I spent every year since the 1st grade in some kind of school choir or glee club. I am choir chick. Hear me roar. You will not make me terrified of being silenced by having my voice box removed and I will no longer look at those tiny little talking boxes that people have to use and wonder when it's gonna be my turn.
You will give my children some peace of mind about whether or not they're gonna watch their mother slowly suffocate to death on a hospital bed sooner or later. They mentally plan my funeral every time they see me blowing smoke.
You will never again alarm life insurance policy sellers and make them doubt my vitality and health, thereby discouraging me from buying it because it's too expensive for smokers. I could die tomorrow. Who is going to bury me? Who is going to help my kids' dad provide for them?
You will stop ruining clothes, burning holes in them, making them smell like stale ashtrays.
You will stop drying out my hands, my mouth and my lips.
You will never again make me look like an addicted fiend, standing outside freezing my ass of just to get your drug into my lungs.
You will never again make me feel like an outcast because I have to leave the lively convo and go load up on nicotine just so I can listen to people. You make me a bad friend and a social freak-a-zoid with a one track mind.
You will not torture me at work, having me check the clock every 15 minutes, anticipating when I can stop the tension in my belly and the burning in the back of my throat and run outside and smoke with all the urgency and relief of a person that has to urinate really bad.
You will make me stop snapping at people because I want to smoke and I can't. I'm an asshole when I'm jonesing.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, you motherfucking evil bastards.
I love you, Tyiesha. I'll never hurt you again.
Thanks for listening. I needed to write this or it wouldn't seem real to me. Now I can ignore my dry lips, burning throat and go walk the dog. When I come back I'm gonna get rid of the ashtrays the empty packs and the nearly full pack I brought yesterday and I will not break. I'm wearing the patch and I can't smoke. If I do, I'll throw up my guts really hard. I've done this a few times already. Nausea is my least favorite feeling. You don't have to wish me luck. It's done. It is written. <----hehehe!
And PS-- tag help would be appreciated. I was gonna add G.U.S (give up smoking) as a tag but I'm not frequent in the group. You can add that tag if you want. I don't know the rules about adding tags from groups that you don't frequently participate in. I'll be seeing you from now on, GUS folks.