Cigarettes: A Drug Delivery
System
I smoked for 31 years. I hated cigarettes. I knew they would
kill me if I kept smoking them. My problem wasn’t that
I was stupid. My problem was that I was addicted to nicotine.
People call cigarette smoking a habit. That’s because
cigarette smokers don’t want to put themselves on the
same plane as alcohol, heroin, or cocaine addicts. Playing
with words doesn’t change the facts, though. Nicotine
is an extremely powerful drug and smokers are addicted to
that drug. I smoked cigarettes because I was a drug addict
and my drug of choice was nicotine. That’s true for
all cigarette smokers who inhale. The first step in getting
better is to be absolutely honest, particularly with ourselves.
If I’m an addict, I must admit it. Calling my nicotine
addiction a habit makes it way too benign. During
the two weeks I spent trying to detox from alcohol at home,
I smoked a lot of cigarettes. I mean a whole lot of cigarettes.
Probably close to five packs a day. My smoking returned
to normal after I started the day program at the treatment
center. Normal was two packs a day and that became the standard
shortly after my first cigarette. Early in my career, when
I was a teacher, I could smoke in my classroom as I taught
my sixth and seventh graders. When I became a counselor,
I smoked in my office when students weren’t there.
But, the smell of dead smoke began to be putrid even to
me, so I moved my smoking to the bathroom of the teacher’s
workroom.
As time went by, and as society’s
rules about smoking changed, the opportunity to smoke at
work diminished. At the time of my last drink of alcohol,
I could only smoke in what we smokers called “the
Mall.” I have no idea where the name came from. The
Mall was a screened mop room just outside the cafeteria
kitchen’s back door. The lunchroom ladies turned some
milk crates upside down and placed vinyl covered pads on
top of them for seats. A large empty tin can half filled
with a gallon of water sat in the middle of the Mall and
served as our ashtray. I went to the mall about every ninety
minutes on most days. I smoked the long cigarettes and would
smoke one, then light another and smoke about half of it.
I made up for the limited smoking I could do at school during
my morning and afternoon commute. I’d light five on
the way to work to get stoked up for the long lapses to
come between smokes, and do five more on the way home to
make up for the deficit. I always rolled down my window
some because I couldn’t stand smoke staying in the
car. Both in the mall, basically a screened porch, and in
my car, winter was a bitch. Didn’t matter, though.
I had to have my nicotine.
After I was released from the day program
at the treatment center, I returned to my normal routine.
At least once a week, I'd stop at the Discount Depot on
the way home from work so I could buy a carton of the cheapest
cigarettes I could find. Back then, I could usually find
generics for twelve dollars. A carton lasted five days as
long as I didn’t have some anxiety provoking deal
going on. That was six cartons a month, or about seventy-two
dollars a month. I wasn’t buying alcohol now, so I
had cut my spending on addiction in half, but that didn’t
alleviate my guilt. Every cigarette purchase was agonizing.
The money was bad enough, but I knew cigarettes were killing
me. I had begun recovering from my alcohol addiction. I
knew at some point I needed to kick the nicotine addiction,
too.
As time passed, it became harder
and harder to buy the cartons of cigarettes. I don’t
remember a flash of light time when I knew it was time to
quit. With the alcohol, I clearly remember the moment when
I’d decided I’d had enough. I was about to take
a swallow, but put the bottle down instead. Cigarettes weren’t
like that.
I had quit smoking once before by accident. That was some
time in the mid nineties. I had a sore throat that exceeded
any pain I’d experienced before. I went out to the 24-hour
grocery store in the middle of the night in desperate search
for something that would relieve the pain. Nothing did. The
only relief I could find was to drink enough alcohol to keep
me sedated. By then, I’d been smoking for nearly 25
years and had never been sick enough not to smoke. Now, I
couldn’t do it. The throat pain was intense any time
I was conscious. Smoking wasn’t a choice. Adding smoke
was flat impossible. When I finally began to get better, I’d
been four days without a cigarette. I wasn’t feeling
crazy, so I just didn’t have another one. As the days
went by, I was truly excited about being cigarette free.
Summer came. The cafeteria didn’t operate during summer,
so I had to leave school to get lunch. I have no memory of
what happened, except somehow I decided it’d be OK to
have a cigarette at lunch time. If I just smoked away from
school, one cigarette after lunch, I’d be fine and I’d
be able to enjoy the cigarettes again. One cigarette a day
wouldn’t kill me. I stopped at the AMVETS building and
sat at a picnic table and had my cigarette. A few days later,
I decided that two cigarettes a day wouldn’t kill me
either.
Within a couple of weeks I was back to two packs a day.
Now, it was seven years later. I had been reading about quitting
cigarettes throughout my six weeks in the evening program
at the Commencement Center. Setting a quit date was the first
suggestion in all references. As graduation time from the
treatment center was approaching, I began thinking about a
quit date for cigarettes. I wrestled with whether it should
be on a weekend or a day when I was at work. Being at work
meant I’d be busy and I was used to smoking being limited
there anyway. On the other hand, based on what I’d read
about the difficulties people face during nicotine withdrawal,
I thought it might be better to be at home to see how I was
going to react. I didn’t want to kill a kid during withdrawal.
I decided it would be on a weekend. I picked Sunday, October
19 for no particular reason. It would have made more sense
to start stopping on a Saturday to have more time before going
to work. Maybe I wanted to put it off as long as possible.
I just don’t remember.
The day came. I awoke, had coffee,
and didn’t have a cigarette. It was immediately god-awful.
Just knowing I wasn’t going to smoke again hurt, even
way before the nicotine withdrawal symptoms began. I used
the one day at a time idea, except made it one hour at a time.
Sometimes one half hour at a time. Sometimes one minute at
a time. Instead of thinking that I could never smoke a cigarette
again, I’d think I just won’t smoke for the next
half hour. That’s what I’d learned at the treatment
center when alcohol cravings hit. Ought to work with cigarettes,
too. I was watching television, reading, trying to distract
my craving mind. Minutes would go by without thinking about
a cigarette, but the obsession would come roaring back.
Heather, our oldest daughter, was attending the University
of Georgia and lived in a house across town here in Athens.
But, she’d been in Atlanta that weekend visiting her
former roommate. She was supposed to be back in Athens Sunday
afternoon about two. When she went out of town, she would
call us when she began her return trip and call again when
she’d arrived home. By three on that Sunday, we hadn’t
heard from her. I received no answer when I called her cell
phone. I called the friend Heather was visiting in Atlanta.
The friend said Heather had left at noon.
Her trip should have taken ninety minutes. She was approaching
two hours late. I tried her phone again and again. No answer.
Cigarettes were shouting at me. An hour later and still no
contact with Heather. Cigarettes were screaming at me.
I gave up.
A quick trip to the Golden Pantry convenience store brought
relief. Less than sixteen hours since my last cigarette and
now I was sucking in the smoke and nicotine. An hour later,
Heather called. She had tickets to the Vagina Chronicles and
had forgotten to tell us. She turned off her phone during
the production. She was fine. I was irritated. I’d been
planning this “stop smoking” day for weeks. And
now it was all for naught. Damn her.
Of course, now that I must be rigorously honest, the truth
is that I was grateful to not be miserable any more. And,
I could have put the cigarette out once I knew Heather was
safe and continued my plan. I didn’t do that. But, my
dread of the cigarette didn’t go away. Smoking for the
rest of that day satisfied my nicotine craving, but it wasn’t
enjoyable. Every time I lit one I felt a sense of loss. I
still had to quit.
Maybe the quit day needed to be a work day after all. Maybe
it should be a day when I didn’t have time to sit around
and worry over things going wrong. I decided my new quit day
would be the next day—a work day. I also bought some
nicotine gum. I had decided against that when contemplating
quitting, but my experience that day changed my mind. I clipped
a coupon from the Sunday paper and went to the drug store.
I awoke at six the next morning.
Normally, I would fill my travel mug with coffee, go to the
front yard, retrieve the newspaper, and then sit on the front
porch smoking, drinking coffee, and reading. This time I just
drank coffee and chewed some nicotine. An hour later Mariah
and I were in the car. I popped some gum and headed out. There
is a spot next to some cell towers about five minutes from
home where I always lit my first cigarette for the thirty
minute trip to work. When I got there, I automatically reached
for my pocket.
Nothing there. Deep, deep discontent when I remembered why.
I was still chewing the gum. I reached for another piece,
but stopped. Deep sigh. Do I really want to keep being addicted
to nicotine? It was October 20. Exactly three months since
my first sober day. I hadn’t thought about that before.
August 20 my first day without alcohol. October 20 my first
day without nicotine. But, I was about to change that. My
first day without cigarettes was more accurate. I was still
feeding my nicotine addiction with gum. I had learned some
stuff about addiction in the last three months. Once thing
I knew for sure was that if I took even a sip of alcohol,
the obsession would return. I would feel the feeling and not
want to lose it. I might be able to drink one drink the first
time. But, soon, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d
be right back where I’d been.
As I drove past the cell towers, I realized cigarettes would
be no different. If I were going to quit, I needed to quit.
If I didn’t, or couldn’t, maybe I’d try
the gum. But, everything I’d learned during the past
six weeks told me I was better off to just get it over with.
I didn’t want to hurt any longer than I had to. I removed
the gum from my mouth and threw it hard into the weeds next
to the road. Littering, I know. I would work on littering
later, I decided.
As the day progressed, it got awfuller and awfuller. I’d
get involved in something and be distracted from the pain,
but every free moment brought discomfort. I told my office
mates what I was doing. They were full of praise. I told them
that they needed to be kind to me. They were. That must have
helped, but I have to presume that on faith. Mostly, I was
miserable.
My withdrawal from alcohol was horrible. I was incredibly
sick both physically and psychically for more than two weeks.
But, from the moment I brought the bottle to my lips and didn’t
drink, the obsession to drink alcohol left me. Occasionally
I’d have thoughts of alcohol, but I never had the white
knuckle overwhelming desire to drink alcohol that I’ve
heard other alcoholics describe. I believe my absolutely unshakable
belief that alcohol had given me cirrhosis overwhelmed my
obsession to drink alcohol.
Cigarettes were different. Now I knew what the other alcoholics
had meant about the craving. Making my mind focus on other
things was excruciatingly difficult. And when I was able to
escape for a few minutes, the sudden awareness of the loss
I was feeling made the pain worse. All day, time after time,
I’d go through the trauma of remembering again, hurting
all the while. This nicotine withdrawal was not even close
to being purely mental. This was not just a psychological
obsession, nor a bad habit. I couldn’t fake smoking
a cigarette by sucking on a straw and get better. My body
was rebelling. My face burned. My hands sweated. My muscles
twitched.
I was a mess.
Somehow, I made it through the day. The drive home was interminable.
For thirty years I’d alleviated the boredom of driving
with cigarettes. It was automatic. When my mind drifted to
something else, in a minute or two I’d find myself reaching
for my pocket to grab a cigarette. Then, I’d go through
all the disappointment and panic again.
I have no memory of that evening. But, I remember clearly
waking up in the middle of that night. My insides were burning.
My head was hurting. I lay there, staring at the sliver of
light shining through the curtain from the street lamp. A
massive sense of panic overwhelmed me. I cried out.
Pat startled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s OK.” It wasn’t. Then
it happened again. I can’t do this anymore, I thought.
Another middle of the night trip to the convenience store,
just like when I was detoxing from alcohol.
I was about to get out of bed when, out of nowhere, I saw
Uncle Hoke in my mind’s eye. This was Pat’s Uncle
Hoke. He had died in 1996 and he hadn’t crossed my mind
in a while. Uncle Hoke was tall and thin. He was in his eighties
when he died. He smoked Winstons. But, that wasn’t what
I was thinking about now. I was thinking about his march.
His death march.
During World War II, Uncle Hoke was stationed in the Philippines.
In 1942, the Japanese invaded the islands and the Americans
and Filipinos surrendered to them. The Japanese forced nearly
100,000 men to march from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps
ninety miles away. It is estimated that up to 25,000 men died
during the march from exhaustion, lack of food and water,
and wanton, random execution by the Japanese soldiers. To
fall to the ground meant death from bayonets or being run
over by vehicles. The march lasted for a week. Uncle Hoke
was among the men. He had survived the death march.
I had read all about nicotine withdrawal. The description
of the physical pain didn’t do justice to what I was
feeling. But, by all accounts the pain lasted for no more
than five to seven days. That information was from websites
as well as from personal stories people had posted in forums.
A week. Just as long as Uncle Hoke has spent on that desperate
walk in 1942. My mind cleared. If Uncle Hoke could survive
the Bataan death march for a week, surely I could survive
nicotine withdrawal for a week. I thought of others.
One of my favorite books was Victor Frankl’s MAN’S
SEARCH FOR MEANING. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor. Five
months after Uncle Hoke’s march, Frankl, his new wife,
his mother, father, and brother were arrested in Germany and
sent to concentration camps. His father died of starvation
and his mother and brother were executed. Frankl remained
in concentration camps for almost exactly three years. His
camp was liberated by the Allies in 1945.
Three years in a concentration camp.
If Victor Frankl survived three years in a Nazi concentration
camp, and survived the death and murder of his family members
such that he could write a book filled with optimism like
MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING, surely I could survive a week
of nicotine withdrawal.
I said out loud, “Quit whining, you sorry-assed son-of-a-bitch.”
As I lay there, I kept thinking of those two men and finally
drifted off to sleep.
The next day was no easier on my body, but my mind was different.
I used all the tools I’d learned in treatment, and was
still learning in after care, with a new sense of vigor. One
minute at a time became one hour at a time. I carried it through
to the end, as the counselors told us to do with alcohol.
When hit with cravings, imagine smoking a cigarette. Remember
that if I did that, I’d smoke another, and another,
and another. Put myself in a chair with a doctor before me
telling me I had lung cancer. Imagine sitting in front of
my children telling them that. I still might get lung cancer.
When you’ve been smoking for thirty years, the risk
decreases when you quit, but never returns to a never-smoker’s
risk. But, if I’ve quit at least my kids would know
I tried. I wouldn’t be embarrassed to go to my funeral.
But mostly, I thought of Uncle Hoke and Victor Frankl.
By Wednesday afternoon, I was doing
a little better. Up until then, any hope I had came by reading
accounts of others on the Internet forums. Those who had quit
kept saying it got better. Now, I could sense that I wasn’t
as crazy as I had been and my body was beginning to settle
down.
At five p.m. on that Wednesday, I lost all that. The hour
from five until six was among the worst I’ve experienced
in dealing with addiction. It was an hour I spent in the aftercare
meeting at the treatment center.
The meeting began, as always, with all of us going around
the circle introducing ourselves and admitting our addiction
– “I’m Ed, and I’m an alcoholic.”
After that, we went around the circle and reported how we
were doing. If something was going on that might affect our
sobriety, the group would discuss it I was first in line.
I said, “Y’all need to be nice to me. I’ve
closing in on 72 hours without a cigarette.”
And the onslaught began. “Wrong,” they shouted.
Never make big changes in the first year of sobriety. Not
drinking alcohol must be your only focus during the first
year. You’re taking a huge risk.
I said, “Smoking’s going to kill me as much as
alcohol. In fact, probably quicker.” Didn’t matter
to them. I could feel my nicotine addiction on my shoulder.
I’m not being metaphorical here. There it was whispering
in my ear: “Yes! Now you can smoke. You can ease your
pain. It’s OK. You’re not supposed to be doing
this. It’s bad to quit smoking now.”
After a few minutes of that I shook my shoulder, knocking
the addiction away. I was committed. To hell with these guys.
I quit responding and answered questions with one word answers
or grunts. Anything to make them happy and get this over with.
One said, “If you’re going to do this, you better
be taking Antabuse You’re taking your Antabuse, aren’t
you?”
“Yes,” I said. That was a lie. I’d stopped
taking Antabuse as soon as the center’s staff allowed
me to. That was some time during the six weeks I was in the
evening program when taking Antabuse became optional. I had
no cravings for alcohol and didn’t want to take a medicine
that required having my liver checked every few months. So,
I lied. And, I was OK with that. Still am. I have seldom been
as angry in my life as I was during that hour. I just had
to get through it. I did and the next day was better.
The next night, it happened. It
was the middle of Thursday night a little over four days since
my last cigarette. I awoke with the familiar nicotine craving.
By rote habit, I brought Uncle Hoke to my mind, seeing him
walking down the road in Bataan. If he could do that, I can
do this. My skin began to peel. Starting from the top of my
head, I could feel my skin shedding all the way down my body.
It peeled in one huge piece, like when you pull dead skin
away after a sunburn. The feeling was incredibly clear and
real. After my whole body had peeled, all the way past my
feet, the physical agony was gone. Absolutely gone. A peace
descended over my body – enveloped me.
My body was at peace
.
When I awoke the next day the peace was still there. I felt
wonderful. I went to work joyfully. I reveled in time flying
by, then realizing I hadn’t thought about a cigarette
in an hour, even two hours. My body had surrendered. My mind
hadn’t given up yet, though. The mental cravings continued.
But, without the body’s agony, using the tools to fight
the cravings was easier.
I have to admit that in addition to using the tools the center
taught me to fight addiction, I substituted substances for
nicotine. I’d never been a candy eater. Now, I ate Snickers.
Lots and lots of Snickers. But, that was OK. I wasn’t
smoking. I’d worry about that later.
I went to aftercare session early the next week and met with
the counselor before the meeting. I told her that I still
wasn’t smoking and intended to keep it that way. I told
her about the pain leaving my body. She didn’t argue,
but she did warn me to be careful and not let cigarette cravings
lead me to an alcohol relapse. Back then, substance abuse
programs believed it was dangerous to try to quit smoking
cigarettes and drinking alcohol at the same time. They’ve
changed their minds now. Quitting both at the same time is
encouraged.
I’ve learned in sobriety that things happen for a purpose.
Or, so it seems. That horrible after-care session absolutely
solidified my commitment never to smoke again. I focused my
anger away from the group and the treatment center, and aimed
it at my nicotine addiction.
By God, I’d annihilate it.
And, I did.
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