“Old habits die hard, and if you’re not careful, the person you used to be can overtake the person you’re trying to become.”
-Lecrae
Have you ever had a habit for so long you can’t even remember how it started? Something – and it really can be just about anything – that you have done for more years of your life than you haven’t? It can even be something that you consider a dirty little secret, or a guilty pleasure. And maybe those categories are the most appropriate here. Something you do, something you may even love to do, that you know beyond any doubt is not good for you.
If you’ve visited other pages here, then you know I said I would write about myself sometimes. This is one of those times.
That is what cigarettes have always represented for me. For 35 years of my life, they have been my most steady companion. Friends and family have come and gone. Entire nations have risen or fallen. Regardless of whatever chaos was unfolding around me, there was always that one thing that I could count on to be constant. Riots in the streets? Take a puff – ahhhh. Messy break-up? Take a puff. War, famine, pestilence, and death everywhere? Puff, puff, puff, puff. Eventually, the law of diminishing returns catches up to us all.
Maybe not all of us, though. I remember my grandfather just before his death; at the age of 75, if memory serves correct. He was definitely from a different era, and the world of today would likely appear alien to him. He was an ordinary hard-drinking and hard-smoking American man. His habits caught up to him working on the roof of his own house in the middle of a hot summer day. July or August, I can’t remember exactly which. I was told that he suffered a massive heart attack, and that ended his drinking and smoking habits. That was 1983.
I don’t know exactly when he started smoking, but I think I remember being told it was when he was young. In the short time I got to spend with him, I never knew the man to not have a cigarette at the ready. He burned my hand once by accident because we bumped into each another in the hallway of his house. Neither one of us paying attention to what was around us. That event has stuck with me all these years because the pain of the burnt flesh on the palm of my hand was so intense. And I was very young; perhaps 5-years-old or less. Memories before 10 are sketchy at best at this point in life.
As for me, I don’t remember what it was that got me started in the first place. The usual suspects were all there: family members, authority figures, peer pressure, conformity. One way or another, the habit stuck, and has been with me for quite some time now. Three and a half decades, to be accurate. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, though; which may be the most inexplicable aspect of this experience at the moment. Maybe more memories will surface later.
I made the no-turning-back-now decision on July 3, 2021. That’s exactly two days prior my 47th birthday, and roughly 35 years after I started smoking. Each day now is the same but different. Everything has changed while largely staying the same. It’s a very difficult thing to describe, when you have chosen to divorce yourself from something that has been a part of the majority of your life and experiences. Even, dare I say, a part of my identity. The weird thing is I kinda feel something physically missing; like phantom limb syndrome.
Mostly, I’ve just been trying to pay attention to the cravings. Some observations I have made in the past few weeks:
– At first the cravings seem to be random. Over time, the patterns of emotional and environmental triggers begin to reveal themselves.
– The cravings associated with a cigarette after a meal seem to be the most persistent and intense. Although, that could just be conditioning.
– The cravings are more intense when I allow myself to pay attention to them. If I can manage to distract myself with anything, they quickly pass.
– Half of the time, when a craving hits, it’s because I’m stumped about what to do with myself next.
I’ll keep paying attention to them, although I expect the cravings to grow weaker as time passes. One day, I may be struggling to remember what this moment feels like.
Anyway, that’s where I am during our summer of discontent. Because the insanity of the external world is not providing enough excitement, I am creating some internal craziness to augment it. Or trying to live a healthier lifestyle. Or letting go of things that no longer serve me. One of those things is almost certain to be true. But then again, maybe this is all just a fever dream of nicotine withdrawal.
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