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| The Stupidity of Addiction |
Here I sit, thinking, what the hell have I done and why the hell did I ever put that first cigarette in my mouth? Really, I know why. I was seven years old, all of my authority figures smoked and my best friend had just stolen a carton of cigarettes from his dad. We thought, let’s give it a try and see what it’s like. At 7 years old, you have no idea of the dangers of smoking, especially when those you love and trust are constantly putting a fag in their mouth in front of you. We got caught that time, but obviously did not get sick enough or in enough trouble to deter us ever from doing it again. For the next seven years it continued. I smoked pack a week.
Having an uncle who did not notice the one pack a week missing from the carton in the back seat of his car, a big old maple tree in the front of the house with a hole just big enough to hide the evil little package secured inside the Ziploc bag, a big country property with lots of trees and bushes, and the long, secluded walk down the country road to and from school each day was the perfect combination to continue the filthy and deadly little habit. Everyone in school knew I smoked and no one bothered to rat me out. The older kids thought it was funny and welcomed me into their little groups after school. I was cool. I'm not so cool now. Keep reading!
At 14, I got my first job in a concession stand at the local arena. It was a perfect hangout for all the kids. What was everyone doing milling around the concession stand? Smoking, that’s what. Now I had a job, money to buy more of my own cigarettes and no need to steal one pack a week from my uncle. It progressed to two and then three packs a week until eventually, by 17; I was up to at least a pack a day.
I tried to quit a few times in high school, but never really gave it much effort. I was cursed with the same immortality complex that most teenagers are afflicted with. Cancer will never happen to me, no way!
I remember sitting at my great aunts funeral not comprehending that she had suffered horribly from breast and lung cancer cause by cigarette smoking, and watching her 30ish daughter practically hack up a lung in the pew in front of me, very shortly to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Outside, after the service, I watched unmoving or uncaring as everyone, including the lung hacker, lit up a cigarette. Just couldn’t wait to get home, away from prying eyes and spark one up myself.
Eventually, I stopped trying my half assed efforts to quit. I was a smoker and that was it. That was who I was. I don’t think there is one picture of me in college without a cigarette in my hand. I always said that I would quit when I got pregnant.
I did not have my first child till I was 30. By this time I had been smoking for 23 years. Imagine, 30 years old and smoking for 23 years. I never thought much of it and I did not want to quit. I did try to quit, however, with my first pregnancy, but a doctor gave me my way out. He said that quitting cold turkey while pregnant would put more stress and cause more damage on the fetus than the effects of cigarette smoking. Stupidly, I believed him. I should have gotten a second opinion. This combined with the fact that I could not use any of the stop smoking aids on the market because I was pregnant and a husband who had no intention of quitting himself, made my choices very limited and difficult. Acupuncture was the only thing that I could do other than cold turkey. I managed to get down to a pack a week, but as soon as I was able, after my daughter was born, I was on that elevator to smoke a whole cigarette, or two or three. I know that some of you reading this will think that I am the worst mother in the world, but smoking is by far the hardest addiction to beat in my eyes. I have heard that it is worse than heroin addiction. Not ever trying heroin, nor knowing anyone first hand who has, I do not know this for sure, but I can certainly believe it. Smoking is as much a mental, emotional and habitual addiction as it is a physical one.
Now I could smoke freely. Back up to a pack a day. Then I was pregnant with my second child and the same thing. Back down to a pack a week, but as soon as I was able to, I was right back at it. I convinced myself that I was going to die eventually and whether it was the smoking or a car accident the next day, I was going to live my life the way I wanted to and I was going to be happy. I liked smoking.
When my son was 2, the worst happened. My world crumbled around me. My husband was arrested for domestic assault and was removed from the home. I spent months of hell alone with two kids and very little money. As a stay at home mom, I had no job and had to rely on the money that was sent to me each week from my husband and my baby bonus. He paid all the bills from his office and deposited $250 to $300 a week into my account to buy groceries, gas for the car and of course cigarettes. With no money to do anything but sit at home, I was launched into such a depression as I have never faced before. All I did was sit on my back deck, cry and smoke cigarette after cigarette watching my children play in the back yard. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.
Eventually, I found a job and got my life started over, but smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for a whole summer was a little hard to shake. Money was tight and the cost of smoking was really starting to put a strain on my finances. This is the stupidity of addiction. Instead of trying to quit, I convinced myself that with everything else that was going on, I could not quit, nor could afford to purchase any of the cessation aids on the market. I did not have a drug plan and would have to purchase them on my own. It did not occur to me that eventually the cost of smoking outweighed the cost of the drugs or patches or whatever else it would take for me to quit. I found out that I could drive down to the Native reserve and purchase a carton of cigarettes for $8 dollars. This was cheaper than purchasing my morning and afternoon coffee each week.
With unlimited cigarettes, a new home and social life, the smoking became worse. Pair this on top of the fact that Reserve cigarettes are actually stronger, or at least the ones I was purchasing were, than the cigarettes that you buy in the stores, this was doing a number on my lungs. Still I chose to ignore the warnings that were occurring.
I spent the winter enjoying my social life, drinking, smoking, clubbing, and having all night parties on the weekends that I did not have my kids. I smoke the most when I am drinking, so all winter long there was a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. Some nights I would smoke a whole pack in mere hours. Pair this with the two packs that I had smoked that day and that was a whole hell of a lot of cigarettes.
I was also working part time and going to school part time. My college was in another town and other than drinking, driving is the worst place that I smoke a lot. When driving, I chain smoke. In the forty five minutes that it would take me to get to school, I would smoke at least half a pack. By the time I got to work at noon, I had already smoked a pack.
Some people tell me that if you set your mind to it you can quit. To me it is not that simple. No one understands just how out of hand my addiction had become. Up until this week, even I did not realize, nor admit to the severity of my addiction. Up to three packs of cigarettes is extreme and has led me to where I am right now, which is a very scary and potentially devastating place.
In March of this year, I caught a cold. The cold itself did not last long, but the cough lasted till almost June. I was under lot of stress at the time because I had just been laid off from my job. Because of my school schedule, I knew it was going to be difficult to find other employment. The cough, even though still in the back of my mind, was pushed aside for more pressing matters. This is how a smoker thinks. A cough that lasts for almost three months is not important enough to be considered top priority. In my mind, it meant that I might have to give up smoking and this on top of everything else that was going on, was not something I was willing to tackle, even though I knew deep down it was detrimental to my health.
Through the summer, I managed to make enough money on unemployment, my child support, baby bonus, what I had saved in the bank, and the odd temp job that I picked up to be able to have a relatively easy summer, although I knew it was not going to last for long. I went to quite a few social gatherings and smoking was not something that I was willing to give up. Partying and smoking went hand in hand. Also being unemployed at home meant more smoking as well. I did not have to rely on breaks to have a cigarette. I could light up whenever I wanted. This meant a whole summer with an extreme amount of smoking.
September came and with it a job. The job was in another city where it took me an hour in the mornings and an hour and a half at night to drive there. This was a lot of driving, which meant a lot; I mean a whole hell of a lot of smoking. By the time I got to work in the mornings I had smoked almost a pack of cigarettes.
By the time I finished my first week, I despised my job. I was exceedingly tired all of the time. Being a single mom and doing 12 hour days and then having to come home and do all the other duties that running a house with two small children entailed, was wearing me down to the point of complete exhaustion. This on top of the fact that the job was so boring, not at all what the job description had described and an extremely unfriendly work environment, left me so run down and miserable that I came down with the flu. The weekend I got the flu, I received a call from my old employer, a job that I loved so much that I could see myself working there for life. They wanted me back. I jumped at the chance.
I got over the flu, but like in March, the cough would not go away. With the lack of stress on me, being happy at my work again, I actually took the time to notice my health this time. I knew I was going to have to do something about it. Then one night, during my second week back to work and the same week I was coming to terms with what the cough could mean, I felt not one, but two lumps in my left breast. Bam! No putting it to the back burner this time. I needed to get both the cough and lumps looked at. I sat down on my bed and had a good cry, imagining the worst and feeling so sorry for myself. Then I thought, HOW DARE I feel sorry for myself. I knew the warnings. I knew what every cigarette I put in my mouth was doing to me. I did this to myself, and not only did I do this to myself, I’ve done it to my children as well. The thought of them growing up without their mother was the worst thing I could have ever done to them and I felt so sad for them and like the worst mother that ever existed.
I called my doctor the next day and booked an appointment for the following day. All kinds of thoughts were running through my mind, but do you think I could refrain from lighting up that cigarette? Not a chance! The stupidity of addiction! I went into that doctor’s office reeking of cigarette smoke.
Sure enough, she confirmed my fears. There was need for the lumps to be checked out further. Then I mentioned the cough. She listened to my chest and could not believe the rasping and wheezing that she was hearing coming out of the lungs of a person my age. I was placed on an inhaler to breathe, and booked into the hospital for the following week for a mammogram, ultrasound, and chest x-rays. She believes that I am in the beginning stages of emphysema, but there is also the fear of more, namely lung cancer. She prescribed a new drug to help me quit smoking. I knew I needed the aid of the drug, but also the fear of what was happening was enough for me to decide, come hell or high water, no matter what the outcome of the tests, I was quitting smoking.
As I walked to the car, my head spinning with everything that was occurring, the biggest thing that was screaming at me was “I don’t want to quit smoking”. I wanted to live, I wanted to be healthy, I wanted to stop coughing, and I wanted to be able to breathe, but I did not want to quit smoking. I hopped into the car and yes, you guessed it, the first thing I did was light a cigarette.
I sat in the car, and in the span of twenty minutes, smoked three cigarettes, all the while crying. I was crying not only of what I was potentially facing heath wise, but also because I felt that by giving up smoking, I was giving up a part of myself, a part of my identity. How idiotic was this thought process? At the same time, however, I realized that I did not have a choice. If I was to have any sort of life at all with my children, I had to quit now. I headed to the drug store and filled my prescriptions. On the way home, I thought of all the things that would deter me from quitting and planned around them. I picked a quit date.
It has been one week since that doctors appointment and tomorrow is the day I walk into the hospital to find out my fate. I have noticed that I have cut down this week on the amount of cigarettes I have smoked. I am not even through a carton yet, but I am still smoking.
I have done a lot of thinking this week. At first I thought of all the cons of quitting. Are there cons of quitting smoking? Hell no, only a smoker as addicted to cigarettes as me would imagine that there were actually cons to not smoking, but this thought process did not last long. I knew I was quitting. I finally put my mind to it. I had my date. This is it.
The rest of the time, I have been thinking of all the implications that could become reality tomorrow. In my head I have been trying to come to terms with the worst, but until you hear those words, I don’t think you can ever be fully prepared. My life could end tomorrow. I hope and pray to God not, for the sake of my children as well as for myself.
I have thought of everything that I need and want to do should I get the worst news tomorrow. I have planned my will in my head, taking care of my children financially. I have even mentally planned my own funeral, not wanting my family to have to bear the brunt of it and wanting a celebration of my life by way of a traditional Irish wake. I want people to remember me with a smile and not with a tear. I want people to raise a drink to my life and the things I have managed to accomplish in it and imagine me standing next to them and raising my glass with them. This is morbid I know, but could be something that I have to face tomorrow. This is my way of trying to prepare myself for the worst news possible; this is the reality that I face.
I have heard of the stories of people walking into that doctor’s office to find that they have terminal lung cancer. I have always thought, that will never be me. Tomorrow, I could be that person. I could be another statistic. I could be dying. My heart sinks at the thought, and my chest tightens. I have an ache from my breast bone straight into my shoulder blade. I think to myself that this could be caused by the stress that I have been under the last week, with every waking second devoted to “what if” but it could be also caused by something more.
For all I know, I am letting my imagination get the best of me. I could walk out of that hospital completely fine tomorrow. It could be bronchitis and my doctor was just trying to scare me. I hope so. Regardless, mission accomplished. Should I get a clean bill of health, or even the news that it is the beginnings of emphysema, something that I can still live to 90 with if I quit smoking now, and even if I get the worst news my imagination could come up with, I am quitting. As of next Monday, my quit date, I am a non smoker. Hopefully it is not too late. Hopefully I will not suffer the same fate as my great aunt and her daughter.
At 36 years old, after almost 29 years of smoking behind me, with a beautiful, sensitive, caring little 6 year old daughter and a bright, adorable, rambunctious, incredibly loving and intelligent little 4 year old red headed son anyone could ever wish for, I am facing the reality of my own demise. This is the stupidity of addiction.
For those of you reading this, I am putting this on my blog, not only for myself, but for you and everyone you know that is a smoker. Read this to them. Read this to your children. Read it to yourself over and over again until they or you comprehend the implications and reality of this addiction.
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Posted by shann73 on 2009-10-19 22:16:26 | Rating: | Views: 44
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