I did it my way

     Over seven years now. Seven years, three months and counting. I wasn't prepared to quit, but I did. I did my way. I bellyached, moped, considered my life over, had a real operatic time of it. I believed all that at the time. Just couldn't see how I'd ever relearn life at the age of 54. Yet with each passing year I've done more than relearn life without the smokes, I've found peace of mind from hopeless helpless addiction--and I've regained my health. I didn't know how much health I'd sacrificed until I quit smoking, got stronger. 

    It's hard to imagine where I'd be if I'd not quit. I wouldn't be hiking mountains and hills, taking really long difficult walks. There so much I have now that I didn't then. Smoking is an addiction. I know that now more than ever. And to stop, well, a force greater than my addiction had to come alive. 

    It did. And I have it to thank. I walked the walk but I was never as hopeless as I felt. Here's to another day, a new year to grow more smobriety. 

The Emergency Room Doc who changed my mind

    In 2004, early winter I was coughing up so much junk that I started to gag, almost choke. After putting up with that for a few days, I went to my local hospital's emergency room.

    Seated on an exam bed, anxious about seeing the Doc, I waited for a good while. Sterile exam room. Polka dot gown. I read anything on the wall, whatever it said. No magazines. Just equipment. A chair. A bed. I stared at the walls, considered the ceiling. Wondered if I had pneumonia, wondered if that meant antibiotics. Time passed.

    When the doctor came in, said hello, he asked what was going on. I said lots of junk coming up from my lungs. 

    Do you smoke?

    Yes.

    I could tell you were a smoker just by looking at you. Your face shows it.

    I cringed inside,but held a say-nothing-face on the outside.

    He took his stethoscope, went around to my backside and set the scope to my back. Placed it high--breath. Listened for some time. Moved it all about, repeating the same command.

    Do you hear that?

    Hear what?

    Your lungs. If you do not stop smoking you are going to end up with emphysema. He said this firmly--no anger--he just said it so that I'd hear what he was saying.

     I'm surprised you don't use an inhaler. 

     He said that I had some kind of pneumonia and that he would write a prescription, recommended that I get an inhaler.

     Back then I was pretty good about ignoring the reality of my smoking, but this doctor's approach made me pay attention.

     I went home and thought about his long term diagnosis--I suppose that is what it was. It stayed with me. Even though it took me nine and a half years to quit, I never forgot. From then on, I controlled my smoking by counting what I smoked each day, writing it down. I smoked a third less right away. Of course quitting then would have been best. Still, in 2013, when I was finally was willing to stop, his clear and uncut treatment was a part of my quit. Everyone knows that emphysema bargains with no one. That stab of truth hung out in my mind, sometimes in front, sometimes in back reminding me that I don't have the control I think I do when I smoke.

     I don't know who he was, but I remember what he said. Now, six years, seven months smober, I still remember. 

     Thanks, Doc. Live long and kick butt. 

Today, tomorrow and the day after that

    The chance to quit smoking was around me every minute of everyday, but I smoked on and on and on. Some say they love smoking. Not me. It was an addiction of course, not love. It was dependency, not love.

     The day I quit in the fall of 2013 was the first step forward. I wondered how I'd ever see smoking any differently--how could it ever stop being everything to me.

     I had to quit first in order to find the answer to that question-- detaching and letting go happened over time because addiction doesn't let go just like that. All my senses were tuned to smoking each and every hour, every day when I was a smoker. I didn't feel seperate from smoking. That first day, that first step felt like betrayal. How could I separate? Why? That's addiction.

     There is no reasoning with addiction. It has to be faced, action taken, a plan made, help sought after--addiction has to be beaten down until it is beaten to nothing.    

     No one needs a particularly special reason to quit--they are all good reasons. Quitting is about facing the addiction today, tomorrow, the day after that until the delusion that smoking is necessary is destroyed.