Confessions of a Cigarette Addict

 Addict. When we hear that word, we think the worst. An addict is a worn out man crawling through the streets, dirty and disheveled, seeking any means to feed his addiction. Only rescue organizations, a few friends--if any are left--police, emergency responders, and the undertaker will deal with him from now on. That’s an example, yes, and one I grew up with because the schools told us that if we tried any drug, we would become addicts and that would be our future, It’s only one in a giant collection of examples. An addict is someone who has an addiction. An addiction to what? It can be anything. It certainly is often illicit drugs, but I’d venture that it is more normally and more generally to alcohol. Also cigarettes and other tobacco products. I was addicted to cigarettes so did that make me an addict? Yes. It made me an addict. I was then, from age about 15 to age 34 an addict, unable to stop. I did stop, several times, even up to a year one time, and then made the mistake of smoking one cigarette at a New Year’s party, and soon--I was bumming, then buying, one pack at a time, then a carton (10 packs at a time). And I hated myself for the weakness that was eating me up. One time I had quit for six months and my then wife made such an earth shattering announcement that I went for a walk, and picked up a pack of Winstons (a more healthy cigarette than the strong Camels I had smoked when I was younger). She and I got through that, but it took me six months to stop that time. Something was happening though. The periods of smoking were getting shorter and the times not smoking were getting longer between lapses. I fell off of the wagon. We used to say that. And what happens when you fall off of the wagon? The wagon keeps on going---without me--without you. What’s on the wagon? Life. On the wagon are our friends, mother and father, children, brothers and sisters (I don’t like to say siblings because it’s impersonal), job, career, clean smelling clothes, clean air to breath. Also on the wagon are the grandchildren we may never get to see. The grandchildren that we will teach to be addicts may also be there, but don’t worry because they will soon join you as they fall off of the wagon in their turn. What’s not on the wagon along with you? Smoke filled clothing, hacking coughs, green or yellow mucus that we cough up and spit out first thing of the morning, COPD, lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer. Don’t worry though, because a cigarette will help you get past that, and you can’t have your first cup of coffee without the cigarette. I’ve known men who woke up and had the first cigarette of the day before they were even out of the bedroom. Oh wait, I’ve done that, too. It’s 46 years--yep, quit January 1, 1977-- since I smoked that last cigarette and I no longer have any urge to smoke one. But I’m so allergic to them that just brief exposure to cigarette smoke causes my nasal passages to close, and I can’t breathe. Some perfumes do that to me also, but the cigarette smoke exposure is more common. It’s more common because the addicts walk out of Quiktrip and light up before their first step is fully out of the door l, and I am caught by it. I’ve been considering having a T-shirt printed with “I have a lung disease (second line), Please don’t smoke near me”. I do have a lung disease, and whether it was caused by cigarettes or not is debatable. My last boss at Phillips Petroleum Company told me at least once a week that “there is absolutely no statistical proof that smoking cigarettes contributes to lung cancer or death.” I grieved for him when his wife died. He was addicted, she was addicted, I was addicted, and my son was addicted. Cigarettes didn’t kill him, not all by themselves, but they weakened his already diabetically challenged body and assisted in his death. He used other drugs, and he was an addict. Diabetes killed him. Everything else just contributed to it. No one wants to be an addict. There is no award for it at Commencement. No parent ever introduces their son with “This is our son John and he’s an addict. We’re very proud of that.” Why do I write this nonsense? It’s because I haven’t been courageous enough in my life. Writing, especially revealing ourselves, revealing myself to a wide audience, and to wide criticism is a desperate act in an attempt to do something courageous. When I was eighteen, I believed I could change the world. No, I didn’t, but we’re supposed to say that because we are older and we want the world to believe we had our best intentions toward it. I am 78, for a little while still, and I don’t know how much longer I will be here but if through deliberately frank and sometimes painful writing I can change one person, then I will have done something good. The one I want to change is you, if you smoke, if you are thinking about trying it. What can one cigarette hurt? Before you light that first cigarette, you are already an addict. The first cigarette just confirms it.