Thirty years go, January 14th, 1983, was the day of my rebirth. Not in religious context, but as a human being.
I am a recovering drug addict. Drug of choice: Nicotine. I smoked four packs a day for twenty-seven years. My addiction was so strong I took breaks from sleeping two or three times during the night to grab a fix. I even smoked in the shower, with a burning Pall Mall on the edge of the toilet tank.
It all started at age sixteen, to be cool with my friends. I was young and invincible. Nothing could hurt me. Little did I know how strong the addiciton would become.
My life was guided by the nicotine drug. Smoking came during or after every meal, every drink, every (you know). It was part of waking up, going to bed, driving, thinking, walking and talking and a necessary element of my wardrobe. I was a virtual slave to cigarettes. A relationship with a wonderful anti-smoking young woman ended because I couldn’t handle periods of time without cigarettes.
Morning cough fits raged, a daily regimen. My then wife would hear me gagging in the bathroom every morning until I could not breathe. My lungs suffered as the doctor finally warned I had early stages of emphysema. His quote, “Cancer is bad. But I’d rather treat a cancer patient any time than an emphysema patient.”
That was a wake up. It still took six more years to finally quit. Here’s how.
The thought of being cigarette-free was terrifying, like losing my right arm. Smoking was as much a part of me as eating and thinking. It was a psychological hurdle as well, having them a part of my life 24/7 for nearly three decades. But the physical addiction was more powerful than I had imagined.
First came the four-step filters, that failed. Then hypnotism. Another failure. I tried acupuncture into the outer ear. They made cigarettes taste bad, but the addiction prevailed. I obsessed on the next smoke, the next fix.
In truth, I was trying the easy way, using devices to do the quitting for me. I had to be mentally prepared to get through the awful cravings and withdrawals. I needed a determined mind-set. My life literally depended on it.
One Friday afternoon, I asked my doctor to drug me for the weekend. By the time I awakened on Sunday, I was already clean of cigarettes for two days, a head start. I asked my wife, friends and associates to bear with me while I went through mood swings and irritability. For months, I experienced concentration problems. While Still yearning for cigarettes, I knew life was better than death. After a few months, the mind-set finally prevailed.
That was thirty years ago. Today, I cannot tolerate the smell of smoke anywhere. It reminds me of gagging. I can smell it in people’s hair, their clothes, breath, even on the golf course.
We know so much more today than years past. Education and advertising has exposed the horrors and risks of smoking to people everywhere, a testament to the power of knowledge. That, plus the skyrocketing cost of cigarettes has created a significant reduction in smoking, down 30 percent just in the last decade.
Now if we could apply that same education to drugs and alcohol, we might have a safer and healthier society all around. Prevention is far less costly than treatment, health problems and death.
We are supposed to be the most intelligent life. How utterly stupid we humans are, sucking smoke into our lungs – on purpose.
I have been with friends, plus my own mother, who suffered long and hard before their deaths, directly attributed to cigarette smoke. It ain’t pretty.
Teens – pay attention. It will catch up to you, that’s a promise.
What a coincidence. I quit in 1982 after smoking 2 1/2 packs a day for over 30 years. I have now been off cigarettes for as many years as I smoked them. I didn’t have a lot of trouble giving them up; however, my wife had a really tough time. She had many failed attempts. We all use whatever crutch works for us. My wife gave up cigarettes as a 25th wedding anniversary present to me. It worked.
Now I can’t even stand the smell. I don’t even like to be in the same room with a smoker. Smokers don’t realize that they stink. The smell gets in their hair, the clothes, their lungs and on their breath. I use to say kissing a smoker was like licking an ashtray.
Congratulations on your 30th year.
Unfortunately, no one will accept a solution to a problem they don’t think they have. We are not ready until we are ready. Only when we make a mental and emotional decision does a change in behavior follow.
I too quit, but not until 1989. My brother died of cancer, I could not breath well but did cough nicely. My wife asked me to quit, I bummed for a while, then on my birthday in June of that year I gave myself a present. I quit.
I will never know whether it was the chemical I worked with in the janitorial business, or the cigarettes that have caused later in life COPD but I do have it, take an inhaler to help breath, and wish I could go back…I would do things differently. I too started too young, at 14 to be exact……….bad deal, stupid thought about being macho at that age.
Thanks Marshall for mentioning it.
Your story, Marshall has a wonderful ending. Oh that others could have the
same fortitude as you to get off nicotine.
What is so pathetic is that our government has passed laws for the legal use of
marijuana which has become stronger over the decades. It won’t be long until we are a nation of stoned dead heads….. what better way to keep the masses quiet.
Congratulations. My Turkish friend smoked 3 packs a day or more and also drank a bit. I told him that at one point his liver and lungs would give our and they did at age 63; very
sad as I had hoped we would spend our later years enjoying each others company.
I am currently in China and talk about smoking, wow. 80 percent of the men smoke and
there is not one second that you cannot see someone with a cigarette. I first came to
China in 2004 and at that time complained in restaurants about the smoking, saying, there should be a none smoking section; they scoffed. Slowly and surely
restaurants began to restrict smoking and now there are many that do not allow smoking. The irony is that tobacco is subsidized and taxed but as far as I know the government has made no effort to advertise the harm from smoking. People cough and
expectorate constantly (it was forbidden during the Olympics). Cancer of course is a huge problem here; it will take time.
Despite programs in the States I understand that every day 3000 young people start smoking. The price of cigarettes should reflect the cost to society of taking care of those
who will certainly get sick; I think Canada did that some years ago.
In any case good for you and be well.
Snake Hunter Sez,
Yep! I’ll be 88 yrs on Feb 11th, and started smoking at 12, cuz all the movie stars did it,
both male and female… and they all looked so cool… so hip!
Luckies, Camels, Chesterfield, Viceroy, Old Gold, Twenty Grand, Dominoes, Pall Mall, Phillip Morris, etc, all at 10 cents a pack… Wowee!!!
The wife and I were light-weights at a pack-a-day, and at four bucks a pack today. Hey,
that’s 20 cents per cigarette… we burnt up a lot of good money, but we quit one year ago… cuz I just couldn’t get past…shallow breathing at night, and that’s one helluva lousy feeling, kids… Not mature, not cool… just plain stupid… waking up scared, when ya can’t get your breath!!! – reb
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Congrats on the anniversary Marshall. It took a massive stroke to get my mom to quit a habit she started at age 16. So glad she was able to survive the stroke, but it did change her and she has to live with that. While I never smoked, I have never from day one been able to stand the stench of cigarette smoke. Both parents smoked constantly, and it was a chore to ride in the car with two smokers. Over the years, dated very few smokers, because like Donald said, kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.
Linda, in her comment above, is the reason I do not favor the legalization of marijuana. I understand your oppostion to the laws, but my reason is medical. We know pot is stronger and continues to get stronger, and the tar content is far far more concentrated than in tobacco. As we would like to see cigarettes go away forever, replacing them with pot is only perpetuating a medical disaster. We face the problems caused by tar coupled with a bunch of stoned out zoners. But what do we expect when our illustrious president brags about how he got stoned so much in H.S. that he barely remembers it, and this is regarded as cool…
For me it was the 5 1/2 word solution: “You’re having a myocardial infarction.” My last cigarette was at 12:15 PM December 12, 1989 in the parking garage of Course-Irving Memorial Hospital. I was trying to calm myself before seeing my doc because of the terrible pain in my back. Now, like you, the dude can no longer abide the smell of cigarette smoke.
Congratulations Marshall. I am happy for you and your loved ones. It affects them as well.
Last April my husband had a lung removed due to lung cancer. As we left the car to go to the surgery suite he smoked his last cigarette. He’s had a difficult time health wise since he also had emphysema from 50 some years of smoking. But, he is still here and able to enjoy the sunshine and looking at our horses and mending a fence now and then.
I wish evryone could quit before they suffer the consequences.
Marshall: I, too, was an addict, though not as bad as you. I started at 13 and at 28 was smoking 2-3 packs a day. I tried everything to quit. Then my 1 year old son stopped kissing me because I stank of cigarettes so bad. That did it! I’ve been clean now for 33+ years!!!
Thanks Marshall. Strokes are a wake up call too. We both heard that call loud and clear Jan 4, 2013. By process of elimination, not overweight, no diabeties, no other factors involved that would cause a stroke, four doctors advised it was the cigarettes. It is very unfortunate it took this to convince us, but we are now convinced and all cigarettes and ashtrays have been removed from our surroundings. Issues in our life that were so important a week ago are no longer significant. He survived and that is all that matters at this point. He is on his way to a full recovery. We are blessed and lucky. I hope we can get to a point where the smell of cigarettes make us sick.
Love and kisses.
Congratulations, Marshall. I quit a 2 pack a day habit in 1987. I had quit several times before for a few months, but in 1987, it took for good. I feel so much better and, yes, the smell of stale tobacco smoke does turn my stomach. I am so glad that we are smoke free!!
It’s wonderful to see so many ex smokers, each with his own story.
I started even younger than Marshall and smoked until the age of 43. At my age 40, my wife surprised me with a another child. Interesting, because our oldest was headed for college. As I watched the growing baby in his crib, and then walking and talking, it occcurred to me that there was a strong likelihood I would not live to see him turn 21. The Surgeon General’s report had been issued and the picture was not good for long term smokers like me.
Forty years ago, I took the pack out of my shirt pocket and put it on the dresser. A month later I took it off the dresser and threw it in the garbage can. I haven’t smoked since the big step.The biggest surprise was I didn’t miss it. My fingers would sometimes reach for the pocket but the body held true.
Forty years later I ponder what possessed me to ever start a known dirty unhealthy habit. Now, I find even the smell of second hand smoke to be odious.
Congratulations on your 30th re-birthday.
Well put Marshall. My father succumbed to emphyseme at age 59 in 1969.
A terrible way to go. After doing 2-3 packs of Camels for some 40 years he could not walk more than several feet without sitting down.
I did the cigar and pipe thing for some 25 years or more after getting rid of cigarettes in my 20′s. Who knows?
Thank God none of my kids or their spouses picked up the habit.
Thanks for the eye-opener..
Vince
Thanks Frank, i also quit after many years of smoking lucky strikes and pall mall. My wife however still at it. We have been talking about her quitting but the day seems to always be off in the near future, but never comes. I will have her read your post and all the comments here. Thanks and congratulations.
Thank God I never smoked and taught my boys to say Yuk! any time someone lit up.
This did lead to strange moments in public but what the hell, they are fine.
hahahaha
Happy Birthday old man.
And many more
Art
Congrats young man. You hung them up way before me. I have been cigarette free since 1989, but unlike you, I still like a faint whif of second hand smoke now and then, especially pipe smoke. Not enough to get me back in the “smoke pits” though. Smoldering cigarettes and butt-filled ashtrays are gag magnets for sure!!
The future looks good, I think, for a down-swing in youth smoking, as they are being anti-smoking educated at an earlier age. My 5 year-old greatgrandson is already preaching to smokers he encounters, but they, of course, will have to make that personal decision and commitment in their own time and in their own way, as all we former nicotine addicts did.
Happy 30th! I remember that weekend well and how out of it you were. But at least I knew there would be no more yellow tank top stains to wipe away and random carpet burn holes to cover, let alone the pervasive smoke cloud and film that coated everything external and internal. While our paths have flourished separately, I still applaud your tenacity to kick that powerful addiction. But you need to add a postscript about the caffeine withdrawals that soon followed. That sure was no picnic either.
Hi Marshall, I have the same sentiments as you about the foul odor of cigarette smoke.
I didn’t start smoking until I went off to college and was not only encourage by my dorm buddies but also the cigarette corporations that distributed the little sample packs with three or four cigarettes for free. To me that was the first drug dealer that this country had experienced. Now the modern day drug dealers do the same damn thing by giving their victims a taste or two or three or how ever many it takes to get them hooked. Then they cut off your supply and the victim needs to rob the nearest 7-11 for funds to buy the drugs. Sound familiar?
Hi Marshall again. I got so carried away that I forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
I’m glad you quit smoking. I’m grateful I never started.
I lost more members of my family to COPD, MI, CAD or lung cancer then I can count. None of the smokers reached their 70th birthday. The non-smokers are either still alive or they died after reaching their 85th birthday.
It truly is a horrible addiction. Congratulations and “Happy Rebirthday”.
I recall a guy named Marshall who performed a trick:
He would pick up someone’s pack of cigarettes, take one out and lay it across the edge of the top of the pack and bet the person a quarter that he could hit the end of the cigarette, make it flip up and land in his mouth. Next he would take his fist and crush the cigarette onto the whole pack of cigarettes, destroying the pack. He followed this by placing a quarter on the table and saying “I lost the bet.” Amazingly, none of the pack owners got angry enough to respond, they would just stand there looking dumbfounded.
Oh yea, the guy’s last name was Frank.
Snake Hunter Sez,
MARSHALL’S POST… once again points to an undeniable fact…
We Imperfect human beings are easily corruptable, that’s a fact. We can all be led to do inane things that are destructive, to mind and body; Expensive too… ’nuff said!
>>
* I would suggest that we focus our attention to another pernacious evil, even more deadly that tobacco, booze and illicit sex combined!
ISLAM is a 1400 yr old Death Cult..that has Oil Wealth to Invade Nations, to corrupt Academia and Political Systems in Europe & North America, and Build Mosques and Madrassa staffed with bi-lingual Imams… preaching Peace & Love… to goofy Infidels!
* Read our host’s book… ‘Militant Islam In America’… then read Andrew C. McCarthy’s
“Grand Jihad..and how the left..Sabotage America”…. then compare Barry H. Obama quote on Sept 08, 2012…
“I have always said that America Is At War with al Queda and its affiliates — and we will
will Never be at war with ISLAM”.
>>
Sorry Marshall, for being “Off-Topic”, most folks haven’t read “The Muslim Brotherhood
“Project” — (See Snake Hunter – Apr 17, 2012 ) or on the blog-o-sphere, for the depth of muslim penetration; the time is very short now. – reb
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EVERYONE HAS THEIR STORY ABOUT BEING ADDICTED TO CIGARETTES. I STARTED SMOKING AT 10 YEARS OF AGE AND WOULD CRAWL UNDER OUR HOUSE AND SMOKE OLD GOLDS. IT’S A WONDER I DIDN’T BURN THE HOUSE DOWN AND I FOUND THAT QUITTING SMOKE WAS EASY, HELL, I’VE DID IT SO MANY TIMES THERE WAS NOTHING TO IT. I SIMPLY COULD NOT QUIT AND HAVE THROWN MANY PACKS OF CIGARETTES OUT OF MY CAR WINDOW IN TOTAL DISGUST. I FINALLY FOUND A WAY TO QUIT AND IT WAS SO SIMPLE I COULDN’T GET OVER IT AND IT WAS SO EASY. I DECIDED TO SMOKE SOMETHING THAT I COULDN’T STAND TO CUT DOWN ON MY ADDICTION, SO I BOUGHT A PACK OF THOSE LITTLE CHEAP CIGARS THAT COME IN 20 IN A PACK JUST LIKE CIGARETTES. AS A MATTER OF FACT THEY WERE THE MARANO BRAND. I SMOKED THE FIRST ONE AND WHEN I INHALED I FOUND IT TOO DISTASTEFUL TO INHALE SO I MADE A POINT OF WHENEVER I WANTED A CIGARETTE, JUST LIGHT UP ONE OF THE STINKING LITTLE CIGARS AND SMOKE IT, BUT I JUST SIMPLY BLEW THE SMOKE OUT BECAUSE INHALING WAS OUT OF THE QUESTION. AFTER A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME I COMPLETELY LOST THE DESIRE TO SMOKE AND ONE LITTLE PACK WOULD LAST ME FOR A MONTH AND FINALLY I COMPLETELY STOP EVEN THINKING ABOUT CIGARETTES. I KNOW IT SOUNDS CRAZY AS HELL, BUT IF YOU CAN’T STOP SMOKING, JUST SMOKE THOSE LITTLE FILTHY SMELLING AND TASTING CIGARS, REST ASSURED, YOU’LL STOP……….
Yep… tobacco smoke is bad; what else is new? – reb
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Marshall,
Welcome to the club. Almost 40 years ago I also was a nicotine addict, about 3 packs per day. After several failed attempts to quit I was lucky and caught the flu. For about 4 to 6 weeks whenever I lit up I got a splitting head ache, almost like someone hit me in the head with a small hammer. By the time I recovered from the flu I had dried out enough to stay off the stuff. Darn best illness I ever had.
Now, like yourself I detest smoke. It’s even to the point when I see some really great looking sexy woman, and like any other “dirty old man” lust after her. That is until she takes out a cigarette and lights it when in my mind she immediately morphs into an ugly old hag.
There’s an old saying, “There’s no drunk like an ex drunk.”. I can add, “There’s no smoker like an ex smoker.”.
I applaud you for sharing your story. My smoking experience was in the dorms at college. The air in my room was gray from all the sociable smokers who made their contribution to the air quality.
My fiance hated the smell and taste of smoke on my lips. I gave it up for him. That was perhaps one of the positives of having been married to him! When we divorced after twenty years following our family tragedy of losing our youngest child, I often thought of returning to smoking. But I still had two sons to live for and to protect from second hand smoke and a crappy habit to expose them to.. How does one return to smoking for comfort when an innocent child who never smoked succumbed to Leukemia.? He never chose cancer.. The point I intended to make, was that the lure of smoking always lingers somewhere in my subconscious no matter how many decades later…(and I was a smoker for at most, three years) . .. Although it’s 47 years since I stopped, it still crosses my mind now and then. I am proud and happy for your 30 year Birthday, Marshall!
Let me join all of those who have congratulated you on an achievement that probably has permitted you to grow into the old geezer whom we all know and love. I began smoking at 15 or so. I was friendly with two older fellows whom I was trying to keep up with. They were terrible influences, the little one mostly.
I really didn’t enjoy cigarettes and took advantage of the excuse of the first Surgeon General’s report against smoking to quit. That was 49 years ago. I will forward this advice from the heart to my 36 year old cigarette smoking, meth addicted (5 years clean), and alcoholic (just out of rehab and going day by day, I pray) son. His friends still smoke and he feels that the booze is enough to relinquish at present. He knows who you are and what you were in my life so long ago. He knows that you are a Marine and a veteran cop, so you’re a tough guy, but one who can cry. I know that you won’t be enough right now to make him want to quit, but I can use you as one very powerful example.
Thanks for helping out and best wishes on your thirtieth re-birthday. I hope to still be arguing with you in twenty or thirty years. Go Squidgie!
Happy Belated Marshall!
Your health is your wealth. My addiction is chocolate chip cookies and Dr. Pepper.
I guess the key is moderation when it comes to the sweet tooth.
Again . . . congrats on your re-birth Marshall!!!