Quitting Smoking (and Nicotine in General)

A Decade Plus of Nicotine

I smoked my first cigarette in the summer after eighth grade. Actually, it was a swisher sweet cigar shared among friends who weren't really friends. We smoked in the trees near a lake whose name I've since forgotten. There was a small pig pen nearby – I'm still not sure why. One of the kids – he had one of those double Southern names – blew smoke in a pig's face. It squealed. I wanted to do the same after inhaling deeply and discovering why people smoked – it was like riding a roller coaster, except my head, throat, and chest were soaring. How had I not known that this existed?

“Is it over?” I asked as pigs squealed and adolescents chuckled.

I was 13 going on 14 then. Now, I'm 24 going on 25, and my first addiction still isn't over. After that eighth grade summer, I started riding my bike along Tennessee back roads with my head down, looking for unfinished cigarettes thrown from car windows. For the sake of oral hygiene, I'd tear off the filters. The rain used to be my enemy, spoiler of my spoils. By 15, I'd found a way around the elements by combining rolling papers and ashtrays with my bike foraging. I'd get up at 3 in the morning twice a week and ride down foggy streets to check on a number of hotspots, sheltered ashtrays. Those terribly loose and lumpy rolled cigarettes with five plus charred tobacco blends made my mornings.

As high school progressed, I grew better at getting cashiers to sell me nicotine. Most of my cigarettes were smoked in trees or abandoned farmhouses along back roads (I still feel strange smoking around other people, like masturbating in public). Biking five if not ten miles a day made me a faster high school cross country/track runner, and I took a perverse pride in my conflicting habits. I had a shot at state for the 800m, so I decided to stop smoking – I started dipping instead. This alternating pattern would continue for the next eight years.

I'm a flexible nicotine addict. When my chest and throat started to hurt from smoking, I'd switch to chewing tobacco. When sections of my gums started to recede, I'd switch to the other side (my favorite brand was Grizzly Wintergreen – it's a complete myth that dip contains fiberglass, but the way this one cut up my lip made me a temporary believer). Dipping was certainly a nastier, less romantic habit than smoking, but I thought that I'd stumbled onto something. I could just switch my nicotine delivery modes to minimize any unpleasant effects...

This kept up through college. I ran cross country and track for a little over a year and was humbled. The coach was a tough love kind of guy whose vans left at 6 AM sharp. Those vans would deposit us on mountain trails, and we'd run at least eight steep miles. I hadn't become any slower, but I was now somehow a third class runner and foolishly searched for ways to differentiate myself. How about a more reckless, carefree lifestyle? I started rolling my own cigarettes again and hacking up my lungs during every morning practice (Bali Shag blue was my brand – no other rollies can compare with that fine, moist, hair-like tobacco). I blew out my left knee the summer after freshman year. Rather than try to hold on to my running habit, I let go to better embrace my other lifestyle.

I'm 23 in Chicago. I alternate between Bali Shag and Grizzly Wintergreen (pouches this time, since they're cleaner, less abrasive and easier to tuck into my upper lip where the gums are more intact). I work a few part-time jobs and pursue my creative writing degree, but mostly I drink six pints of Special Export a day and sometimes a bottle of wine also and sometimes another six pints and sometimes I still get that rollercoaster nicotine buzz. I also get these red spots on my calves, which I attribute to drinking too much beer. I switch to liquor (vodka and rum mixed drinks, but bourbon always on its own). The rash goes away. I also start chewing nicotine gum because alternating tobaccos no longer does the trick. I will minimize all unpleasant effects!

“Yes, it's definitely a tumor,” the doctor said. I hadn't known that it was possible to be shocked but not surprised. I was an older 23 and bouncing between Chicago and Tennessee. I kept drinking and chewing my nicotine gum. My condition was very curable; I was able to get a couple of surgeries and avoid chemotherapy. The second surgery was my choice over other treatment options. I made a decision chart trying to weigh all the benefits and risks, but I chose the surgery because I wanted it to make me brave.

I made loose plans to travel for a month afterward, although it would take six weeks to recover. I was scared and didn't know what else to do, so I got this bike a few days before the surgery and promised myself that I'd be riding it a month after being cut open. I chose the bike, a laid-back black-and-white cruiser that looked like a killer whale to me, with care. Honestly, it wasn't my style, too slow and noisy (the wheel hubs rattled) for my tastes, but that killer whale bike was there a month later to help me keep my promise.

Well, this week I drank too much on Monday and misplaced my killer whale bike, so I decided to quit smoking (and nicotine in general) by mimicking the Fibonacci sequence.

The Great Big Fib (check on sequence vs. series)

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34.... see a pattern? Whether it's used to illustrate the growth of a bunny population, sunflower seed arrangements, or seashells, the sequence builds off itself. The next term is the sum of the two previous terms and there you have the Fibonacci sequence. Yes, it's beautiful and seen everywhere in life. However, there is a part that troubles me: those first two terms, 0 and 1. If you extend that sequence back, you'll find all zeroes: ….0, 0, 0, 0, 1.... The pattern holds (0 + 0 = 0) until you get to that first 1. It makes no sense! How can 0 + 0 = 1? How can so much nothing accumulate into something?

The irony is I recently picked smoking back up to wean myself off of nicotine gum. I was never serious about quitting, and the gum had less silly side effects than tobacco. I calculated that, at my gum chewing peak (no brand compares to CVS uncoated original flavor brand!), I was consuming a nicotine equivalent of about 1-3 packs of cigarettes a day (assuming that an average cigarette delivers 1-3mg with 20 per pack and comparing this to 15 pieces of 4mg nicotine gum chewed).

I decided to cross that great-big-fib-0-1 divide by smoking myself back to that first eighth grade summer cigarette. 8 + 5 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 20, or one pack of cigarettes. I bought a single pack on Tuesday after a sloppy Monday night so that I could taper down over the next six days.

My Strangely Rough Week

I decided to go to Film and a 40 night at the Eastern to celebrate having just payed the government about a month's paycheck in taxes. I rode my killer whale recovery bike there that night because, as mentioned in last week's post, the left pedal shaft broke free from my other bike. They were showing Back to the Future at 8 followed by Death Becomes Her (by the same director). 40s were only $3, so I drank 4 or 5 of them (my final bill was $16, but I can't remember how much of a tip I left). The movies were over, but the night was still young. Carefree, reckless, smoking but still cigarette-hungry, I decided to go next door to the White Horse for bourbon to get some fire in my belly.

My next moment of clarity came while trying to climb down a chain-link fence. I'd made it over the top but must have been trying to scale it like an insect because my head was pointed toward the earth. Once I realized that this wasn't possible, I slipped and fell. My forearms followed by my face verified the surface was soft grass. My glasses weren't on my face, so I combed the long grass for them. Nothing – no glasses, no idea where I was. A squat building nearby, a dugout, a baseball field... what? I blacked out again.

My mind and body returned to me in my apartment kitchen. I was frying frozen pork chops and boiling pasta. My shirt was missing all its buttons except for the top two. It was past 5 in the morning. I still had my cell phone and wallet, but, in addition to my glasses, my cigarettes and killer whale cruiser bike were gone.

My unbreakable quitting smoking (and nicotine in general) vow by mimicking the Fibonacci sequence began early Tuesday afternoon. I bought a pack of cigarettes and a giant blue Powerade from the Stop-N-Save next to my apartment. I started walking, looking for tall fences. This was not easy: nearby Montopolis park has about a dozen baseball fields surrounded by fences, and there are plenty of baseball fields/fences near the lake trail on the other side of the river. I shuffled around for a few hours in the heat scouring fence grass for my glasses. My search took me back to the Eastern, where I started looking for my killer whale bike, having given up on my glasses. I couldn't find the bike either.

From Tuesday to Friday, I walked everywhere, rationed my Fibonacci cigarettes, and tried to lose myself in work. After an unexpected text, I began to dwell on past romantic disappointments and failures. I hate it when people each excruciating detail of their relationship troubles lists, so I'm just going to say that my foolish impatience had turned to desperation by then to set the stage for Friday.

Friday the 20^th started out fine. I was in more forgiving clutches than those of my Monday mistress. My cigarette rationing was going as planned. I smoked a third of my second cigarette before stubbing it out for later and decided to go out for dinner. As I walked down Burton Drive past Emo's East (a music venue), I caught the eye of this tall white guy with tattoos on his face. He was standing at the edge of Emo's parking lot next to the sidewalk and absentmindedly holding a flip top cell phone to his left ear. I nodded and smiled. He took it as cue to walk alongside of me.

“You got a cigarette?” he asked, looking down on me with unblinking eyes.

“No, not on me, sorry,” I said as he kept walking with me.

“How about a dollar?”

“I don't have a dollar.”

“What about 50 cents?”

“Dude, I have no cash. I'm just out trying to get dinner.”

“I'll walk with you then. You could buy me a beer.” We'd gone about 100 feet and were near a liquor store. I stopped and turned to face him. He kept staring, and I wondered if he had no eyelids like a snake. I took in some of his facial tattoos: tribal spirals whorled across his jaw, dotted crescents climbed his cheekbones, and two red blades or badly drawn lightning bolts stood in for his eyebrows, which had been shaved just like his head. I went from apprehensive to intimidated.

“Listen, I'm just not in a kind mood,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don't care.”

“You don't care about what?”

“I just don't give a shit.”

“About what. What. What. You can say it man.”

“I don't give a shit about you,” I said. He nodded as if I'd affirmed his suspicions. I felt bad but started to turn away all the same. His right bicep and forearm flashed into view, but I didn't see the fist that connected with my lip. He leaned back and did a little shuffle dance in the liquor store parking lot. Thoughts zoomed past in the second that I decided I whether or not to hit him:

*You didn't get hit very hard

*You're tired, hungry and mellow – fighting will take a lot of effort

*He's bigger, meaner, and crazier than you are

*From the tattoos, he has no qualms about fucking up his face, so what will he do to yours if you lose?

I shook my head, backed up a few more steps, and walked away when he didn't try to come closer. I knew it was smart, sensible, but I felt instant, intense shame. At thought that hadn't flashed by in that decisive second sauntered into consciousness: you're scared, paralyzed, too timid to ever stick up for yourself.

“Hey – don't call the Police,” the crazy man called out.

“I'm not going to – I am a peaceful man!” I said. He smirked and trotted through traffic to the other side of the street before being swallowed up by another parking lot. It hadn't even occurred to me to call the police, and I was too embarrassed to anyway. I walked to the Wendy's that sometimes lets me take my bike through their late night drive-thru and inspected my face in the bathroom. Nothing was swollen. My mouth was bleeding but the was only because I had a sharp tooth that cut my lip. For all intents and purposes, I was fine, except that I felt like a complete coward. I hadn't run away or called the police, but I'd been too scared to hit back. I left the bathroom and ordered a bunch of sandwiches off the value meal to go plus a small frosty for my lip.

When I came out of Wendy's and stepped on to the sidewalk, he was there. The man with the tattooed face stood in the center of Riverside road. He stood on the slightly elevated median scanning the sidewalks. He caught sight of me, waved, a ran in front of a few cars toward me. I stood and waited, wondering if I could work up the nerve to give back what I got. Well, I'd have to deal either way.

“Hey man, I felt bad about before,” he said. Like his punch, those words caught me off guard.

“What? What do you want?” I asked.

“You didn't call the police, right?” he asked. Oh, that was what he wanted.

“Nope,” I said and started walking again.

“I got kicked out of Emo's. I was angry,” he said, keeping pace.

“That's not my fault.”

“Hey! I said my bad. What, you're going tell me I didn't say my bad?”

“Are you trying to put me in a word trap so you can hit me in the face again?”

“You didn't call the police, right?”

“No. You just disrespected me. I can swallow my pride.”

“I appreciate it” he said and trotted back across the street. I wasn't sure if he didn't care about cars or just had really good timing, but I was a little impressed. He was already back near the spot where he'd punched me, asking other passerby for beer and cigarettes by time I waited for the walk signal and approached. I knew that would probably be my last chance to hit him. Instead, I clutched my frosty and burgers and glared at him while walking past. He stared back with his unreadable, unblinking snake eyes and gave me a slow, lazy salute.

I tried not to dwell, but I was still fuming that I hadn't stuck up for myself when I got home. I had no appetite for food. I smoked my last three cigarettes, Fibonacci sequence be damned. As I stared at the bloody filter of that last cigarette, feeling like much less than a man, I knew I needed a resolution. I left my apartment to track down and confront that guy, except I went armed with a few of my burgers from Wendy's. That sociopath had asked me for something earlier and show him that I wasn't scared. The sun had already set, and, without my glasses that I'd lost on Monday, I had to prowl around and squint at people in the distance. I walked up and down the sidewalk a few times, but, just like my glasses and killer whale recovery bike, he was gone.

Back at my apartment, I saw that I'd gotten a text from this girl that I'd been trying to meet in person for a while. The text said: “hey, want to just fuck?” Yes, I did! Except that night, after an entire demoralizing week, I wasn't sure if I'd even literally be up for it. We called, talked, and agreed to meet up after the bars closed. I tried to stop my mouth from bleeding and build up my confidence over the next few hours. It was close to 2 when I found out that she had just gotten rejected by some other guy and drank too much – a parting insult, some shit sprinkles for my crap cupcake.

My first nicotine craving hit on Saturday morning – I could walk a few hundred feet to the Stop-N-Save (not to be confused with the Shop-N-Save across the intersection) and pick up a pack of Natural American Spirits (that was the brand the I bought blacked out a few weeks ago, so I kept with it for the sake of continuity – warning: No Additives does not mean a Safer Cigarette). I could also buy an Olde English HG 800 (8% ABV) 40 and finish it first to make that first cigarette all the sweeter. Yeah, I'd just retrace my Fibonacci steps and cross that 0-1 divide next week. It'd been a rough week, and I deserved it.

Not out of breath but still gasping pacing my apartment wanting rollercoaster nicotine buzz somehow outside the Stop-N-Save now tasting blood biting my swollen lip for a moment of clarity. I know what it is to be defeated, humiliated without ever sticking up for myself. When did I allow myself to become downtrodden, crushed by the predictable machinations of everyday life? When did giving up become my first resort?

Not that Saturday.

I kept walking with no destination in mind. Maybe I'd find my glasses, bike, and self-respect waiting in a hidden baseball field.

It's now been almost a week without nicotine. It still doesn't make sense. I don't know how, but people cross that great-big-fib-0-1 divide every day.