old smokey
2003-07-01 : 11:46 a.m.

Thanks to the President�s bold tax-cut initiative to put more money into the pocket of every American, yesterday�s paycheck was fatter. By a whoppin� $2.75. That�s right, two dollars and seventy-five cents. Thanks, President Bush! You�re the working man�s friend!

Okay, so today is the first day of attempt #7,695,428 to quit smoking. I went and bought the patch yesterday. I slapped one on this morning, and I FEEL GREAT! AND I�M EATING A LOT OF CANDY! AND I�M GOING TO KILL YOU!

[deep breaths]

Okay, no killing. Not yet.

I�m really ambivalent about this whole quitting thing. Well, no. Let me qualify that. I�m not ambivalent about my basic decision to quit. I don�t particularly buy into the rhetoric from the anti-smoking culture machine, because, let�s face it�smoking is cool. Smoking is fun. I explain that to kids every chance I get. Nevertheless, smoking isn�t really fun for me anymore. I have been smoking for 13 years, and smoking a pack a day for almost 6. It�s the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. It�s the last thing I do before I go to sleep. My car stinks, my room stinks, my clothes stink. If I don�t smoke, I have cravings of unimaginable proportions.

My ambivalence is about the experience of quitting. I�ve struggled with the dynamics of addiction in the process of my recovery from alcoholism and cocaine addiction. I know how sneaky addiction is. I know how addictive behaviors permeate one�s entire life, and how you only notice that once you quit. I�ve been through all that, and I�m not really looking forward to dealing with it all again. Addiction is subtle, but with coke and alcohol, the stakes are also considerably higher. I�ve been to the bottom with both substances, and have a healthy fear of the substances as well as their associated places, behaviors, crowds, etc.

But how do you hit bottom with cigarettes? Get cancer? I think not. If I get cancer, I�m going to smoke like a mofo. I�ll be smoking through my tracheotomy tube.

But I'm hoping things don't turn out that way. I'm hoping to not hit 40 looking like a saddlebag and sounding like a truckstop waitress named "Marge".

I really hope this works�

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last 5 entries:
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because we can't have people DYING! - 2005-05-17
reality check - 2005-05-17
did you get that thing i sent ya? - 2005-05-17
liberals and their fancy "facts"... - 2005-04-26