Image Source: Tanay Mondal via Flickr Creative Commons

Addiction is very powerful. I started smoking 26 years ago, but didn’t become a regular smoker until about 18 years ago. The result: possibly black lungs, more wrinkles than I’m comfortable with and thousands and thousands of dollars less rich. But, according to my Smoke Free App, I’ve been nicotine free 6 months, 15 days and 7 hours. It also says I’ve saved $650.99. I should feel liberated — I’m no longer a slave to those little cylinders packed with cancer — but I regret putting them down.

I want one. I want many. I just want to smoke. I know it’s a disgusting habit. It makes your clothes stink, your breath smell and at the six minutes it takes to smoke a whole cigarette, it’s a giant time suck. And let’s not forget how not classy it is. I do not hold back on my judgement of smokers. That woman lighting up on the corner? Well, that’s just tacky. The guy who stepped out of the bar for a couple drags? It’s super lame that he’d rather slowly kill himself than have a meaningful conversation with his friends. But every time a passing smoker exhales, I turn and longingly breathe in his toxic fumes.

I envy non-smokers. They don’t know the pleasure of that six-minute-solitude when you need a break from work or people. It’s alone time to look forward to — like meditation only more fun. The beautiful part of smoking: you always have something to look forward to. There’s nothing like taking in a cloud of delight after disembarking from a five-hour flight and exhaling into freedom. Or closing out a Thanksgiving dinner with a non-caloric treat. And as long as I’m talking about family holidays: it provides an escape from those uncomfortable dramas that only crop up when too many people from the same bloodline are packed into the same room.

I know what cigarettes do to my body. They make it difficult to breathe when I run. They increase my chances of developing cancer and heart disease exponentially. They make my teeth yellow. They’ve probably aged me prematurely. But I still crave the comfort they offer when something bad happens — a breakup, a bad day at work or when things just don’t go my way. When my friend’s dad was dying of cancer, he and his siblings all picked up cigarettes to give them something to absorb the stress of impending despair. He jokes that cancer causes smoking. Since I quit smoking, I moved halfway across the country, moved twice within my destination city and hopelessly but humanely killed my cat — the center of my universe. Somehow I found ways around dispensing the extra negative energy by smoking. I survived. But I cannot help but think it all would have been easier with a dart or two.. Or an entire pack (preferably one after the other in quick succession).

Despite the two+ decades that I’ve been destroying my body, I was never a heavy smoker. I smoked exactly one cigarette before work, one after work and one before bed. To cancel out potential damage, I over-exercised, over-ate fruit and vegetables and limited fat and carbs. This, I was convinced, would stave off cancer a little bit longer than if I were sedentary and only ate greasy burgers and French fries. I had it figured out.

What I couldn’t figure out was how to get a good night’s sleep while continuing my dirty habit and drinking coffee. I did some A/B testing. I started by replacing regular coffee with decaf — I was ready to give up caffeine if I could keep the nicotine. Unfortunately, cutting out caffeine did little to guarantee a silent slumber; I had to give up cigarettes if I wanted to sleep, and sleep was what I wanted more than cigarettes.

Six months later, I still can’t sleep more than three hours at a time. So that means I should start smoking again, right? But the health positives are still there: my pulse rate and oxygen levels have returned to normal. Taste, smell and breathing have improved and my gums and teeth are those of a non-smoker. I still have a ways to go to reduce my risk of heart attack and lung cancer, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s an incentive. Do I really want to live that long? I have other health issues (back pain) that will only get worse over time and will make every day unpleasant to endure in 30 years. I don’t want to diminish how profoundly traumatic cancer and heart disease are, I’m just saying I’m going down no matter what; I want to experience as much joy as possible in the time I’m allotted. Right now, I feel like there’s something missing when I get off work or just before bed; I really looked forward to those moments: the period at the end of my day. Is it so wrong that smoking brings me joy and completes my day?

I have a friend who has a uniform. Not standard issue institutional garb; he just has a very basic outfit that consists of sneakers, jeans, a short sleeve shirt, and a down jacket. The pants and shirt change every day, but he’s almost never without the jacket. I’ve seen him once when he wasn’t wearing it (it tore) and he looked like a different person. I’ve asked him more times than I should have if he’s cold. He has a stock answer: “No; it’s just easier to stay warm than to get warm.”

The same idea can be applied to smoking. I’m not wired to be a social smoker; I’m all or nothing. And I know that if I picked up a cigarette, I’d start that exhausting “I need to quit” mantra all over again. I want to smoke, but I don’t want to be a smoker. The ideas have equal pull on my psyche. But I suppose longing for cigarettes is more palatable than struggling to give them up again. Indeed, it’s easier to stay smoke-free than it is to get smoke-free.