Overcoming a Legal Addiction

One third of my life was spent on consuming and feeding an addiction. One can really only speak of addiction, or understand addiction if they themselves have been an addict. I spent that eight years living my life around this addiction. Everyday I woke up in the morning and could not wait to get my first fix and after my next fix, this continued day after day. This repeated almost everyday for eight years. My drug of choice was nicotine, cigarettes. Just like any other addict, I relied and depended on my cigarettes for everything, really I did. I equated them in someway to every portion of my life. I needed one with my coffee in the morning, I needed one as soon as I was done with any meal, in the car, before work, after work, before class, after class, when i was having a bad day, a good day and almost any other time that my body required it or when I was bored and had nothing better to do. I was in love, with an intangible object that I couldn't live with out.

Cigarettes were my friend that I relied on when I was having a bad day. Biologically being prone to some mild bouts of the blues and some anxious tendencies, cigarettes were the perfect prescription. They were definitely a way of dealing with the hardships of life, even as an adolescent and as a young adult. Just like any other addict, I was able to escape whatever was troubling me and retreat to a place where I was accompanied by one reliable friend that never betrayed me and was always loyal, a cigarette.

The only positive thing about this addiction is that people are able to go about their everyday lives, with only minor judgment against their character. Cigarettes and other tobacco products don't destroy a person's lives like other drugs, but they really can make life a little harder, especially in the world that is becoming more and more health conscious.

I had tried to quit smoking cigarettes more times than I can count on both hands. Every time I tried it was the hardest thing that I had ever tried to do. The thought of living with out cigarettes consumes your life the minute you decide that its time to leave your best friend in the past and move on with your life. I would become extremely anxious and grumpy hours after my last cigarette, as my body tried to function minus the steady levels of nicotine in my blood. I was scared to quit for so many different reasons and on so many different levels.

The day I decided it was time to quit smoking was one in which I had lunch with my father, a long time cigar smoker. Although I don't think I quit for a couple weeks or even a month after this lunch, I knew it was time. He said something to me that has stayed with me every since. I can't remember where we were eating, but I know we were talking about my future in the health industry. At the time of our lunch, I had recently decided to incorporate Public Health into my degree at San Diego State University. And with that decision, I started to think about how hypocritical it would be for me to be an advocate for the health of the community as I smoked my heart away addicted to cigarettes, essentially committing myself to an array of health problems in the future. My father also said to me that at some point in the future it would be important to someone else that I not be a smoker, whether or not they ever knew me as a smoker. It made sense to me then, but makes that much more sense to me now.

I quit smoking cigarettes on August 14, 2007 and have just passed the six month mark, the longest I have ever gone. It has been surprisingly easy. I realize now what my father meant by the importance to someone else that I not smoke. I know things now that I was oblivious of when I smoked. I never realized how badly I smelled until I quit. Everything that I was associated with stunk like a dirty, stale ashtray: my clothes, my breath, and my car to name a few. Even with the application of a perfume or smelly lotion, the ashtray smell remains as a potent reminder of your disgusting habit. Smoking also puts a delay on every daily activity. As someone who was a heavy smoker, I needed my nicotine fix before I went out with my non smoking friends. I always thought I was imposing my addiction on their time, but I didn't care I had to have one. And it really came to occupy my time in all sorts of ways. I never had so much time on my hands until I quit.

With quitting, I had to find new ways to spend my time and try new routines to keep my mind from wandering back to the thought of cigarettes. I wore the patch which saved me from the dreadful withdrawal side effects, but that didn't take away from the psychological side of addiction. I had to develop new ways to cope with life, since I used cigarettes as a way to calm down from a stressful day or a way to relieve my anxious mind. I began counting the days that I had not smoked a cigarette and took one day at a time. I soon lost track of how many days it had been, which had to have meant that I was thinking about cigarettes less than before. Everyday became easier and soon I felt the benefits of being a "non-smoker". A term that I still have a hard time associating with myself, since so much of my life I reluctantly considered myself a "smoker". I can't say that I will never smoke again, but I can tell you that I am happier without them, something a year ago I never would have imagined.

An addiction to tobacco is just like any other addiction, except that it is legal and is more socially acceptable than other addictions. I think about cigarettes every day, and I don't think that may change anytime soon. Lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and stroke are all influenced by smoking cigarettes and an addiction to tobacco and are some of the most preventable diseases that we encounter today. It is a shame that most people live for today and not for the future, since it is the only thing we have.