The Other Smoke Monster

I smoke a lot of cigarettes. I won't get into how much I smoke other than it's a lot, significantly more than just about anyone else I know. It's a real fucking problem. Smoking is stupid for anyone to do,  but for me, a very large man with no health insurance, to engage in the activity, particularly to the extent I'm doing it, is downright retarded. I smoke the most when I'm drinking or driving (not drinking and driving - that's really stupid). Unfortunately I drive four nights a week, 10-12 hours a night. Those other three nights I go out drinking. So you might able to see the difficulty I have in kicking the shit.

Last April I tried to quit with the help of the patch, which does help. I still always wanted to smoke, but it quells the craving just enough so I don't feel I want to rip the hair out of my head or someone else's (usually), which is the point of the patch: if it got rid of the hunger completely people would stay on the patch forever, while worlds healthier (and cheaper) than tobacco, thus still fueling the addiction.

I also had to remember not to sleep with the patch on for if I forgot to take it off I would have some quite vivid messed-up dreams (and they were never pleasant). I recall, on more than one occasion,  waking up after an hour or two of falling asleep from a crazy, often horrifying, dream, and it would take me forever to fall back asleep, if at all.

I thought my attempt at quitting went fairly well. Sure, every month or so I would slip up for a day or two then go back to the quitting. I even went almost three months without a cigarette at all, three weeks of that without the help of the patch. I thought I had kicked that bitch to the curb for good, but then life happened, and I slipped, only this time I'm still smoking, becoming a human chimney ever since. That was about four months ago.

When I was in the Dirty South for Christmas, my plan was to quit. Nine days of not working, six days of little or no drinking. It was perfect, but I fucked up and didn't even try. Maybe I was mesmerized by the $5 per pack cost. Maybe I wasn't ready yet. I don't know.  I even bought a week's worth of patches while I was down there. I remember going to CVS to look for them and telling myself: "I'm in South Carolina. Flavor Country. The state probably has some stupid cessation tax so it's cheaper for people to keep smoking than to kick the habit." I was pleasantly surprised that the box of seven ran me $20 (I don't remember if that included tax). This was the same price as up here. So I had the patches and the prefect opportunity, and I screwed the proverbial pooch. The affordability was moot, for not once I slap one of those bad boys on my person.

I think why I had some success this past spring and summer is that I recruited someone to be what I describe as my drill sergeant, someone to keep on my case about it. She wasn't all that great at it: she didn't check up on me all that often, saying she trusted me. Despite that, it worked: I was quitting for me,  not for her, but the pride she had towards me for quitting, or at least trying, and me not wanting to disappoint her, was enough to keep me in check. If I slipped I told her (except for the one time she caught me smoking in my cab - my plan was to come clean once I got it out of my system).

I think I may need to enlist a drill sergeant again. In the past two or three months I have tried the patch again a few times, the non-smoking never lasting for more than a day or two. Perhaps I need someone to inspire and encourage me. A cessation muse.

Or maybe I just need a slave driver, someone to hound me and ride me into submission.