Quitting Smoking Cold-Turkey: My Journey to a Smoke-Free Life

Neither of my parents smoked. In fact, my mother always warned me of the dangers, reminding me that my maternal grandparents, both of whom died of cancer in their late 50s before I was born, were smokers. She made it plain that it was a disgusting, dangerous habit that would not be tolerated.

As a high-school teenager I was about as un-cool as could be, a boring nonconformist who kept to herself, and I never really considered smoking to be glamorous or appealing. I worked at the local movie theater, and going out to the fire escape to smoke was the thing to do during break. Several of my new friends smoked, and before long I took a puff off of a girl named Monica, "just to try it." I remember that day as if it were yesterday. She gave me an extra cigarette to take home, and while my parents and younger brother gathered in the kitchen for supper, I was in my bedroom, crouched by the open window, blowing the smoke of a Marlboro Medium out into the frosty Ohio night.

After that first cigarette, it became a habit but a controllable one. I smoked very little, mostly just at work. Although I was a young-looking sixteen I was able to buy cigarettes---by then my brand of choice being Marlboro Menthol Lights-at a drive-through liquor store in town. My parents knew; they smelled the vague residue of smoke in the house (I still smoked out the window occasionally) and saw the butts I tossed under the large spruce tree outside the front door. It drove them crazy. My mother wondered what she had done wrong in raising me, and my father simply thought I was a fool. I smoked in front of my fourteen-year-old brother up at the bus stop and I still remember the shake of his head and his look of disgust...one of many perceived "troubling" behaviors that would strain our relationship for years to come.

I remember remarking for years how interesting it was that I never became addicted...and then I remember exactly when I was addicted. I had quit for the three months between high school and college. I was busy: I had gotten a kitten, was newly engaged, and preparing to move to Boston. It wasn't an addiction; it was something I could take or leave.

On my first day at Boston University, it was evening when my parents left and homesickness hit. When my roommate, who had already been at school for two weeks due to ROTC training, invited me down to the lounge with all of her new friends, I lit up from the pack of cigarettes on the table and listened to everyone talk. From that night, that moment, there was no going back.

I can sum up the next ten years as any stereotypical smoker would. I smoked, every day, around a pack a day. I'd rush out to have a cigarette at regular intervals. I'd panic when I ran out. The relief upon buying a new pack was always so sweet I could taste it. I developed a ridiculous quirk of needing a flavored drink with every puff (I hated the taste; it should have given me a clue), so I was spending money on that in addition to the cigarettes. My husband smoked, as did my close friends, so I always had a smoking buddy and never had a conscience.

By age 25 I was divorced, living in Florida, and dating a nonsmoker. He was such a nonsmoker, in fact, that he made it clear I needed to quit at some point because he would not be able to deal with future health problems as a result of my habit. However, he was willing to let me take that step on my own time-no ultimatums or pressure. He was in love with me, and he was very non-confrontational, so he let me smoke in his car, his house, and later in my apartment that he moved into. I look back now, remember him sitting next to me on the couch while I exhaled away, not two feet away from him, and I cringe.

Six months later, when were talking about getting engaged, he asked me to agree to quitting smoking as a condition of getting the ring. I guess he thought bribery would work. I agreed, not because a diamond was that important to me, but because I loved him and truly wanted to make him happy. I also knew that smoking was unhealthy and costing me money that I then didn't have for other things, like lunch.

Part of me, though, didn't take him seriously. I figured that as long as I quit before we had a baby, which had been my deadline ever since I started smoking at sixteen, I'd be okay. I also figured that if he really loved me, he'd love me for who I was and wouldn't let little things like perpetual dragon breath and bits of ash all over the house and the possibility of early widowerhood stop him. And he gave in-I got the ring without quitting. I simply told him that quitting before the wedding was my new goal.

Things started going downhill from there. He wouldn't kiss me-in fact, I realized he hadn't really kissed me, a passionate lover's kiss any longer than a peck on the lips-almost since we started dating. His attitude toward me changed. He was quieter, less buoyantly happy in my presence. I felt it, and I really tried to quit. For the two days before our wedding in September of 2007 and for the rest of the week afterward, I was smoke-free. Eleven days, I made it. I've done it, I said to myself.

Then we returned to work (we both worked at UPS), and he and I were no longer spending 24 hours a day together. I crashed. I caved. I smoked. I felt guilty, and I felt terrible. Not only was I breaking a promise to my brand new husband; I was now hiding it from him and lying to him. But to another part of me, the relief I felt in lighting up was profound. I had known that in some ways I actually enjoyed to smoke, enjoyed it just as much as I hated it, in fact...but now I fell easily on the crutch of "addiction." I can't quit, I told myself. It's not really my fault. I tried, I did the best I could, and now I'm admitting to the truth. I'm a smoker and I'll quit someday...before I get pregnant.

Loren caught me, of course. He caught me once and I apologized and said that it was a lapse and it wouldn't happen again. A few months later, we were going through some severe growing pains in our young marriage, things that should have been resolved before we said "I do," and we almost didn't make it through. When our relationship emerged intact and things started to get better, I thought the worst was over and vowed to turn over a new leaf.

I did smoke again after that-and again and again. It became sort of a sick game: how much could I go about my normal, comforting smoker's life without Loren finding out? Needless to say, toothpaste and mouthwash became my best friends. I timed it by the clock: could I finish this cigarette before he came home? Before I saw him at work? I chewed more gum during this period of clandestine smoking than I ever had in my life. Could he hear me exhale if I smoked while we talked on the phone? It was awful and stressful and I felt terribly guilty, but I'd justify the guilt under the umbrella of addiction and simply smoked some more to counter the stress.

It was a sunny day in late January of 2008 when we happened to be on adjoining routes and Loren showed up in the neighborhood where I was delivering packages. I hastily extinguished my cigarette, but upon my kiss of greeting he smelled the smoke immediately. At that moment, and then later at home, I had very rarely seen him so angry. He took my relapses as personal betrayals-not inasmuch that I smoked, but that I "lied" by continuing when I agreed to stop.

I put that in quotes because at the time I thought his reasoning ridiculous, but it turned out to be the key to my success at becoming quit. We had a fundamental miscommunication, one that started with me. When I said, "I will quit smoking," he understood that to mean 'Natasha will not smoke any more, ever, no matter what.' I, on the other hand, understood that to mean 'I will eventually quit smoking: it may or may not be today, and once the day arrives, I will only be TRYING to quit and hoping to succeed. If I don't succeed, I'll keep smoking until I decide to try again.' Hence him defining the above as a "lie" and me defining it as "doing the best I can."

Lacking such discipline and willpower as was possessed by other people in my life-such as Loren; such as my mother-it was not the first time that I needed a crisis of sorts to force a change in my behavior. I finally understood (although he didn't say so in so many words) that we would eventually divorce if things didn't change. It had started out being about the smoking, but it had become more about the lack of honesty and trust in our relationship. After that last blowup, I finally had to ask myself: "addiction" or not, was smoking more important than my marriage? Were cigarettes more precious than my husband? And was relaxing on the porch with a Marlboro at the end of a long day worth risking my health, my life? The answer to each of those questions was no. It had always been no; it had just never been so resoundingly, assuredly, do-something-about-it NO.

January 31^st, 2008, fell on a Thursday. I had smoked all of the cigarettes in my last pack the day before. During my last "attempt" to quit, I had thrown away my some dozen lighters and three or four ashtrays (I had been using matchbooks and old water bottles half-full, respectively) so I had no paraphernalia of which to dispose. I was driving a route that day, and it was very strange to not have a cigarette in my mouth and a drink as a chaser in the cup holder. But it was nice to have that day's $5 in my wallet instead of in the convenience store's cash register, and it was nice to be able to kiss my husband hello at the end of the workday with a clear conscience and fresh breath.

The first several days were extremely hard. I craved a cigarette. I daydreamed about a cigarette. I forcibly (mentally) had to stop myself from stopping at the 7-11. I did not, however, suffer the physical effects of withdrawal that I'd heard so much about: no headaches, no nausea, and no anxiety. I had minimal mood swings, from what I remember & from what people tell me. I wanted to smoke every day, every hour, every minute. There was no miracle cure-I just didn't do it. As the days turned into weeks, it became increasingly obvious that what was so often touted as "addiction" was no more than a habit. A habit contributed to by chemical dependency, sure-but a habit that was surprisingly easily broken. I began to see how Loren, with his iron will and steadfast stick-to-itiveness, had quit using drugs, cold turkey as I was doing, ten or more years before.

I did gain weight, but gradually. As I approached the six-month mark of smoke freedom, I realized I'd gained around 5 to 10 pounds. I have no advice on weight gain and quitting smoking-except to say that an extra few pounds is, to me, a small price to pay for becoming a nonsmoker. And it's an easy enough fix: I ate less and joined the gym, and the pounds came off.

I have now been a nonsmoker for over a year and a half. The rewards have been numerous, and have ranged from the tangible (a new bicycle from my husband, mom & mother-in-law, and close friends on my 1-year smoke-free anniversary) to the small and sweet (getting kisses, unreservedly again, from the love of my life now that I don't taste like an ashtray). I am able to go through the airport without leaving the secure area for a smoke break and having to come through the TSA checkpoint a second time. I am able to use a nonsmoking room at a hotel without wondering how I'll get through the night without lighting up. I can enjoy life's pleasures-a good dinner, a TV show, sex, a drive in the car-without smoking before, during, or (and) after.

I know full well, as most recovering addicts know, that I can never smoke again and still stay quit. I can't bum a cigarette at a bar or a party. I can't buy a pack "just to have around." I am just now able to be around secondhand smoke (not a good idea, I know) without getting a contact nicotine buzz. If I want to be an ex-smoker forever, I will NEED TO BE an ex-smoker FOREVER.

Even now, I occasionally wake up with dreams of smoking. I'll either be actively smoking in the dream, or I'll have the knowledge that I smoked, or Loren will have caught me again. In that dark room, on the heels of that dream, I'll look next to me in the bed and see him sleeping peacefully; I'll realize that my record is clean, that I'm still an ex-smoker; that I've saved my paycheck, my marriage, my character, and very probably my life...and I'll thank God that I have finally kicked butt.