I Was the Worst Smoker in the Entire World

I had chewed tobacco for two years and hadn't tried a cigarette. I didn't think I was hooked on Copenhagen or Skoal, I was just enjoying the effects nicotine has on my system. I had hollowed-out cheek pockets due to the strength of the tobacco. I played baseball. I was 12.

I'd go out on a limb and say I was the most addicted smoker out there in the world. I smoked a pipe with fresh-pressed pouches of cigarette tobacco. Normally, smoking pipe tobacco would not be exhaled, like a cigar; it is the rich, cultivated, and craftmanship taste you approve of, not the ingestion. I smoked my pipe like it was cigarettes - for thirty years! I smoked wine-tipped cigars, smoked my old butt ends, and lost teeth to chewing tobacco. I was the worst smoker in the world - because no one could smoke more than an insomniac writer who's smoking cigarettes in a pipe? My lungs look like the bottom of a dark well.

“I didn’t like having to explain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and looked at the sea.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

I persisted, never very far from a cigarette or my pipe. And therefore, I smoke more than many people are capable of, I don't have a job, and I chain-smoke. I have met THREE people in 20 years smoking pipes. None of them were doing as I was.

The pipe was never eccentric since I'd been doing it since I was 17, demystifying any out-of-character assumptions. It’s been bloody well me for 40 years, it’s my rock. I wear a cowboy hat when I want. (So I'm the guy in the rain with the fedora and the pipe. I don't care if I look pretentious, casual, or self-righteous, I wear what I wear because I want to wear it.)

I enjoy the heat at the back of the throat and all the chemicals they've added to make it taste genuine. I don't get the same hit from a vape, sad to say; I just enjoy that punch of nicotine pretty much 24/7.

I don't know why the burning of weeds and inhaling them through some device ultimately deposit said smoke into your lungs. I don't understand it. In fact, I'm amazed you don't get cancer after smoking 4-5 packs of cigarettes. So, dying by smoking is a very long process.

A pack of 20 cigarettes was $1.95 in 1985. Now they're $16. But price never deterred me. It just made me crankier.

“I quit smoking in December. I’m really depressed about it. I love smoking, I love fire, I miss lighting cigarettes. I like the whole thing about it, to me it turns into the artist’s life, and now people like Bloomberg have made animals out of smokers, and they think that if they stop smoking everyone will live forever.”
― David Lynch

ADDICTION "BLUE"

I have had insomnia since I was five. I've battled sleep all my life. Alcohol was frequent. Then I discovered Zopliclone, a sleep medication. That's all it's good for, is sleep as per the Doctor. I was mesmerized by these pills. They worked. But they were a different game altogether. It's like they were four-dimensional. And tasted blue for some reason. That's the color of the pill. It's unique. They really tasted like science.

It had a really bitter taste, and many people online hate taking them. I love them. I crunch them up in my mouth. The daily federal allowance was two blue pills before bed. 2x 7.5. At some point in my addiction, when taking too much left me wide awake at the end of weeks, awaiting my next medication, I'd detox and shake from not having zopiclone. Clearly, this had to stop. I was an automaton. I was anxious as hell and just interfacing with a losing life. I needed heavy drugs.

Finally, I looked online and found one place in Canada and 961 outlets in India. I ordered from both and the excess, illicit, Zopiclone found its way to my doorstep. Canada Customs caught the other. I was risking $3/pill here so it was quite an adventure. But when I had them, I was comforted. Having a drawer of sleeping medication made me tear up. It meant lots of sleep for lots of time.

I don't sleep otherwise and I've gotten crazed over staying awake for a week on end. I need something to help me sleep. And Zopiclone has been the only home run hitter. I don't usually sleep, at least not normally. I'll be up all night, usually at the computer when not medicated. I cannot sleep, and often lying down doesn't help with restfulness.

I suffer from anxiety. You cannot sleep when you're anxious so I have used Zopiclone not just as the jet-lag pill it was made for, but to calm my nerves. You can get anything for a) insomnia, b) anxiety,) chronic pain. There is no prescription that covers all, at least not to a local doctor with my best health in his hands. There is no magic bullet to address these common symptoms.

Finally, I told my doctor I was getting illicit drugs, and he encouraged me to stop them abruptly. Sadly, I can't give up the golden blue pills just like that, I can't flush them down the toilet or surrender them to my doctor. They are almost priceless.

Why do I smoke? The nostalgia is gone, the relaxation is gone, the coolness is gone, the break from the busy crowd, that moment to yourself, and the addiction is ever-present. I smoke because it's a bridge of time between two clouds of smoke. Honest, a cigarette is a unit of time. And what you do with that time while smoking is what you can do. Apparently, I've smoked my entire life through. It makes you think how I've spent that time.

I can go on a road trip and smoke 2-3 packs daily; I am always smoking. I resent it in a way that gives it some respect; smoking has been my best friend on a lonely night. It's been a friend when I have been out doing security in vast, lonely areas. Even all the accouterments and styles that go with a nice Cuban $100 cigar are lost on me. I blame my tongue for failure to discern, and my lungs for failing to inflate.

Smoking has been a driving companion, better than a hitchhiker with gas money! It's been an entrance to parties, it's been an entrance to bars, it's been an entrance to tables full of women. But those days are gone. Around the world, smoking is curtailed. You cannot smoke inside. You cannot smoke 7.5m or 25m from a sign stating these distances.

(Except for China, 1 in 3 cigarettes made is bound for China, where you could smoke in your hospital bed in the burn unit (where I ended up accidentally)! Yeah. Or the hallway or the stairwell. They didn't care.) But I'd rather have a pack of cigarettes than a package of sleeping pills.

Why did I smoke?

The nostalgia is gone, the relaxation is gone, the coolness is gone, the break from the busy crowd, that moment to yourself, and the addiction is ever-present. I smoked because it's a bridge of time between two clouds of smoke. Honest, a cigarette is a unit of time. And what you do with that time, while smoking, is what you can do.

I can go on a road trip and smoke 2-3 packs a day; I am always smoking. I resent it in a way that gives it some respect; smoking has been my best friend on a lonely night. It's been a friend when I have been out doing security in vast, lonely areas. Even all the accouterments and styles that go with a nice Cuban $100 cigar are lost on me. I blame my tongue for failure to discern, and my lungs for failing to inflate.

Why did I smoke - with all the positives in its usefulness gone? I'm addicted. It balances me, it gives me a short gasp of relaxation, and it gives me time to think about the length of the burn. And all those attributes are quick, too quick to enjoy. It's literally money up in smoke now. Therefore, I must quit.

UPDATE

Three months after quitting arbitrarily (the clock jumped to 00:00 July 1st, I thought I should quit), I haven't returned to smoking. Me, the impossible quitter!

I must say that although I quit smoking, I am still chewing tobacco, vaping, and using Nicorette Mist. The horrific dragon of stupid, forgivable sins, Nicotine, is obviously a whole other chess game.

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I Was the Worst Smoker in the Entire World - I Quit.

ADDICTION "BLUE"