By Nicole Wells
“We are killing ourselves. This is ridiculous, we have to quit. It’s time, Nicole, it’s time.”
“I know Christopher…I know…,” I replied.
My love affair with smoking had begun twelve years prior, the day some dink named Mike showed me how to inhale. Little did I know that this journey would involve palm-sized Band-Aids, Wellbutrin, swizzle sticks, and parentheses.
The Setup. Christopher and I had made the pact. We were quitting. Come on, we were in our thirties. Who did we think we were kidding? Smoking in your twenties is charming, but after that you’re just an addict, right? It didn't matter that I lived in New York and he in LA; we would help each other through the ordeal of nicotine withdrawal. The first thing we agreed to do was to make appointments with our doctors to discuss quitting.
We weren't quitting yet, just discussing it. This was a crucial distinction because, whenever I seriously thought about quitting, my armpits would tingle and my right hand would start searching for my pack of American Spirits. No, I would never actually be able to quit, but for Christopher's sake I would go through the motions. He called me after making his appointment, and we nervously conspired about how difficult it had been to pick up the phone. Ah, but step one was complete and it felt good. We each smoked four cigarettes, inhaling deeply, as we chattered on about how great we were doing.
Doctor, Doctor. I actually went to the doctor’s appointment I had set up. Dr. Rapp’s spectacled face beamed when I confessed why I had made the appointment. She whipped out pamphlets and scrawled a prescription for Wellbutrin (“the Wellys”), the generic Zyban. This antidepressant had been clinically proven to help smokers quit by curbing anxiety or something. It could have been a placebo -- I didn’t care, I wanted it.
The majority of health insurance companies will pay for the Wellys because they’re prescribed to combat depression, but even though Zyban is exactly the same drug, most carriers won't cover it because it’s prescribed for “cigarette avoidance.” I found it strange that my carrier wouldn’t want to pay for me to quit, but evidently it takes the average person five to eight times to do it for good, so the insurance company didn't want to get burned each time I lit up. All the literature that I had read while preparing to quit affirmed this fact: rarely does a person quit on his or her first attempt. Thanks for the encouragement. Damn. Dr. Rapp assured me that combining the use of the nicotine patch and the Wellys seriously upped my chances of quitting successfully. She also told me not to feel bad if I started back up again because it was common for smokers to make at least three attempts. Again with the doubt! I'll show you, you statisticians!
I had to call Christopher. We had to set a quit date. You take the Wellys for one week prior to the date, so we needed to decide. We gave ourselves an extra week. It was terrifying -- we had set an actual date. I marked my calendar. I felt nauseated. In one week I would start the drugs. Instead of smoking, I’d slap a nicotine patch on my hip. Okay, yeah, sure I can do that. Where are my smokes?
Sing It. I told everyone I knew that I was quitting. Everyone. My boss, my friends, people I barely knew -- even the Starbucks’ girl. “I’m quitting smoking next week!” She stared at me blankly and shouted, “Iced Grande Americano!” I knew deep down she was rooting for me.
Move Your Ass. I had joined a gym two months earlier. Now was the time to use it. I met with my personal trainer, Power Lifter Dave, and he set me up with the same routine he put everyone else on. I’d be doing the Nautilus machines three times a week and the treadmill thirty minutes a day. Sure thing.
“Hey Dave, I’m quitting smoking next week!”
“Oh well, you better add more cardio so you don’t gain weight.” Another annoying stat: average weight gain for quitters is five to seven pounds. (No big deal, considering it would take a weight gain of seventy-five pounds for the obesity to be unhealthier than the nicotine.) Never one to be a statistic, I planned to go to the gym diligently and prove those pessimists wrong! Besides, I needed something to do with the all the extra time I would have to kill. Smoking wastes time. I would have way too much of it. The gym eventually became a safe haven. A place to take out my aggression. A place to sniff rancid body odor after I regained my sense of smell -- a benefit of quitting I would later discover. Yum.
The Wellys. I had never taken any sort of antidepressant before and wasn’t sure what to expect. I took my first pill. Nothing happens to you those first few hours. I smoked thirty cigarettes. Normally, I was a pack-a-day-girl, which is twenty. Hey, why taper? Smoke like a fiend until the very end, yeah. One of the side effects of the Wellys was listed as “uncontrollable anger.” That made me laugh. Uncontrollably.
Quit Aids. I bought three boxes of Flava Ice (you know, the frozen flavored water in a tube), ten packs of gum (Wrigley’s variety pack), Caramel Tastations (a hard candy), and Altoids. Later I would discover that swizzle sticks were a tasty, calorie-free treat. I chewed over three hundred of those little suckers during the first three months I was off cigarettes. Whenever I was in a bar, I would snatch handfuls of them. I preferred the red straw with the white stripe.
I also bought the 21mg version of the generic nicotine patch. Some people have reported vivid dreams while wearing the patch overnight--sounded like fun. It was empowering to be surrounded by prescription drugs, gum, and oversized bandages laced with nicotine. Hey, maybe this wouldn’t be so difficult after all.
Waxing Nostalgic. Christopher and I were still smoking at the same rate of twenty or more a day and scared, scared, scared. Honestly, it was terrifying to embark on “the quit.” I thought I might die. I was despondent. My relationship with my American Spirit pals would be forever altered -- I was going to miss those guys. I would never be able to enjoy a guilt-free cigarette again because each drag would remind me of my failure to keep my promise to myself and to Christopher. I had forever given up the joy of smoking. It sucked.
Bye-Bye, Butts. I unceremoniously expunged my last butt the evening of May 15, 2001. I didn't want to celebrate the moment -- it just was the last one. No big deal. Shwoo. It was over. I went to bed immediately afterwards. On May 16, 2001, I woke up, took a shower and pasted a patch on my upper arm. I honestly don’t remember the first day. I was high on patch. Everything moved in slow motion. If I craved a smoke, I would rub my patch. Yeah, get that nicotine surging through the pores. I chewed three sticks of gum at a time and unconsciously reached for phantom cigarettes. My hands were aching for that familiar stick, the ritual that I performed twenty times a day. Let’s see, approximately seventeen drags per cigarette, so that’s 340 times a day I brought my hand to my mouth.
My boyfriend offered me something else to put between my lips, then revoked the overture when I asked,“ Can I light it on fire?” The smell of the match being lit. Ahhhh, I missed that. I read somewhere that this one guy quelled the cravings by lighting a match when the urge struck. Hey, whatever works.
The Q. I discovered quitnet.com (the “Q”) in my third cigarette-less week. The Q is an online community of quitters. There I found new quitters who were just as nicotine-crazy as I was. Christopher and I were calling each other daily for check-ins, but it wasn't enough. I wanted to talk about what I was feeling all the time. While at work, I would sit in my dank basement office, moving paper from one stack to another, feeling bizarre, not myself. Thank God no one in my department smoked, although I missed my smokin' buds from upstairs horribly. It was a great social club -- around 11:30 we would meet out back for a toke and chat.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Gotta light?”
“Sure.”
“What’s going on?” Inhale.
“Oh, same old crap, I need a vacation.” Exhale.
“Yeah, I hear you.” Inhale.
“Did you hear that they might fire Sophia?”
“No! Why?”
“For being annoying.” Exhale.
Around 4:00 we'd meet again for the last one of the day.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Gotta light?”
“Always.” Inhale.
“Ahhhh, only one more hour…”
“Yeah.” Exhale.
“So is Marjorie still freaking out about you taking an extra vacation day?”
“God yes, I wish she’d get laid.” Now, instead of a smoke break, I would just sit and feel sorry for myself. Yep, that was the perfect solution.
Then along came the Q. At the Q I could log on and read posts from other desperate and lonely reformed inhalers. Every other post was either someone boasting about having made it through twenty-four hours without a smoke, or someone else pining, “I slipped! Now what?” There were people who had made it through one hundred consecutive days without a drag -- they called themselves Elders. One hundred days is a milestone on the Q; you have gone through the worst of it and have earned serious bragging rights.
Virtual parties were thrown. It was comforting to read these confessions and successes. I rarely posted, but was content to read and browse. There was one particular afternoon however, at around eight weeks smoke-free, when I started to weep incessantly. I couldn't stop myself. I had no reason to cry, but there I was: tears spurting, snot on my chin. I closed my office door and logged onto the Q. It was the first time I actually reached out to my fellow quitsters (Q lingo). I thrust myself out of lurkdom and posted in the chat room, "i...can't stop...crying...what is wrong with me?"
There were four immediate responses:
“How long you been quit?”
“Are you on Zyban?”
“Awwww,” and
“Hang in there.” Ben assured me that it would get better and advised me to ride the wave of tears and soon I’d feel good. As I hiccuped in agony, I received three more responses. These people, however, were writing my name with parentheses around it, like this: ((nickynick)) <nic> ((((((((Nicky))))))).
“Uh, what do the parentheses mean?” I typed, with damp fingers.
Colleen responded simply, "They’re arms around you silly, it’s a cyber-hug."
Normally, I would find such a thing repugnant; but in the midst of my smoke-free meltdown, it was the sweetest thing. I continued to weep for about an hour. I rode the wave. Ben was right. Those parentheses helped.
Lucid Dreams. I lit up, and took a nice long drag. It was one of those perfect cigarettes, like after a meal… Wait. What had I done? Noooooo! I stamped it out. I couldn’t even enjoy a cigarette in my sleep.
Christopher Cracks. He smoked. For real.
“What!? Oh, no. It's okay, don't feel bad, it takes most people five to six attempts,” I quipped. “Just get back on track, one cigarette doesn't need to derail you.”
He had smoked more than one. This was at our three-month mark. I was moving on to Elderhood; he was back to Newbieland. I felt awful.
“Don’t make the same mistake I did, Nicole,” Christopher advised, his voice shaking.
“Keep trying, Sweetie, next time you’ll stick it.” I put down the phone and began to cry. Did this mean I was doomed too? I didn’t want to smoke. I was starting to feel good. I could breathe deeply. I wasn't going to throw away twelve weeks of agony. No, I would strengthen my resolve and stick to my patch. At that point I was on the 7 mg dose, which is about the size of a quarter. I alternated between wearing one on my hip or on my upper arm. I dried my tears. Just a short wave.
On My Own. Everyone told me that tapering off the Wellys was “a snap.” Great. I was ready to test my resolve. The patches were easy to dispose of; I had done that two weeks earlier and was anxious to be fully free of all quit aids. So, the abatement had begun -- by the end of the week I would be drug-free. Great. On the third day of my taper, I missed the bus and chased after it, flipping both my middle fingers wildly, screaming expletives like a two-year-old who had dropped her cookie. People stared. One woman gave me a particularly harsh look, and everything inside me wanted to tackle the sixty-five-year-old bitch in her little trench coat and pink shoes. Instead, I walked to work. Then I started to laugh maniacally. Oh, that's what they meant about uncontrollable anger.
Feeling Cocky. After four months with no cigarettes, I was fifteen pounds lighter and six hundred dollars richer. I had saved my cigarette money (still do) so that one day I could buy a self-affirming reward. I had beaten the odds. I had tossed the ashtray for good. No one could take it away from me.
Assessment. Two years later, still smoke-free, I spent my cigarette savings on a shiny new laptop. No more swizzle sticks, just a PowerBook G4 and a self-righteous attitude. Ha! I must admit that I put the fifteen pounds back on, but hey, I’m no fatter than before, so I can’t complain. Christopher is still smoking, but he kept up with the gym and has a rockin’ bod. Every so often I log onto the Q to encourage the newbies and post, “KTQ! (Keep the quit) If I can do it, anyone can. Hang in there, it’s worth it!” In Q-Speak I have achieved “Doctor of Quitology” status. I like that, “Dr. Wells.”
Someone asked me recently what keeps me from smoking now. Good question. It’s not the $7.50 a pack or the smoke-free bars. I took a moment to think and said, “Because smoking again would be like shitting on my soul.” If I truly want to spiral into a deep depression, I'll just smoke a cigarette. It’s gratifying to know I have that power at my disposal.
