Day Seven

Smoking is a love affair, a romantic relationship if you will. My cigarettes and I have lived together in perfect harmony for 24 years. I sometimes wonder if people, nonsmokers, are jealous of the strong, stable relationship that I have with my cigarettes. After all, it seems like everyone is always trying to break us up. 

I am single and I don’t have a boyfriend; therefore, smoking is the only romance present in my life. Cigarettes have never stood me up, have never argued with me, have seldom disappointed me. They are reliable. They make me feel good! They make me happy! 

Am I ever veering off course from the purpose of this book. I’m supposed to convince myself to quit, and all I can think of are reasons not to quit. But you see what I’m up against. You see why I love my cigarettes. Indeed, you can see why I take it as a personal affront when the government raises the price of my beloved tobacco sticks. People I do know—people I don’t know (politicians)—are constantly trying to tear us apart. They don’t understand our relationship. The best and longest lasting friendship I’ve ever had is the one that exists between my cigarettes and me. 

Cigarettes saved my life once. I was severely depressed, cigarette in hand, and contemplating suicide. Specifically, I was thinking about driving my car into a tree at a speed high enough to kill myself. Then I thought, “If I kill myself, I won’t get to have another cigarette.”  A perverse irony, I know, but absolutely true. 

Still coughing up phlegm on a regular basis. Every friendship has some negative aspects, I suppose. I can live with the cough—I’ve done so for many years now. 

Why do I want to quit smoking? Why do I want to quit smoking?!

Have you seen the movie Good Will Hunting? Robin Williams’ character, the psychiatrist, has a few lines that I wish I’d said first. Paraphrasing, the psychiatrist says to Will, “Some people are smokers, some are nonsmokers. Figure out which one you are and be that.” In other words, don’t bitch and whine and moan and complain that you smoke but want to quit. Especially when you already know you have no real desire to quit. Especially . . . when you’re me! Ouch. In an amazing display of flexibility, I just bit myself in the aaa . . . butt.