Journal of an Ex-Smoker

Friday, February 12th

Tomorrow I re-start my life. Tomorrow I die inside. I say good bye to an old friend who was killing me, who defined my life in every respect. I wish so much this was unnecessary, that I could continue to enjoy the smooth cooling, relaxing inhale of smoke, that I could somehow jump this moment and emerge unscathed on the other side.

“You’re going to die” is how my doctor put it.

“If I’m scaring you, I’m glad. I’m scared for you, and I don’t want you dying on my watch.”

It didn’t take long, not much thinking, to recognize the words I’d always thought applied to everyone else, but which were now my sentence. My turn to make tough decisions, right away. No time to consider all the reasons I’d always given myself about how I’d do it one of these days… I knew it had to happen, but only somewhere in the future where - god knows how – it wouldn’t fall to me to make this decision about my own life, my own health.

I have two children, and a grandchild coming in the summer. And next to no life insurance, nothing to leave them at all if I were to die at my own hand, which is what this amounts to.

So it’s now. And NOW. No putting it off anymore. Time for me to step up, to admit I’ve been fooling myself all along. To stop using the excuse of all those friends I know in their seventies who’re happily smoking and tell me how they’ll die when it’s their time, and how their grandfathers died “of smoking-related illness” in their nineties, so how bad can it be anyway?

I believed them for a short while, because I wanted to, and I imagined myself living well into my eighties as a smoker. Sure, maybe a cough, but nothing worse than that. Until I didn’t believe them anymore. And then it was time. Who knows what caused the penny to drop – I have no idea. All I know is that suddenly, somehow, I knew I wasn’t going to be one of them, I wasn’t going to live forever and die happily even though I smoke. I was going to die. A heart attack if I’m lucky, emphysema if I’m not. Whatever method death takes, it wasn’t going to be pretty, or honorable.

Now I face the inevitable. Twenty-four hours from now I’ll be a non-smoker. I’m determined to do it. I have the patch, I’ve pressed my stubborn button, I’m exalted and thrilled to start my new life.

And I’m terrified. My neck and shoulders are tight to the point of agony. What if I fail? I made a point of telling everyone I know – even on Facebook – that I’m doing this. I want the pressure of my friends reminding me that I committed to this. I want no escape for me. I want to be held accountable.

But I’m frightened, and worried that I can’t live up to the standards I set myself. I’m nowhere near as strong as I pretend to be, and even though I’m certain this is what I want and need to do, I’m scared that I’ll fail and that all the people I’ve told will scorn me and laugh and tell me they KNEW I couldn’t do it.

Which makes me more determined to prove them wrong and more anxious because maybe they’re right…..

One more day. One more evening at the bar. Where I can walk outside and have a smoke with impunity. I can even joke about it – “I’m smoking while I can…” and I see the skepticism in their eyes. “You’ll be back, smoking like the rest of us…..”

How do I convince them now? Do I need to? If I drag myself above my own self-doubt, all I have to do is prove them wrong, and then probably they’ll owe me a beer!

For now, I try to keep my equanimity, an even keel. Meditate, breathe, remind myself that all I have to do is get through the next few minutes and the need will dissipate.

And keep in mind that this will pass, that this will give me more time in my day, fewer hangovers, a longer life – actually, screw that, just a better life – which could end in a fiery minute if a bus hits me.