Kicking Tobacco

Today's post is inspired by Sunny. 

I started smoking when I was 17.  I loved it and was up to a pack a day within a week.  We were not allowed to smoke in boot camp, but someone from my platoon got their hands on a pack and shared with me.  I hated how congested I was for the next couple of days, but loved the nicotine.  The habit stuck with me for over 35 years.

I did quit for a couple of years in my thirties, but {wife} 1.0 and I split up and I started smoking again, despite the fact that it was a horrible financial decision.  I couldn't make my mortgage payment without a roommate, but I somehow {afforded} smoking.

Over the years I've quit multiple times.  I tried cold turkey, Zyban, nicotine patches, gum, and hypnosis, but nothing stuck.  I followed the Uncle Buck program.  I went from cigarettes to dip to cigars.  The last several years I smoked Swisher Sweets.  And when I say I smoked them, I mean I inhaled.  It wasn't that deep inhale of a cigarette, but the smoke definitely hit my lungs.

To me, a nicotine fit felt like my lungs were hungry, and a cigarette always made me full.  I suspect that's part of why cigars worked.  Inhaling cigar smoke was like a punch in the lungs, and at the end, it was similar to eating a steak dinner, because I was satisfied for hours.  That allowed me to break the ritual of going out every hour or so for a smoke break.

I finally kicked the habit a couple of years ago.  I'm thinking it's been three or four years, but I don't recall exactly when I quit.  I know it was in May sometime.  I could look it up, but it's not that important to me.  Besides, I'm tobacco free, but I'm not nicotine free.  I still get my nicotine fix with lozenges.

Lozenges work for me because they mimic some of the sensory input a cigarette provides.  Smokers can no doubt relate to that slightly spicy, peppery not-quite-burning sensation in the palate, or that slightly pasty feeling that's not quite dry mouth that comes with and immediately after a smoke.  Lozenges leave a mouth feel that's similar to a cigarette, without the inconvenient shortness of breath and other health consequences.

What finally got me to quit?  I hit a fitness plateau.  I was one of those idiots who would go to the gym, and then fire up a cancer stick on the drive home.  One random day, I was dissatisfied with my run time, and understood that while it was partially due to the ravages of time, tobacco was the biggest blocker to my fitness goals.  I'd love to say that I spontaneously threw my pack out the window and never looked back, but that's not exactly what happened.  I looked into nicotine replacement therapy and decided to try the lozenges because that's one thing I hadn't tried.  I bought a box and switched when I killed the last cigar.

As I said earlier, I still do lozenges years later, even though it's designed to be a temporary solution.  From my perspective, it's a reasonable compromise.  I'd say I'm still semi-addicted to nicotine.  I occasionally go a couple of days without a lozenge and it doesn't impact my lifestyle.  I don't get nicotine fits.  However, I made a promise to myself that I will not use tobacco again, and I will not inhale my nicotine.

One other thing I'd like to note.  Every single time I {quit} smoking cigarettes, I would hack up phlegm for a solid week or two.  When I'd quit cigars, the coughing would only last a couple of days.  I'm not an expert, but I suspect this is because cigarettes have more chemicals, which to my understanding are specifically designed to deliver the nicotine to your system faster, and I believe these chemicals are missing from cigars.  I also suspect that I didn't inhale the cigar smoke as deeply, because it was so dense.  I'm not advocating that anyone switch from cigarettes to cigars, I'm just making an observation.  By the same token, I'm not standing on my soap box and telling anyone to quit.  I'm just telling a story.

{Note: Edited to fix a couple of typos I missed the first time around.}