Cigarettes suck.

This may not win any awards for the most challenging or, um, original idea for a post, but I did promise a friend I'd write it. 

Ok, cigars, cigarettes, all these things, just plain no good.

It's so easy though as a smoker to get in the habit of trying to quit and failing, and then deciding quiting is impossible.  Well, that's just what they want you to think, isn't it?  Personally, I don't even think products like Nicorette and other nicotine supplements are around to help us... I mean, that's a bit like giving a crack addict intravenous cocaine to help them quit crack by telling them it's the habit of SMOKING crack they're addicted to.  No... it's the chemicals that hit the brain that's the problem, the method of ingestion is rather beside the point. 

Me, I quit cold turkey.  I just plain stopped. 

And this was after a few odd attempts at quiting, so I'm not trying to be holier-than-still-smoking-people.  I'm saying, once I understood something of the nature of things, I knew that the only way to stop smoking is to KNOW you can, and DO it.  I'm saying it's possible for anyone and everyone. 

Patches, gum... these things could not help me.  Only controlling my thoughts helped.  It actually wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be... it's like going into war with a bad habit.  In love and oneness, all such things are possible. 

I only smoked for a few years.  I was writing a book about an alcoholic, and figured it'd be impossible to write about addiction without doing something of a method-actor like trip into the thing I was writing about...  addiction.  Being that actually becoming an alcoholic both was not my style and would have pretty actively ruined my life, I decided to go a "safe" route and choose smoking, figuring (wrongly) I could quit immediately and easily.  (I'd bummed from friends in bars every once and a while, that sort of thing, but was not a smoker by any means when I started writing the novel)  The idea that I could quit immediately was a misunderstanding-- while I did quit, it was only after my worldview went through the looking glass, and I understood the power of my ability to garden my thoughts.  I quit by pulling out the "I NEED A CIGARETTE!!!!" thoughts like weeds... leaving room for flowers. 

So call it stupidity or dedication to my craft (historically I'm a starving novelist, by trade, but these are new days) that started me smoking: either label fit the decision to addict myself to tobacco.  Still, somehow I am glad I had that learning experience. 

And you know what makes quitting extra hard?  This idea one has as a smoker that smoking helps with stress.... which is utter buffalo dung!   And it sinks more quitting attempts than anything else, in my opinion.  'Cause when you try and quit, there's ALWAYS something that comes up, that if you allow a certain thought will derail you.  The thought is: "hell, I'm stressed now!  I need a cigarette!  (Insert reason for stress here) was messed up, I just need one cig to get me through the day." 

If one allows that thought, one will never quit smoking. 

If one never quits smoking, a rather nasty existence will most likely come...

That existence is cancer.  And cancer of the respiratory system at that.   (For a good idea what that looks like, check a book called "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," which is not about smoking perse, but has some pretty vivid descriptions of what happens; tragic descriptions, true ones too)

Not a fun way to go. 

Quitting-- there are all different kinds of ways to do it.  Me, I just... stopped.  I told myself I was going to quit, and gave myself no options, and I quit. 

If you smoke, know that it's possible.  No matter how many times you tried and failed, it's possible.  None are important but the last one.  

...If you want to know about that novel I wrote while addicted, while for various reasons it's unpublished, I consider the book a success.  It was almost worth the stink of smoke, and the coughing, and the throat pain, etc etc. 

Ok, it was worth it totally.  I never would have woken up without "Sebastian Meets the Machine," my novel.  I'm grateful to the oneness of all for it...  I hope one day it gets shared with the world. 

<3

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