Smoking

I've been smoking since I was about 12. I didn't have an easy time smoking. It made me dizzy and I had to fight to be OK with it. It's hard to be cool - and dizzy and pale. I had to work at it. Little by little I got better at it and then at some point I overcame all the physical roadblocks. I could smoke like a man. No coughing. No dizziness. So I continued to smoke for the next thirty some years. Still do. As I write this I'm thinking about having a smoke. Why?

When I woke up this morning I checked my "I want to smoke level". It wasn't any higher than when I went to sleep. Why? Do I have a physical addiction? I've had a couple of real physical addictions. Shortly after I started smoking I started drinking. Shortly after that, I selected the large family sampler off the drug menu. I found I just loved heroin. Drinking, doing heroin, I passed my time on earth.

One day, or a few years after one day, I could not physically continue to drink and use heroin and stay alive. I'm alive. I went through serious physical withdrawals. Not for the first time, but for the last time. At the end of my drug addiction days when I woke up I would be physically sick, or getting sick. That is if I actually went to sleep and wasn't simply in a long nod. For me to classify something as a physical addiction there has to be a physical withdrawal. "I don't feel good" is not a physical withdrawal. No one feels good after enough physical abuse. Alcohol and heroin both produce a physical addiction and alcohol withdrawals can even result in death. With my nicotine habit I wake up and I feel - what? Nothing.

I'm not sick. I don't need a drink or a fix to keep from suffering physical withdrawal pains. My symptoms, after not smoking for six hours were as follows: I wanted a cigarette. That's all. I want one now. That's why I call it the weird addiction. The total reward I'll get when I stand up in the next few seconds and have a smoke will be, for a minute, I won't be thinking, "I want a cigarette". That's it. That's all. I don't even enjoy it or think about it too much. My brain says, "I want a cigarette", then it says it again. It keeps repeating it until I get up, walk to the porch, light up, take five or six puffs, put it back in the big pot of sand and go back inside. Weird. I don't even smoke the whole thing. I smoke a third of it at a time.

I'm not a heavy smoker any more. Even when I was smoking a pack a day I was working and I'd light them, never take them from my mouth and spit them out when I noticed the filter start to burn. Pretty soon I'd hear the voice and stick another on my lip and light it. I really got nothing from it - there was nothing to get. Nicotine doesn't make anyone feel good. It's not that type of drug. So I'm going to quit. I've thought about quitting before - but not for any length of time. I think about quitting now because I'm getting to that point where I have introduced enough goop into my body that it feels depleted and sluggish. Also I think of the great things that have happened since I stopped my real addictions. I wonder if nicotine is doing more than making me want to smoke.

The part I don't like about "I'm quitting" is the "I want a cigarette voice". It seems inconsequential. But what are the symptoms of schizophrenia? The voice can drive you nuts. The voice - is awful. You'd think, with the amount of work I do on my brain and the amount of writing I do on the subject I'd have a plan. Nope. I have people call me and write me for help with addictions. They ask for help understanding the brain and I offer them what I've come to understand. I know it's just a voice. I know it's just my brain. I know I won't go clinically insane when I quit. I know that if have to listen to the voice say, "I want a cigarette", a thousand times a day, I'll be in better shape than I am now. You'd think I'd be anxious to get started. Nope. The voice sucks. It takes over. It hounds. Pesters. Grates. I get mad. I wanna smash it. I get annoyed, antsy, edgy and restless. But I don't have a single physical withdrawal symptom. Weird.

Well obviously I can't finish this story till I quit smoking. Wait a second - I'm getting a message. "I want a cigarette", well I don't, "I want a cigarette", I don't care if you want a cigarette, "I want a cigarette", it's not even a physical addiction you didn't say a thing all night, "I want a cigarette", it's a pointless, stupid addiction because the only, so called, benefit is a temporary respite from hearing you say I want a cigarette, "I want a cigarette". Wow...I gotta get out a here.