My Last Cigarette

UPDATE: I have enrolled in a quit and win program at the U of M and part of that is I have to submit  urine sample before I start to quit. The first opportunity I have for this is October 3 so I need to keep my smoking levels the same until then. I am serious about quiting, but I want to do this program the way it is intended.

So this post is all about me. me, Me, ME. When I started this blog  the goal was to grow myself as a writer and an artist. It was meant to be a place where I can form my opinions as a writer and then hopefully have those those opinions scrutinized by the public. I never believed I had all of the answer to anything and I hoped to form a discussion around my opinions to grow as a writer and develop as an artist. That being said today's post is not about any of that. Today's post is my first step in my own personal therapy to hopefully break once and for all from the grip of Tobacco (which I have heard is more addictive than Heroin). Please bear with me.

Why I starting smoking

There is a long list of reasons of why I have started smoking. I think it will be good to truly list some of them off to work through how I fell into this unhealthy habit:

• I started smoking because I fell in love. I was in love with an amazing individual. I thought at the time she was the closest to a soul mate I will ever get. One of the many barriers that prevented us from being together was smoking. She was a smoker and I thought it was a nasty and unhealthy habit. Needless to say after the multiple dozens of times of joining her outside so she could smoke I finally joined her. One of the excuses I always gave myself of why I started was it was love that made me fall into smoking and it will be love that would get me out. 

• I started smoking for camaraderie. I love the smoking community. I thought it was amazing that I could go up to a complete stranger as ask to bum a cigarette and 9 times out of 10 they would give me a cigarette no questions asked. There were conversations and whole friendships I would not have if it wasn't for smoking. Of the smokers I have encountered in my life, they seems to be some of the most open, accepting and understanding people in my life. 

• The world is a very fucked up place. I am a very passionate individual who is very aware and focused on what is going on in the world. It bothers me that there are so many bad people in the world working to keep the masses down and oppressed. I look at my country and see the crumbling roads, an education system in shambles, a shrinking middle class, and   poverty more wide-spread in this country than it has been in decades. It drives me crazy that more of my peers don't seem to care. They are more interested and excited about Kate Middleton's tits or what a Kardashian is up to than the people dying in the streets. All of this  awareness and frustration with society got me into a place where I was insanely stressed out and depressed way too often. In the beginning cigarettes calmed my nerves. They were a way to cope and deal with the status quo. The deeper I got into smoking however the less chemical returns I got out of each cigarette. My self-medication wasn't working, but it became harder and harder to stop.

• The anti-smoking campaign significantly contributed to my continued unhealthy habit. Smoking has been wiped out of our media in this country. Only movie villains, Europeans, and Arabs are allowed to smoke in our country's media anymore. In Anti-smoking PSA's smokers are   portrayed as awful people who are rotting society. 

(Because smokers of the world are the walking dead...WTF?)

There is a specific story I want to share to illustrate this mentality shift in America. I was handing out flyers for a U of M show last year. I had been standing in the freezing cold for two hours with a bird beak and a protest sign.  After the cold, the humiliation, and the level rejection I had dealt with, with the hundreds of people ignoring my stump speech to "Come see the birds" I took a 3 minute break to smoke a cigarette. While I was doing that I had a lady come up and inform me that I was killing myself. A  complete stranger I didn't know just inform me that I was going to die because I was ignorant enough to take up such an unhealthy habit. Who was she to so openly and publicly judge my life habits? 

America has been beaten over the head in the school systems, in the media, and legislatively with how bad smoking is. Everyone is fully aware. In my year of smoking people who didn't like my unhealthy habit never asked why. Why did I chose to pump poison into my lungs? It was just assumed I was a bad person, ignorant, or hated myself. Smokers are people too.

Now that I have laid out some of the reasons I want to explain why I am quitting. 

• It's unhealthy. I have noticed physically things I used to be able to do that I can no longer do because I am short of breath. Not to mention the dirty six letter word (CANCER). 

• Its time consuming. If I added up all of the time and energy I have wasted going out to smoke, smoking, or going out of my way to buy my next pack it really is disgusting. I have a very busy life and every night there is a long list of things I wish I had time to do that I never get to. I was prioritizing nicotine over homework, friendships, reading, video games ect. As I get older and gain more responsibility I realize how little time we really have in this life and I don't want to waste it on a habit that kills.
• It is expensive. I went through roughly two packs a week. That is a lot of money, and I was never that heavy of a smoker. I can't even fathom the cost if I smoked a pack a day or two a day. 

• The chemistry wasn't working. I start smoking to escape and try to deal with the stress and depression in my life, but the more I smoked the less return I got. I found myself thinking more and more about when I would get my next fix instead of learning in class, attempting to write, or working on my acting. 

Now that I am attempting to climb out of this pit I have put myself in there are a few things I hope to never forget. I will never forget the judgement I felt from people because I smoked. I will never think less of a person because they smoke. If I end up in a position where I am with someone and they're smoking I will do my best to ask them WHY instead of preaching to them the same old song and dance they have heard their entire life. 

So this is my first step. It has been hard to come to this point. I have had all this pressure from friends, family, society, and significant others to quit. I am not doing this for them though. I am doing this for me and my health. That being said I will need help. I have tried to phase out of smoking before and it is so easy to fall back into this rut. I open the floodgates to your judgement now. Please if you see me smoking smack that shit out of my hand. Remind me of all of the reasons of why I quit. I want to be better than this and I plan on reading this brain dump every time I want to go and buy a pack of 'Mokies. 

That is pretty much it. I don't want to be celebrated for this decision just as I don't want to be looked down on for when I did smoke. This is entirely personal and I want people to view me as a person, not as a smoker or nonsmoker. 

Peace,

Will