tl;dr: smoking cigarettes i sure hope you don't do that!

It has been seven hundred and thirty days since I quit smoking cigarettes. Two years and one week ago I would have said this task was unpossible, but that is before I got home from work and noticed a UPS box sitting in my door way
“I cannot fucking believe that I …?” I muttered as I facepalmed myself and began to pull at the cobwebs of the few memories of three nights prior. I remember being polite but stern with the operator making sure that she understood I had the Express 3 day shipment because that seemed really important at the time.
I had fallen victim to the P90X infomercial, drinking was involved when the decision was made. I am not trying to blame it on that I am 32 years old and I am old enough to take responsibility for my own actions. But please keep in my mind that I was still in my “early thirties” when this particular decision was made of course booze was involved.
I was invested in this p90x thing and I knew it. So the next night I slid the first DVD into the PS3 and a quiet fear rose over me. Tony Horton was about to make me his bitch, and I knew it. The warm up started as did the heavy breathing on my part.

The next fifty minutes included
“Some of the most awkward movements I have ever seen” Zara Graves “ I heard his hip pop on that last set of pull ups which is really weird cause that shouldn't’t happen” (age 4)

I obviously had not been taking care of my body, I smoked cigarettes by the cartons and drank Dr Pepper by the gallons ate everything as fried as possible because I was an asshole. I was being an asshole to my body. Now my body was a apparently just going to die, making me pay for years of abuse it had enough. I reached my limit with about 10 minutes left in the workout but still stood in front of the TV doing a variation of a standing push the final set.

I was laying in the fetal position next to the toilet when I heard Tony wrap up Shoulder and Back routine. I had the surround sound in my two bedroom house at 11 so his voice was like GODs and his mantra was simple “do your best and forget the rest” I vomited and cried quietly to myself, as best as I could.


I gathered myself enough to get a damp towel in the microwave so I could attempt (poorly) heat therapy on my chest and back. I took the towel and crashed on my bed and just laid there and thought about how bad this feeling sucked. I couldn’t move my arms to get the remote so I continued to lay there with my thoughts. How much damage was I doing to my body on a daily basis? Was smoking cigarettes really worth feeling this horrible? I always knew I shouldn’t smoke but something always got in the way of me making that final step to walk away from my dear friend nicotine. I had smoked almost every day of my adult life. It was a huge part of my daily routine. It was the first thing i did in the morning…it was the last thing I would do at night. It always came first and days that I couldn’t afford food and smokes guess which one got skipped? As an addict I justified a reason to keep going and start quitting tomorrow.

After an hour of silent "beside the wheezing" meditation I had gathered the will and my body had gathered the need for nicotine.
“Go smoke before you go to bed” I begged with myself and finally walked outside to smoke like I had every night for the previous decade. I fished the yellow pack of American Spirits out of my pants I started smoking American Spirit a year earlier because they had no additives therefore more healthy (shit smokers say). I had two left in the pack so I took one out lit it and inhaled just like I always had. I started to cough almost instantly and i flicked the rest into the yard and walked into the house and went to bed.
The next morning while at Wal Mart getting Brotien stuff for the swelling of the fats that was bound to ensue with P90X when I saw the nicotine gum and my brain stopped me in my tracks and demanded I read the details on the packaging. I had always been curious about the nicotine gum. Due to my direct dedication to receiving my nicotine through filtered tobacco smoke to my face I had always shied away. I could finally say now was the perfect time to quit.

“ Winners never quit” was a joke I would use when someone would tell me I should stop smoking. I used humor to squash the any hopes of their plan sticking in my head. I wish I could write a letter to myself 15 years ago and tell myself to not be such an asshole when people suggest you not give yourself the c word.

The instructions for the gum seemed easy enough. All I had to do was start chewing a piece of Nicoderm Fruit Chill when I had the urge to smoke, and then park the gum between the cheek and gums. I worked in retail at the time so the urge to smoke hit the moment a customer was dumb around me. Much to my surprise as I chewed the gum I could feel the quiet ease that only nicotine can provide …well I guess there is heroin, but I was at work and the gum worked amazingly well, but nothing compares to the patch.

I started to use the patch my second week in and I honestly never looked back, the urge to smoke a cigarette was gone. My body preferred getting its drug via the patch as opposed to smoke, I was evolving. I was finally beginning to comprehend the idea that breathing in tobacco smoke was just really dumb. I think I liked the patch a little too much to be honest with you. I was really bummed the day I put on the final patch, it really was saying like saying goodbye to a friend, albeit a friend that was eventually going to kill me.

The only thing more vital than the will to quit was the support I received during the first few weeks . I waited until a week passed when I called my sister

“What would you say if I told you I hadn’t smoked in one day” I asked
“That’s good, are you sick or something” she asked
“What would you say if I told you I hadn’t smoked in two days” I replied
“Jeez are you okay? Seriously are you sick or what do you need me to bring you anything?” she asked
“What would you say if I told you I hadn’t smoked in three days” I asked again
“Uhh WOW” she said and I could hear the excitement in her voice
“Four days?” I asked
Silence on her end
“Five days?” I asked
Still silence but I could hear her voice begin to tremble and by the time I got to tell her I hadn’t smoked in 8 days she was choked up, she had bitched at me more than almost anyone about needing to quit
“I am soooo proud of you” she said “and mom would be too”
I never smoked a cigarette in front of my mom. Never. I couldn’t do it, mostly out of the fear that she would take the cigarette out of my hand and shove it where the sun did not shine brightly. She would always comment on the “lovely shade of yellow” my teeth had become since I had started smoking …she always asked me to stop, but I didn’t…I smoked a cigarette on the way from church to the cemetery the day we buried her. My mom was dead of cancer and I was still puffing my life away. The will to quit wouldn’t come for a few more years. I am so glad that it happened though. When I think about smoking a cigarette now I am completely repulsed, it’s the most illogical thing I can think of doing to your body because you are stressed or bored or burning “nervous energy.”

I can say that quitting smoking cigarettes was one of the best things I have done for myself. I am no longer spending money on a build your own tumor set and I can actually taste food again. I no longer have the annual upper respiratory infection that always seemed to hang around for at least a month. I can do cardio workouts now, so if/when the zombie apocalypse kicks off i have another advantage over the masses of undead. Bottom line: if you don’t want to die of the c word or zombies mauling you because you were winded after forty five yards, stop smoking cigarettes today.
I urge you to quit smoking, if you want to quit you can.