If you're still smoking, take the inspiration Bill's story offers and use it as a foundation to set your own dream of freedom in motion. Quitting is possible...Bill is living proof of that.
How many times have you heard songs about fools? There must be as many fool references in music as there are trains. Fool for love, fool and his money goes separate ways, foolish games, fool for your stockings, fooled around and fell in love, won’t get fooled again...you get the picture. Fools and foolish behavior are good song material. One of my all time favorites is "Fool for a Cigarette."
A year ago on September 14, 2009 at 5:36 PM I adopted Ry Cooder’s version of this old song as my new theme when I put down cigarettes for the last time. I decided that I would never again be a "Fool for a Cigarette." No matter what else in life I did, smoking was not going to be part of the equation.
Boy did I feel like a fool when the first few weeks turned into months of crawling out of my skin, jumping at shadows, and generally just hanging on every day to stay sane without the frequent nicotine buzz that accompanied me in every waking hour of my life for 35 years or more. Listening to this song I can relate when he says:
"Ahh mister I hope this ain’t no insult, but would you save me that old butt. When you finish choke it, cause I needs to smoke it. Mister I’m a fool ‘bout a cigarette."
One week prior to my 50th birthday in March 2009, during my second unsuccessful quit using nicotine gum, I conveniently left a full butt can in the garage so I could salvage a few puffs off of the nasty butts every morning to help alleviate the withdrawal symptoms the gum couldn’t quell. I was truly a fool for a cigarette!
This mind trick lasted less than a week and I went back to buying a fresh pack every day. Once again I was convincing myself that I was not quite ready to quit but preferred instead, clinging to the foolish notion that since I’d quit once before for a whopping 4 months, that I could easily do it again.
"Just like a car needs gasoline, got to have my nicotine. Lord I’m a fool for a cigarette."
The problem with the first quit was that I never really quit! I was a few months shy of 49 and felt if I didn’t quit smoking before I turned 50, I’d just as well give up the foolish idea that I was somehow strong enough to whip the nicodemon.
I had a half-hearted plan and it worked for a while. I took the medicine, had the dreams, got depressed and angry, went for weeks at a time without smoking, but continued to foolishly "dabble" with one smoke here and there. This behavior allowed me to never really kill the notion in the back of my mind that it was over!
I got over-confident after a few months and just knew I had it under control. One night after sitting in a smoke-filled bar listening to a band, I figured there was no harm in one cigarette bummed from the bartender at the end of the night before going home. I even told myself that it would taste awful and reaffirm my dedication to quitting.
WRONG!
It turned out to be the best tasting smoke I ever had. It was so good, I bought a pack on the way home and smoked three more cigarettes before I got there, all the while telling myself that I’d put them down as soon as the pack was gone.
Believe it or not for close to two weeks, I only smoked one a day in the morning with my coffee, which somehow quickly turned into more daring behavior where I would sneak off under the deck. I tried to convince myself that no one but me needed to know that my journey to freedom had once again been stifled by the need to smoke "just one more."
"It’s the worst old habit I ever had. Well I sure want me a cigarette bad...Man I’m a fool ‘bout a cigarette."
Smoking is indeed a foolish habit. In textbook addict fashion, smokers never really consider the consequences when they light up, preferring instead to have the "it won’t happen to me" attitude. They say things like "look at Uncle George, 85 and still puffing away." Smokers will do anything to convince themselves that smoking might be like sticking your hand into a bucket of rattle snakes for most folks, but for them it’s no riskier than driving a car or flying in a plane.
I spent most of my 20s and 30s with the typical, "it won’t happen to me attitude," which gradually got replaced by this idea that I’d quit before I reached 40 years old. After I turned 35, I started having a daily conversation with myself about how I needed to quit, how I would do it soon, or that one day I’d just put them down and move on.
Ahhh, what foolishness that kind of junkie thinking was – all it did was prolong the notion that I’ll quit "tomorrow." Next thing I knew, tomorrow had turned into a decade. What a joke! Forty came and went and I was still smoking like a chimney in winter.
"Mister I sure hate to bother you, but don’t forget when you are through. Don’t you step on it and bruise it, cause I want to use it. Yes sir I’m a fool for a cigarette."
By the time I celebrated my 45th year, I’d lost two of my closest friends to heart attacks in less than three years. Both of them were heavy smokers, but my nicotine-saturated brain continued to convince me that smoking didn’t really contribute to their weakened hearts, so why should I be too worried about it. I mean after all, I was going to quit "soon."
"Well I puff and I puff and I puff and puff, but still I just can’t get enough...Mister I’m a fool ‘bout a cigarette."
Page Two: A Fool for a Cigarette No More
