smoke demon

I was a tobacco addict. I smoked one and a half to two packs of unfiltered Pall Malls or Camels a day. I had tried quitting a hundred different ways, most of which involved not purchasing cigarettes and instead, borrowing them, rolling my own, or switching to a pipe. Rather than buy a new pack and in an effort to fool myself into thinking I was cutting back, I would rummage ashtrays for old butts to reroll. But nothing worked. No matter what time of day or night, the little nicotine demon would begin nagging: "please buy me a cigarette, just one". At first it was just a gentle pleading voice which finally would sound more like Satan himself screaming at me "Get the f...k up and go get me some tobacco, Goddammit!" No matter the hour, I would find myself driving clear across town to a filling station that was open all night even in a blizzard in Nebraska just to feed my habit. I would marvel at the power of the habit and ponder just what it was that I got out of it. It seemed like such a tiny buzz or mental tweak for all the fuss and insistent insatiability.

I had started smoking when I was about thirteen, just to be "bad." I smoked a brand called Piel Rojas with an image of Indian profile in a headdress on the pack. They were made in Colombia where I lived as a youth. Later in the United States, I remember dropping a quarter and a dime in cigarette machines to buy a pack. After about twenty years of smoking, the last five of which I had been trying unsuccessfully to quit, I finally managed to do so.

This is how. I was in love. My prospective bride had buried her first husband who had died of cancer. She had nursed him at home all the way to the day of his death. She pleaded with me, "please stop smoking, I don't want to bury you too." Love or no love this was a lot to ask. All through our courtship I smoked. The morning of our wedding, I smoked. But as we boarded the airplane for our honeymoon in the Caribbean, I threw away my last pack and never smoked again. It was hard. I was nervous, didn't know what to do with my hands and when I drank coffee, the compulsion to accompany it with tobacco was almost overwhelming. But worst of all was the raw craving. The little demon in my chest wouldn't shut up. It was years before I felt like there was any serious space between myself and my old habit. But finally the lungs began to clear up, the air smelled sweeter and food tasted better, but best of all was the freedom from that little bastard that wouldn't shut up. As the saying goes, "love covers a multitude of sins." Follow your better angels.