Okay, so I started smoking when smoking was cool...sometime last century. Like classic convertibles, playing lacrosse, listening to the Grateful Dead, finishing the New York Times crossword, huddling for warmth in a wintertime circle of smokers, cool. In short, I started smoking in high school. For the next several years, cigarettes were a wonderful accompaniment to the all of life’s small and large milestones. They helped fill in the awkward pauses when meeting people in bars, between bands playing at the Side Bar. Between classes as an undergrad and grad student, Camel Lights kept me going. When not in school, a Camel was the perfect accompaniment for Friday and Saturday night drinks out:
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| Smoking indie the Wind Up Space, before smoking bans took effect |
Later in life I switched to Parliament Lights, because, “make my Funk the P-Funk!”Hubby and snyced our smoking schedules and were often seen only smoking together: at the beach, on vacation, outside of bars, at friends' get-togethers.
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| Smoking at our annual arrival at Northland Sheep Dairy |
More shows, more between drink pauses, more 15-minute smoke breaks at the office, and I eventually graduated from 3 cigs a day to 5…except on Sundays when I didn’t smoke at all. Then Covid-19 lock down happened in 2020. At home, I cultivated the ideal smoker's schedule that kept my daily intake around 3-4 ciggies a day:
- Arise at 5:30am, exercise for a bit…have a gigantic cup of black earl grey with my morning cigarette.
- Then breakfast, then work. Later in the morning I’d have lunch and another two cuppas with another fag before returning to work.
- Before dinner, hubby and I enjoyed happy hour with his glass of wine and my gin and tonic and 1-2 smokes each.
- Now on Friday’s we’d split a six-pack of Guinness, jam to a themed playlist on the back deck (on one Friday, it may be Grace Jones, on another Tom Jones, on another Queen or Desmond Decker). Fridays would find me smoking closer to five-six-or-seven Parliaments. Payback on Saturday was usually a sore throat and scratchy voice for me.
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| Bulge at L5, source Wikimedia Commons, CC License |
Last January, I awoke with a pain that I’d grown used to over the previous 12 months. My lower back was killing me. The pain was similar to past damage from overdoing it in the garden, except for a full year it lasted all day, everyday. Hopping out of bed became impossible and I was scared. So, I called my doc and asked for a recommendation on a back specialist. Within a week I had an appointment with a non-surgeon at a local hospital..
My appointment was at 8am, and I started the day in the usual way, tea and a smoke, followed by breakfast and then a 20-minute bike ride to the hospital for my appointment.
Long and short of it is that the specialist evaluated my gait, pain perception, and other symptoms, then scheduled an MRI. When I asked what potential causes and exacerbating activities might be, she stated pointedly smoking is definitely not good (along with other factors that may have been present).
I went home afterward thoughtful about what just transpired. I did not have a relaxing cigarette that afternoon, or one at happy hour. The following day, Saturday, I didn’t smoke, nor the rest of the weekend or the following week. In fact, I did not smoke for the rest of the year. Boy I did not miss it either. Within a month of the MRI I began physical therapy and have had over 70% improvement in my pain, and many pain-free days. The process is ongoing.
Smoking Again in 2023
On this winter’s UK trip, I had an unpleasant day (and had been a bit stressed for a few days) when I decided to buy a packet of tobacco and rolling papers. During the second half of the visit, I rolled four or five smokes on different occasions and enjoyed the warming smoke of a long-forgotten friend. It was nice to revisit my recently abandoned life-habit, and not beat myself up about a relapse. I decided to chuck away the tobacco before returning to the states. My original idea, when buying the pack, was that giving up smokes would be just as easy in January 2023 as it had been in January 2022.
Well, it’s just not that simple this year. I have been emotionally overwrought since my return and am preparing to have a hysterectomy procedure later this week. While I have not had a stress-relieving cigarette this week I crave one each morning. It is unclear whether my desire for a smoke will remain after the procedure or not. If it does, I won't beat myself up about smoking, but rather restart stopping smoking, a year after I quit.
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