The story of how people start smoking is rarely all that interesting. They all tend to follow the same narrative arc: social smoking to just-for-now stress smoking to planning your day around smoking. Nicotine is, as far as chemicals go, highly addictive, so it doesn’t take much of a push to get those skis moving downhill. Over the last month, I walked back up that slope one step at a time, all the while knowing that one false move would send me plunging back down the path of least resistance.
***
Day –100: I read the headline of an article about heavy metal exposure and memory loss from smoking. “Hm,” I think to myself before clicking elsewhere.
Day –1: I’m at a party and cannot for the life of me remember the name of a distant relative. Like a car stalled on the highway, I reach for their name mid-sentence and my mind goes completely blank. Whether it’s fatigue, the second glass of beer, or the smoking, I do not know, but I’m also not willing to gamble with so much on the line. I decide the next day would be day one.
Day 1: In the mild lethargy of a typical morning, I sit down and Google “nicotine withdrawal timeline.” If I was going to ruin my weekend, at least I would know what was coming. By mid-morning, it’s become clear to my vital organs that I have betrayed them. Something has gone terribly wrong. I feel drunk at 11 a.m. because apparently my brain is used to getting more oxygen from a heart that pumped faster than necessary. I’m also dead tired. After drinking my sixth cup of coffee, I wonder if I’m trading one addiction for another.
Day 2: I’m still exhausted and dizzy like the previous day, probably more so after a terrible night’s sleep. Worse still, I’ve got to go to church and pretend that I’m a normal human being that’s singing “A Might Fortress Is Our God” for normal human reasons — and not because my insides feel like an exorcism that didn’t fully take.
Day 3: The decision to quit begins to feel more flimsy and impulsive as the suffering increases. A new rationale emerges, and it is a godsend: “The withdrawal symptoms are proof I am doing the right thing.” I don’t need scientific studies; I have personal experience. Like an employee who is fired and then starts cursing everyone out, nicotine would not go away without a fight, but every protestation confirms it was the right decision.
Day 4–5: Small victories. I have the first normal night’s sleep in three days. The dizziness has also slightly dulled to a fogginess. Though the nicotine has been pulled entirely out of my bloodstream, the cravings persist.
The word “craving” that’s used by scientific literature doesn’t really capture what it feels like. It’s not that you’re really hungry for pierogies after smoking some weed. It’s more an acute discomfort and rage you can’t get rid of, like how you might feel if you were grocery shopping at Wal-Mart on a busy Saturday morning while pushing a cart with four squeaky wheels. Or how you might feel if you were at a game night with people you do not like, playing complicated board games of arbitrary rules only you have to learn.
The cravings feel like instant pain and frustration but spread out over dozens of times a day. I only realize the previous craving has passed when the next one arrives. The only remedy my brain wants is the consumption of large quantities of sugar. I instead grab another glass of water.
Days 6–8: You don’t quit nicotine like you quit a job, unless the former boss of that job were to come to your house every day and “strongly urge you to reconsider.”
I finally learn what dopamine does by experiencing its absence. Not unlike the low oxygen levels in the first few days, it apparently takes time for the brain to retrain itself to regulate hormones. With the physical symptoms fading to an ambient discomfort, the more psychological effects announce their presence. It’s on Day 7 I realize it was stupid to try and do this solo. I hadn’t yet told anyone I was quitting because the relapse rates are so high. Better to not say anything, I reasoned, than to feel the shame of failure. But these days feel like an IV drip of depression, complete with the lethargy and the mild misery. Thankfully, it’s sunny outside, and I take long walks to drink in the serotonin.
Every morning I go back and read what symptoms to expect, and each day lives up to the billing. Knowing which cliff face I was about to climb actually helped lessen the crisis. I’m not losing my mind or coming down with something. It’s just the withdrawal. Pain is a sign of health.
Day 9: This is the point at which previous attempts to quit have failed, when bouts of irritability have sent me careening down to the corner store. It’s also a Sunday, which turns out to be a blessing. The sermon is more than I can bear to follow closely, but one of the readings comes from Romans 8: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”
On the way home, I stop and get gas. I go inside to pay, and the alarm bells in my head begin ringing as that familiar smell of pure bliss lingers in the air. There are stress balls for sale on the counter. One squeeze and it’s the best five dollars I ever spent. I make it through the day, though only just.
Days 10–14: My productivity has cratered, but at least it’s summer. The cravings are still intense, like hiding from an unexpected bill collector banging on my front door, but at least they are less frequent. A sign of progress. I’m losing track of how many days it’s been, but Day 1 feels somewhat distant — so much so that a new idea carries me further along this uphill climb: “It’s too late to turn back now.” This isn’t anywhere close to being true, of course, but it’s a useful fiction.
Days 15–29: Coffee, cereal, water, outside walks, music, work: repeat as necessary. The dizziness that became a head fog begins to feel more like a mild head cold. I take Advil every day, but I don’t think it works. The focus and attention deficits are less than ideal but workable. I still have the occasional craving, but the intensity feels more like the annoyance of a car blasting “Macarena” outside the house.
Day 30: By this point, it feels like more a hike than a climb. I’ve not yet reached the summit by any means. Tomorrow might be a different story, but today it at least feels possible to suggest that the steepest part of this snowy climb is behind me.
***
Like a driver expertly swerving back onto the road after they fell asleep at the wheel, quitting smoking isn’t really something to brag about. The stigma of tobacco is so strong that there’s little sympathy for those degenerates who fall down the path of nicotine dependence. Even so, it’s probably one of the more difficult things I’ve set out to do.
The withdrawal symptoms were hell on earth, but they provided the necessary clarity to take one more step forward. If I had thought pain was a problem to be solved, then the easiest fix was another drag. Instead, suffering was the only true barometer, the only thing I could trust. The weaker I felt, the more straightforward everything became. Suffering became (and remains) a sign of purgation.
This is far from an improbable story of willpower’s potency or can-do optimism. That would have been a compelling narrative, entertaining even, but it would be a blunt simplification of the experience. Stories of personal conquest obscure more than the reveal. Most of the time I did not have to actively do anything at all. In fact, the less I thought about my choices — and the fewer choices I had — the less taxing they were. Though a few moments in any given day could be said to be an exercise of willpower, these were far from decisive. The vast majority of influences resided well beyond my control: a well-functioning coffee maker, the spark of an unbidden idea, the absence of clouds in the atmosphere. Some would call this luck, but to me it seems more like divine intervention.
By most measures, sobriety is not a significant achievement. There is nothing to earn, make, or even accomplish. The only thing required is to suffer the consequences of not doing anything. One craving at a time, one day at a time, until the mounting of days adds up to a lifetime.
what a beautifully honest, beautiful written account of doing some incredibly difficult. i get what he’s saying in that last paragraph, but i’d argue that it is one of the most significant achievements of a lifetime!
Martin, this is so good – divine intervention indeed – thank you. I’ve got 33 years, one day at a time. Welcome to our fellowship.