Because I stopped twenty-three years ago (actually on 30 September 1996) today's Great American Smokeout Day snuck up on me like a puff of --well, you know what kind of puff.
I smoked three packs a day for about twenty-two years. I started out smoking Pall Mall Reds (my father had smoked them for all the years growing up as a kid that he smoked before he quit). They were a cigarette that other new smokers (we were all college kids and let's just admit that smoking tobacco was akin at times to a palate-cleansing exercise and leave it at that, okay?) were reluctant to bum as they were unfiltered so you needed to dry lip or you flossed to remove tobacco from between your teeth.
I'm not a former smoker-I'm a recovering smoker. I don't know if it was the nicotine or the tobacco or whatever chemicals were supposedly put in cigarettes, but I was, and am, addicted to and always will be. Even to this day, I miss smoking a cigarette, despite everything I know and believe to be true about the health dangers associated with it.
And, hand on my heart but also on my wallet, smoking now would be a danger to my precarious financial health. (Now sounding like an old codger, mainly because I am) I can remember back in the day, at the Air Force commissary at Rhein-Main AB buying a carton of cigarettes for (maybe) six dollars. By then, I'd traded up through Pall Mall Golds to Benson & Hedges. Now, if I'm reading the signs correctly, it's about ten dollars a pack with well over half of it in taxes, federal, state and whatever anyone can get away with.
I was in the last generation to watch TV ads for cigarettes and remember slogans like "I'd Rather Fight than Switch!", "A Silly Millimeter Longer, 101" and "Come to Where the Flavor Is". Look at kinescopes of old TV shows, to include newscasts, and you'll see Chet Huntley (of Huntley and Brinkley) smoking on the news set, on camera. Cigarettes were everywhere-there were "Show Us Your Lark Pack" commercials that eventually provoked the genius who was Stan Freberg to respond as only he could.
I stopped completely because I knew if I didn't, I'd die from some health condition created or aggravated by smoking. That my health is so poor now, but that none of my maladies have anything to do with cigarettes, makes me smile, albeit ruefully, at how the Lord's sense of humor is so often puckish (and 'p' isn't my first choice for the first letter).
The biggest challenge after I stopped was what to do in the car while driving. It was the most natural thing in the world for me after putting the car in gear, just to light up a cigarette and for many months after I stopped smoking I struggled. It was odd, too, to get used to how food tasted when you finally descended from the cloud of smoke.
On the other hand, I didn't miss that 'licked an ashtray' feeling in my mouth when I first awaken. And oddest of all, and to this day I don't get it, all the years I smoked I couldn't smell cigarettes on someone else, simply unable to detect it, and now, I get almost ill when standing next to someone on an escalator who was just on a smoke break.
I try to take it easy on people who continue to smoke, because I appreciate how hard it is to give it up, even for a day even with all we know about what happens to us if we can't stop. So if you're struggling with the nicotine monkey today and are able to keep him at bay for the day, good on you and maybe tomorrow you can take another step.
And if you tried but couldn't do it, don't worry, you have the power to make any day you want your very own Smokeout day. You can kick the butts in the butt if you so desire. And use your Zippos for those live shows if you've sworn off cell phones.
-bill kenny
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