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My Love Affair with Cigarette
My love affair with the Cigarette has ended. Our relationship began when I was in college and I fell madly in love with smoking, we are talking head over heels. We spent nights together as I crammed for exams and wrote out those monster term papers on the old typewriter, oh the fun that was before the advent of word processing but Cigarette cheered me on and kept me awake. I spent summers on archaeology digs and the ever-present Virginia Slims became my signature trademark, I always seemed to have one lit. But we all did working in the field and it was very cool. Smoking was a very social bridge to forging camaraderie and friendships too, complete strangers became a good friend just by offering a match. I gave up the Slims for a brand called Sherman ’s because it seemed so cosmopolitan and different to smoke an import and it was the 1970’s so it was very important to be unique. It never occurred to me that not smoking was unique. I worked my way through college as a musician and Cigarette was always up on stage with me, either at the piano or next to me as I played the guitar. I began singing less and less when the high notes left, as a fellow smoker Joni Mitchell says, “Once you lose the high notes, they are gone forever.” Cigarette and I had rocky times, a normal pattern in any long-term relationship but we managed to work things out. I left Cigarette when I became pregnant. If you could bottle morning sickness it would be a very effective smoke cessation tool. That’s why I left Cigarette in the cold, the thought of smoking during my pregnancy made me physically ill. It never occurred to me that smoking posed a danger to my baby. The day after I had my son I was in a ward with three other ladies and we all delivered about the same time. In walks the nurse who chimed, “Ok ladies, who needs an ash tray?” This was in 1982, my have the times changed since then!
I welcomed Cigarette back into my life and we were very happy together. Being a new mom is so stressful and Cigarette was always there to comfort me. It was a mystery to me why my son had frequent bouts of asthma, ear infections, and bronchial infections. Yes, it is possible to have an IQ of 150 and still be that stupid. Love is so blind.
The last ten years in my relationship with Cigarette have been very painful. They made my workplace a smoke-free environment and I work 10 hour shifts. I never had enough time in my day to run out and spend time with Cigarette across the street and I was also embarrassed and ashamed to be seen with him, especially wearing my lab coat. I became the odd man out at social functions; Cigarette isolated me from my friends and family, a very toxic sign of an abusive relationship. I couldn’t imagine my life without him and he readily convinced me that I couldn’t go on if he wasn’t in my life. I became very unhappy knowing that this just wasn’t working out; I no longer enjoyed our being together. I went to a therapist who helped me out tremendously by offering options and behavioral insight. I finally decided to leave Cigarette forever. It’s only been two weeks now but the steepest steps are the first ones you climb. The past fourteen days have been the Himalayas , The Rockies, The Appalachians, and the Andes . But I’ve traversed all of them and I don’t want to do it again. If I can do it, trust me, anyone can. This is only the beginning but the worst seems to be over with.
If you smoke and have thought about quitting, I encourage you to try what ever you think will work for you to help you stop. If you need help (and so many of us do) the University’s program is a great place to start and many insurance companies pay for the program. You can get more information by emailing quitsmoking@med.umich.edu
Signed: Deb Anderson
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