I thought that this was going to be a podcast, but I realized that I actually like to organize my thoughts. I feel like the discourse around addiction, and substance use in the wellness world is pretty opaque. If you’re not in the recovery community, the tales of partying and ‘bad girl behavior’ are always told from far away, years down the line when these compulsions are a distant memory and the narrator is perfectly healed. I feel called to demystify the process of being in the throes of addiction and trying to change, because even if you’re not a smoker, or have a healthy relationship with your vices, life is full of challenges, and I’ve always found it inspiring to hear about someone's process. It also feels healing to honour the journey and my story in this way. Even though I’m just at the beginning, it took me fifteen years and 6 months to be 1 month and 10 days free of cigarettes.
It all started when I was visiting my friend Zoe in Philadelphia. I was 14 and we had come into the city to see G.Love & Special Sauce (LOL). We took the train early so that we could do some shopping at the flagship Urban Outfitters - I purchased a faux vintage distressed orange t-shirt that read ‘TEXAS’ and a slouchy mohair olive green beanie beret (you know the ones). After our shop, we had made plans to hang out with some other camp friends and grab dinner before the show. I remember it so clearly, we were at a crosswalk and one of the girls pulled out a pack of Camel menthols. I had never seen anyone my age smoke and I don’t even think I had ever even seen a pack of cigarettes before, but I was instantly drawn to the symbolism. As a fan of Mary-Kate and AShley, and Lindsay Lohan, the symbol was: GLAMOROUS. She offered them to the group and I took one. I felt extremely cool and grown up with my new accessory. I can’t imagine that I was actually inhaling any nicotine, but the gears in my head started to turn. My friends at the time had started to experiment with drinking and going to parties, but I was too nervous to ask my mom, or lie about my whereabouts, so I didn’t really participate. I also hated the taste of a screwdriver or gin and cranberry, I couldn’t get enough of it down to make me drunk. I realized that the cigarette could be my way of showing that I was cool, and unique, and that I could keep up with everyone.
Some context. I grew up in a small town an hour outside of the city and moved to Toronto when I was 13. The move was extremely hard on me. I had grown up with the same group of friends since preschool, and I felt like I was being ripped away from a safety net that had been constant for me during the turbulent years of my childhood. I had started to retreat into myself around the age of 8 as my homelife destabilized, but at school, with my solid group of friends I always felt like I could be myself. The move pushed me over the edge and I became extremely shy, with my angst overwhelming. When it comes to the energetics surrounding smoking, grief is the emotion associated with the lungs in Traditional Chinese Medicine. When we smoke, we coat our grieving lungs with hot smoke to numb or quiet or soothe our uncomfortable emotions. Grieving my childhood, my home, and my friends is part of what set me up as a perfect candidate to become a smoker.
Fast forward to the ripe age of 16, where I was headed off to Italy and Ireland for a Summer abroad. After the first or second day I was reunited with my beloved Camel cigarettes. After our first encounter in Philly, we hadn’t met again until now - I didn’t know anyone who smoked, and If I did encounter someone, I did not have the guts to ask if I could have one. But now that I was in the EU, I could buy them! No need for a fake ID, they were available in vending machines peppered throughout the city. Despite having my best friend Olivia on the trip with me, and having a group of gals back at home, I was still operating as a shell of myself, and I felt socially inadequate comparatively. Oliva was easy to make new friends, naturally funny and outgoing, while I took on the role of the mostly silent sidekick. Lucky for me, I had my cigarettes to ease my anxiety, keep me company, and make me look cool and intriguing (at least I hoped). By the time the trip was over, I was jazzed about smoking, I brought back a pack with me and started to smoke on my way to the subway, embedding the habit into my routine. By this time, some of my friends had naturally started smoking as well, and our access to cigs opened up as we stole freezer packs from their respective parents, and got our first fake IDs on Yonge street. We would sit on the starbucks patios and chain smoke trying to figure out how to make rings. Peter Jackson was our brand.
The summer I turned 18, I left home to start school in Montreal. None of my close friends were going to University right away, and most stayed back in Toronto in favor of taking a 5th year of highschool or working. I was again ripped away from my safety net of friends, but this time by choice. I was excited for the freedom I would gain living on my own for the first time, but I didn’t realize just how hard and isolating it would be. I was used to having a solid group of girls in my corner, and the only people I was close to were some boys I was friends with who lived in the neighborhood and a couple girls from highschool who were living in residence, consumed with a new life and a whole new group of friends. I retreated into myself further, and went deep into a depression. By this time I also became a seasoned drinker, and I turned down the volume on my anxiety, feelings of unworthiness, and apathy by drinking and smoking my way through the first two years of school. This pattern continued through my early 20s, but I ended up finding my people, and the weight I was bearing became lighter. At this point we were all smokers, and relished in it. We piled around my kitchen table sharing meals, joking and philosphizing for hours, having singalongs, and making art, all while smoking (inside!). These were beautiful, important, and sacred times that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
I started dating my partner Jesse, when I was 23. Because he was a non-smoker, and I was in love with him, I thought that I should probably start to think about quitting. He never asked me to, or made me feel bad about it, but I became self conscious of lighting up in my bedroom when we were hanging out, for instance. I also thought this would be a virtuous signal to my family that I wasn’t a total mess. I asked my mom to buy me a copy of The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr (more on him next time), and made a halfhearted decision to quit, or atleast read the book. Carr instructs you to keep smoking until you’ve finished the book, so I happily obliged and didn’t make it past chapter 9. So that was that. I had told Jesse that I was quitting so I went through an awkward phase of bumming cigarettes from my equally broke and addicted friends for a while, until I realized how rude I was being and just got back on the train. The only thing different however, was that my eyes had been opened, even if only a little, by Carr. A nagging voice started to appear every so often when I was standing outside of a building smoking. It would remind me that cancer and heart disease runs in my family, and that I am a mortal being.
About 5 years later, in the throes of covid lock down winter 2021, I started to experiment with the idea of not drinking. I was coming to terms with the loss of control I felt when I was drunk, and how it might be holding me back from some of my health goals. Since drinking and smoking went hand in hand, I thought it would be a good exercise to stop smoking as well, especially since it was winter; I wasn’t going outside much and there was no way to socialize, which meant I didn’t have any anxiety to quell - this would be easy! I made it 28 (excruciating) days without a drink or a cig and on day 29 I celebrated by indulging in both, but this time, shame had entered the chat. This newfound feeling of remorse after smoking (and drinking) lent itself perfectly to the next phase of my journey that I like to call: Bulimic Smoking™. This pattern consists of, buying a pack of cigs in anticipation of of a social engagement, binge-ing said cigs in the social context where you are most likely also drunk, and then having so much shame and guilt the next morning that you purge the cigs in question by either throwing them in the garbage, leaving them open on a street bench for someone to find them, or giving them to someone.
I think we have all heard the turn of phrase that circle stories of addiction and recovery that you know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’re just sick of your own shit, and from that place you have the impulse to change. Well, this was true for me and my Bulimic Smoking. Not only was I wasting a ton of money (and sometimes fishing the packs I tossed out of the garbage….), I was also tired of the way it was making me feel mentally, physically, emotionally, and at this point, spiritually. As I approached my 30th birthday, the age I had told myself that I would quit when I was in my 20s, I knew that it was time for a change, and that I wanted to keep this promise to my younger self.
Can’t wait for the second part 🤍