17 Years Tobacco Free(The Paradox of Quitting)

I was a tobacco user and addicted to nicotine from when I was a teenager until September 3, 2006. As a kid growing up Mormon, I had been afraid of and entranced by smoking. The church drew a hard line against most mind-altering substances, and tobacco was at the top of the forbidden list. That just added to the allure. There was an older kid in the neighborhood who was kind of a loner we'd see walking to and from school with a spiraling cloud puffing out of his mouth. He could have been a great person, but we saw him only as a smoker, and our seven-year-old minds equated smoking with being bad. We were scared of him.

My cousin was born with an endless wild streak and easily filled the role in my parent's mind of a bad influence. When we were about ten, we went to the gas station next to our aunt's hotel and bought a pack of Kools. He was a ranch kid who had been dipping snuff for several years. We all wanted to try smoking, and he always seemed to find a way for us to discover new vices. We took the cigarettes and went to the hotel basement and lit up.

We quickly realized that a closed-in basement would not be a good place for smoking due to the ease of getting caught. Plus, there were mattresses, linens, and God knows what other kinds of flammable materials, all within close proximity. We took our smokes and went across the street from the hotel to an area where old vehicles were kept. A rundown school bus was there, and we crawled underneath and lit up. My wild cousin, sister, younger cousin, and I smoked the whole pack in about an hour. I'm sure we reeked.

We returned to the hotel at dinner time, and my dad grabbed my shirt with such force that he pulled the cloth through the button holes. He looked me in the eyes and asked if I'd been smoking. I clamped my lips together as if that would not reveal my guilt and said, "No! I would never smoke!" I'm sure he was as amused as he was mad at my lying. It would be many more years before I would smoke again.

In high school, I started dipping snuff to fit in. I went to a very small rural school, and the kids there were all ranchers and roughnecks for whom a snuff can ring in their jeans was a sure sign of belonging. Initially, chewing tobacco made me queasy, but within a few months, I consumed a can every few days and was well on my way to nicotine dependence.

I occasionally smoked cigarettes and cigars socially at parties and on camping trips but didn't start smoking habitually until I was 25. My wife at the time worked in a group home and started smoking there when she would work late shifts. I would join her on the deck for cigarettes in the evenings when we were home together as a way of connecting. I started working in the boys' counterpart to the group home where she worked and, like my wife, started smoking to stay awake at night. By the time that job ended, I had traded in the snuff can for a two-pack-a-day smoking habit.

I realized it had turned into an addiction when I would notice withdrawal symptoms and significant levels of irritation when I hadn't smoked for a while. There were many times when I would see that I only had a couple of cigarettes left in the pack and make a special trip to the closest open store or gas station to buy a pack. I played mind games with myself, like refusing to buy cigarettes by the carton because that would mean I was addicted when I would start to have anxiety and panic if I had to go without smoking for longer than an hour or two.

This habit went on for almost twenty years. I was ashamed I had become a smoker, I was ashamed of being addicted to anything, and I was ashamed that I didn't have the willpower to quit. Nicotine is an insidious addiction, partly because it has so many situations where it's socially acceptable. At the same time as I was making my clandestine runs to the 7-11 at 1:30 in the morning, I was swearing to quit after finishing every pack. I think the longest I could make it before finally caving in was about four hours. Then I'd smoke the equivalent of the hours I'd gone without in the next thirty minutes. 

I played many mind games with myself, bought a hypnosis tape, and tried patches. These would increase my fixation, and my cravings would shoot through the ceiling. A doctor prescribed Wellbutrin, a drug that has become a catch-all for treating anxiety, depression, and addiction withdrawal. My two weeks on Wellbutrin were one of the worst periods of my life. My emotional life went absolutely flat. I had to stop taking it.

I had been single for several years, and smoking had been mostly a private habit. When I married for the second time and we started having kids, I knew I needed to stop more than ever. Again, I tried the patch, gum, and quitting cold turkey, only to be frustrated that I couldn't successfully make it happen. Even after our daughter was born with severe complications and breathing problems, I couldn't stop myself. After she died, smoking became even more of a haven for me because it gave me time and distance from others to work out my grief. After our son was born two years later, I knew I had to quit, but I didn't.

I had started taking yoga between our two children's births and was happy with how it made me feel. The breathing exercises were especially good for me, and I started to feel like I was clearing some of the toxins out of my lungs. My energy was higher than it had been, and my natural periods of depression were further and fewer between. 

One day, at the end of my yoga class, I was in final relaxation, drifting between twilight and sleep, when I had a disturbing vision. It was a lucid experience of a reptilian creature digging its talons into my neck, back, and shoulder. The feeling and image were as tangible as if I were completely awake, and I was startled back into awareness. When I groaned, the yoga teacher turned to me and asked if I was okay. I told her what I had seen, and she asked me if I'd ever heard the term "monkey on my back?" I had heard it quite a bit, especially from people in recovery from alcoholism and other addictions. She told me that I may have just had an encounter with my own monkey.

I left yoga that day and didn't think anymore about it. I lit up when I got in the car, but felt different. A few weeks later, I was between teaching guitar lessons and having a cigarette on my front porch. I was almost out and thinking about going to the nearby gas station to buy more when I looked down at the cigarette between my fingers and knew it would be my last. I have no idea how I knew that, but it was a deep and clear knowing. I finished it, pressed the butt into my ashtray, and went inside, no longer a smoker. September 3, 2006, was the date.

The next few weeks were strange. My body was going through a process of detoxing with some digestive adjustments and having a cold that turned into bronchitis. I did have some nervous shaking and mild irritability, but I had no physical or psychological craving. To this day, I've had no desire to smoke again, even around people smoking. I feel exceptionally lucky because I know many people struggle with this and other addictions and find no relief.

The funny thing is that I can't take any credit for quitting. I didn't quit smoking. Smoking quit me. I've met many other people since then who have had similar experiences. They struggled to quit for years, and after starting some spiritual practice like yoga or meditation, they found themselves free from the compulsion without any volition or intention. They were just finished. There's almost a miraculous quality about this kind of experience.

There have been other areas in my life that I tried to push through with willpower and have ended in frustration. Pushing myself to conform to impossible expectations to fit in. I tried to do things in my business that I was told needed to be done, but I ignored that they weren't aligned with my values. For me, the paradox of quitting has been learning not to rely on my effort to change things but surrendering my fixations and needs to control outcomes. I have experienced more satisfying results and resolutions by letting go and accepting that there is a time for everything. I encourage the people I know and work with to do the same.

As always, there's a caveat. I can easily make surrender an avoidance strategy when I need to take necessary and legitimate actions. Those aren't the situations when the paradox of quitting applies. The times when surrender is my best option are when I feel powerless and ashamed that my willpower isn't enough to get the job done. Deep and radical acceptance of myself and the willingness to open to my own weakness and frailty paradoxically open the way for me to go where I want to go.