Cold Turkey

I am a smoker.

I have been for many, many years, and it is a label I have resisted just as long. But like the millions of other Americans who will be raving bitches by this weekend because they have sworn off nicotene on January 1, I too am quitting.

I started smoking when I was 18. It was the summer I was home between my freshman and sophomore years in college, and I was working a crappy job in my hometown. Just after school let out for the summer, some rednecks broke into the high school and tried to set fire to it. The library was mostly destroyed and the rest of the school had smoke and water damage. So my summer job was working on the clean-up crew, sponging down the walls and wiping soot off books and desks.

This was not a hard job. It was monotonous, spending a full 8 hours meticulously wiping down cinder block walls floor to ceiling. And one afternoon when I was leaving work, I was struck by an overwhelming craving for a cigarette. So I stopped at the QuikSak that afternoon and bought my very own pack. Marker Ultra Light 100s. Generic brand.

It must have been working around the smell of smoke and charred wood all day, because up to that point in my life, I had barely smoked. I had only experimented.

My father smoked. Salems. And I remember the comforting mix of cigarette smoke, coffee and aftershave. And I remember smoking butts from the ashtray just to know what it was like.

My cousin and I played a game that could be likened to hillbilly Ker-Plunk! He covered the mouth of a Mason jar with a couple of layers of paper towels and secured them to the jar with a rubber band. And then we placed a stack of quarters on the paper towels. We passed a Vantage cigarette back and forth, taking turns burning holes in the paper towels. Whoever caused the coins to fall through, lost. It was usually me, and I usually made him inhale for me since it made me hack.

The Christmas before I bought that pack of cigarettes, I was drinking fuzzy navels, and a high school girlfriend offered me one of her Virginia Slim menthols. And to this day, I still think a menthol cigarette tastes like you've lit up a stick of Doublemint gum.

Ever since that day in 1991, I've been a closet smoker. Admittedly, I've never been a heavy smoker. I can only remember a couple of times - in college - that I was a pack a day smoker. Usually I could make a pack last three or four days, especially the past couple of years.

Actually for the past several years, I've been like one of those politicians, publicly decrying homosexuality but sucking dick in every rest area along Interstate 40. I worked for one of the nation's largest opponents of smoking, but giving Big Tobacco my share of their fortune every three or four days. My excuse was "I've spent all day fighting cancer. Right now, I just want to make friends with it."

And I had probably been smoking in denial for several years. I didn't consider myself a smoker because I had rules. I didn't smoke at work. I didn't smoke in the house. I didn't smoke in my car. I rarely smoked before work. I didn't light up in restaurants unless I was with another smoker. I didn't really smoke around people who didn't smoke. Even in Memphis' bars, where the smoke is so thick you smell like a filthy ashtray when you leave, I tried to step outside when possible.

And most of the time I was okay with all that. I didn't go out of my mind with nicotene cravings. For most of the past eight or nine years, I had no problems with finishing a pack of cigarettes and going for a week or more (once I went six months) without smoking another. I could just quit.

But eventually the craving would return. And rather than resist the craving, I bargained with myself. "Hey, you finished that pack four days ago and you're just now wanting one? Treat yourself. It's the weekend."

Honestly, I enjoyed smoking. It was sort of relaxing, and it was a good excuse to step outside and collect your thoughts for a minute. But there are the obvious unfortunate side effects. I need to only think of my father who has emphysema and is permanently attached to an oxygen tank to remind me that smoking is not a good idea.

So I smoked my last cigarette shortly after midnight on January 1, 2007. And two days later, I'm still okay with it. I'll still have to contend with the real challenge which is a Saturday night at The Pumping Station with a cocktail in hand. That's when the urge hits hot and heavy, and my will power is the weakest.

Twenty-eight days is the magic number. Two down. Twenty-six to go.