Climbing the rickety ladder leading up to the barn's hayloft, I could smell the cigarette smoke. Long out of use, the barn was a musty place, drab, lifeless and full of cobwebs. Memories color it black and white, like the old movies that used to come on late at night and lull me to sleep. Through the hole in the loft's floor I emerged, and my older brother, Joe, would hand me a cigarette.
The unmitigated prestige of the club was like that of the Freemasons, Illuminati and the local American Legion all rolled into one. The club was great because my brother was president, and I had gained entry at the mere age of 11. What were the dues required to be in such a club? They were costly. It was time to begin a lifelong battle that is impossible to truly win, in every sense of the word.
Joe died when I was 13, but I continued to smoke. After all, it was my choice to smoke in the first place. It's not as though he held a gun to my head to get me started. I always enjoyed smoking.
Back then, it was the cool thing to do. Being a kid has always been a little bit about doing things we know will get us in trouble. By the time I was 16, I was a pack-a-day smoker, and I was no longer hiding the fact that I smoked. As far as I was concerned, I was all grown up. Ironically enough, I was emotionally and intellectually unequipped to realize the harm I was doing to myself. I didn't see the hell I was setting myself up for later.
For the students reading this, you have the distinct advantage of being informed. When I was a kid, there weren't militant non-smoking commercials on TV showing you what a smoker's brain, arteries and lungs look like. It was all about Nancy Reagan being scared shitless someone might smoke a joint, so they smashed some eggs in a skillet and said, "This is your brain on drugs."
They should've been hard against smoking back then too. Going through life as a smoker is like swimming the English Channel with one arm and an eight-ton millstone tied about the neck. This is further complicated by the fact that you can't just do it once. You'll feel compelled to do it over and over again, forever. It seems fine for the first few years, and you won't notice what it takes away from you before you're a slave to it.
Once you're a slave to nicotine and the other toxic cocktail of chemicals the cigarette companies inject into their products the party is all over.
If you try to quit, it's easy to become someone people hate. There is depression, self-loathing, anger and an overarching sense that you'll never be able to enjoy anything again for the rest of your life if you can't smoke. As absurd as that sounds, it's absolutely true. And you want to smoke with every fiber of your being even though it's debilitating, expensive and deadly. Now that's a powerful addiction; an intense need to do something you're aware is killing you.
My dad quit smoking 40 years ago, and he still sometimes reaches toward his shirt pocket feeling for his cigarettes. That's why you can never win. It's always there. Your only hope is to stop before the madness gains traction. If you're lucky enough, or smart enough, you'll make it into the elite "never smoked enough to get addicted" group. I wish I'd quit years ago when I was 19 or 20 years old. Trying to quit might not be like chiseling titanium shackles off my ankles with a paper clip.
So, the moral of the story is if you're a social smoker or a recreational smoker, it might not be long before your life revolves around cigarettes. If that happens, it won't be fun. Hang it up while you still can.
Write to John at jrfrees@bsu.edu
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