Whoops. Photo by Me.
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“Puits sans fond”; Vulgaires Machins
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I’ve spent the past six hours jonesing really, really hard for a cigarette. It took me a while to catch on… I couldn’t get comfortable on the couch, I couldn’t concentrate on what I was writing, there was a pressure on my brain, my mouth was actually sore from salivating too fast… but I finally realized I was having a severe nicotine fit.
Of course I’ve thought about smoking over the past twenty months (or so), until last Spring I was still reaching for my pack out of habit. Watching a movie where a character smokes still drives me a little nuts… actually I just watched Quentin Tarentino’s “Deathproof” — great movie, lots of smoking.
So the fact it took at least an hour before I realized what was going on should be proof it has been almost two years since I quit my eighteen-year habit. Addicts are, mostly, idiots about our addictions. Especially after having quit for a longish period. Unless we’re careful, very careful, we forget about the addiction and only remember the motions.
Pretty decent proof of my idiocy in treating my addiction would be that I thought I got rid of the cigarette I saved for exactly this kind of occasion, but it ends up I saved a second by mistake.
I can remember finding the cigarette I kind of knew I saved while cleaning my kitchen a couple of months ago, I also remember breaking it in half, tossing it over the railing and watching the pieces fall onto my wet lawn… so I have no idea where this second saved cigarette comes from, which Totally reinforces the idiot thing. It isn’t even my freaking brand. I was so jonesing for a smoke that I actually went and checked the cupboards for my old ashtrays to see if I had another cigarette… and there it was… and it’s kind of squished and wrinkled and it’s so freaking dry…
And I just smoked the shit right out of it… wow. I was writing the last paragraph and nothing felt right, I was trying to make it funny but I had to rewrite it about six times until I had had enough… then I got up, took the cigarette and lighter, went out onto the porch and smoked it… not quite down to the filter, but enough of it that I actually got back into my smoke routine. And it didn’t suck nearly as much as I thought it would… I’ve smoked really old cigarettes in the past and they almost always taste like burning dish soap. And fuck me if that whole six to seven hours of total craving hasn’t completely gone away.
This post was totally supposed to be a funny little thing on how much addictions suck, even after two years. But turned into something totally different and… well, not funny “haha” anyway.
Holy crap… I just smoked a cigarette… and I’m not sure I feel guilty at all.
Well, I guess the bad news is now my hands smell like burnt rubber and my mouth tastes like… well, like I just smoked a two-year old cigarette. Which is remarkably similar to how I remember a fresh cigarette tasting only with more ass.
The good news is I’m pretty sure it was one of those cigarettes that doesn’t give you cancer.
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...salted lithium. 
Oh dude, I SOOOOOO can’t do that. If I have one, I will be right back in lovely cigaboo land. And I’m too broke for that shit.
I miss my Benson’s. Oh lord how I miss them. I quit cold turkey 3 years ago, and I can still feel smoke down my throat, that blissful smoke after a good meal or great sex.
oh lord.
I kept a single smoke after I quit-held onto it for 6 months. Then threw it away. It felt great, but it was a sad thing.
Don’t feel too guilty. I’m just amazed that you were able to smoke a 2 year old cigarette without retching.
I’m kind of amazed at that as well… and at how long it took to find the second cigarette. I know I’m a bachelor, and I do a pretty good job of being one, but you’d think the law of averages would have allowed me to find something like a cancer stick in my cupboard in the 730 days before last night…
I never really got into Benson’s… I’d smoke them if someone else was buying, but my drug of choice was Player’s Light Regular… my first DOC was Export ‘A’ Green, I actually started on two packs a day.
Thing is, I don’t feel guilty… maybe just a little bit, but I feel like I could buy a pack later on. I won’t, but I still feel like I could. Which is just fucking weird because it has been two years… it’ll be two years in January.
You should get yourself some of those Low-Birth weight cartons.
Bill Hicks smoking sketch still cracks me up despite being a non-smoker, perhaps infrequent smoker might be a better term.
I now don’t have them with coffee otherwise I am on a road to a low bank balance and no smell.
Don’t smoke. Its bad for you. 🙂 (6)
oh please teach me to quit.
ciggies love me, and i love them.
we’re in love, forevah ‘n evah! it’s so toxic!
This is such a weird time for you to post this. I’m down to my last four cigarettes (oops, now three) before I quit. I have patches and nicotine-loaded chewing gum (all free, thank you NHS).
But that first cigarette after you’ve quit is the best cigarette in the world. Presumably even if it is two years old and stale.
I don’t smoke but I have seen Death Proof and loved it.
the new zealand chick kicks ass
Hey, keep at it. It’s okay to slip here and there.
The patches worked great for me.
I after quite a few mentions of smoking- this post, my friend giving up, another friend starting again and Bill Hicks- I bust open my old pack.
It was sweet, then I remembered that smell follows you, spent the rest of the day catching myself realising the horrible smell was me. Thank goodness there was only two left in the pack.
Oh, this made me laugh. I’ve actually quit a few times…for brief periods(?) and then started up again. I’ve just enjoyed it, I guess?
I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced a “nic’ fit” before in my life. I’ve always just smoked out of habit. Certain situations, repetitive routines. I mean, there are times when I go home and don’t have one all night?
So I don’t know exactly where that puts me on the “addiction” spectrum. And I don’t smoke that much a day. Certainly not half a pack?
I do wonder if I could quit right now though. I think you have to really want to. I don’t. Not right now. But since I have before, I wonder if I could do it again without a problem. Just drop it like I did then.
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If I could take down the smoking addiction I have it would be as miraculous as the second coming. Am I stable enough for that yet my therapist would probably agree that I am not and it would send me for a freaking loop.
The longest stint that I ever went was 2 months without a smoke and that was because of boot camp and the dumbest shit I ever did was pick up a pack of camels when we hit the first gas station out of boot. Hell it didn’t even feel right between my fingers but that first hit of heroine was pure bliss to my nicotine starved synapses. Biggest fucking mistake that I ever made because that hooked me 10 fold more than the 6 years of smoking that I had done prior to that and I have kicked myself in the ass ever since.
Truly I can’t wait for the day that the shit becomes to expensive to get ahold of but my problem is I am becoming so tolerant of the heft of smoke that I put into my lungs that I can now smoke miniature cigars that are $6.99 a carton and have no state tax on them. The shame is my wife likes the smell of cigars better than cigarettes and I just haven’t the motivation to break my shit from this terrible addiction.
Hell I already cough so damn hard that I pass out from time to time but I found the trick for me is to have a regular pack of smokes every so many packs of cigars and I can avoid this… Total idiocy is right. Insanity is probably more appropriate. Damn I feel like a crack head… 😉