The weird part is how easy it was and that I haven’t gained a single ounce. Now, that’s weird. I’m fully expecting to wake up some morning with a lit cigarette in my mouth and 30 pounds around my middle that weren’t there the night before.
It’s very weird, very weird indeed. But I’m loving it. A lot.
I’ll tell you how I did it shortly.
Funny thing about smoking. It doesn’t take much to get started. Or as any smoker, or former smoker knows, restarted. Being immensely stupid helps, helps a lot. Really. Because no right-thinking person with anything resembling a brain would willingly put a glowing, red-hot tube of carcinogens in his mouth and suck.
I’m not a stupid man, but when it comes to smoking, I’m as dumb as a sack of spent butts.
Like most smokers, I’d quit before, a bunch of times. The most recent was Jan. 5, 2005, which I remember because it’s the birthday of a close friend, and the next day I was going on a trip to the Caribbean which seemed to be a good time to chew some nicotine gum and wean myself off butts. It worked, too, and I was good for the next five-plus years.
My son joined the Army in 2009 and reported for basic, ironically, on Jan. 5 the next year. In the service, it seems, smoking is as prevalent as pushups and drill sergeants barking at you to do more of them. My son smokes, and I blame myself a lot for that, but still, it was ultimately his choice to be stupid and start. Ah, like stupid father, like stupid son. Helluva legacy, that.
Now mind you, over the years I wasn’t smoking, I’d bum a butt every so often, usually while drinking at a party, and that was that, I’d smoke one, never feeling the urge for more. I’d do this every few months, a couple or few times a year. Piece of cake. Got it licked, I figured.
But in April of 2010, after my son was done with basic, I drove him to Fort Drum in upstate New York, about a seven-hour haul.
So what the hell, I bummed a few on the way up. Then a few more that night, as we stayed in a hotel before I dropped him off at the base the next day – after bumming a few more. I dropped him off, stopped at a convenience store and bought my own pack, convincing myself it was just one pack, I’d smoke that and no more. I did mention that smokers are immensely stupid, right?
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