How I Actually Quit Smoking in 2020
By: John Gorman
Tags: Health, 2020, Mental Health, This Is Us, Self Improvement

A brief history of quitting

Of course, I knew smoking was bad for me. I’d known for years. I remember taking the “Smoke Free Class of 2000” pledge in fifth grade. I remember cigarette smoke annoying my lungs as a child. There wasn’t one cigarette out of the roughly 10,000+ I smoked where I thought, “man, I’m so glad I picked this up.”

As it turned out, the best thing for curtailing my smoking habit over the years was being broke — the easiest way to ensure I wouldn’t buy a pack was to ensure that I couldn’t afford one. Failing to clear $40K per year until my 30s, and being buried under a devastating mountain of debt until 32 allowed me to go a couple days in between packs. But all I could think about in between dire straights and direct deposit was the next pack. Sometimes I’d go a week. Mostly less. And, as a musician, I could always pick up a gig, drink for free and bum a stick before buying a pack downtown after I’d collected my customary $100 in tips.

I tried the gum in 2006 but it didn’t take. I tried a phase-out approach in 2013 to no avail. Toward the end of 2017 as I was drying out, my doctor prescribed Chantix. This actually worked, but during weeks when I knew I’d have a busy social calendar, I’d abstain from the little blue pills so I could properly enjoy the sweet release of nicotine into my veins in the company of fellow revelers. That didn’t stop me from filling the prescription anyway. With insurance they were cheap AF and someday I knew I would want them.

Every time I made quarter-assed attempts to quit — which of course I swore I would do, as every smoker knows every pack is their “last pack” — I tried to time my last drink with my last cigarette. This is a terrible strategy. There’s a six-pack of beer and 20 cigarettes in a pack. The math never works out.

I found I was drinking and smoking much less in 2019, so I gave quitting a go again near the start of 2020, but the pandemic dashed — along with pretty much everyone’s plans, the global economy, and the national social order of things—that well-intentioned objective. I spent most of the spring isolated and drowning myself in wine and nicotine, spending hours on the phone with people I’d probably never meet or see again. Then, unbelievably, I met my current boo and it was the kick in the ass I used as an excuse to get my ass in proper gear.

If I’m paranoid enough to go into a self-imposed Stage-5 lockdown until they stab me, I should also be paranoid enough to kick my butts goodbye.

Wheezing and woozy, and unable to run my customary 5K in less time than it takes for me to write an essay, I decided to try one more time. I thought, “you know, it’s been a solid baker’s-dozen years since you last had a local romantic partner, perhaps you, Mr. Gorman, could try and ease up off the smokes so you can stick around on this Earth longer in the event that you want to build a future with her.” At least that was the excuse I gave myself, as if I’d never dated a nonsmoker before. (I have. Trust me, that wasn’t enough to move my needle.)

The truth of my reasoning was slightly more ridiculous: After I resigned myself to this pandemic lasting pretty much forever—and it’s thus far gobbled up 2.5% of my time alive on Earth — I got scared straight. Although I’m young, Covid-19 could still get me killed, and smoking is the one demonstrated risk factor I had control over. Despite the mild protective shield of my Type-O blood, my immunodeficiency and lifelong asthma are plenty pronounced enough to cause me concern should I come in contact with this thing.

I want to make it to vaccination day, and I have a great life ahead of me on the other side of this hellhole. If I’m paranoid enough to go into a self-imposed Stage-5 lockdown until they stab me, I should also be paranoid enough to kick my butts goodbye. So here we go.