How I Kicked the Habit

Now, an avid fitness junkie (and foodie), would it surprise you to know that eight years ago, I was a world champion couch potato, smoked a pack a day, ate absolute crap, and felt like poo all the time?  Yes, I was a smoker.  And, "how can this be, Kimmie?"- you may be inclined to ask.  Honestly it all started back in college at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville circa 1997-2002. Pre-Zoom and other cyber conference methods, we used to meet "old skool" in the University library for our study sessions and group projects.  And, they were all smoking rooms!!  It's hard to believe that now while we have "Non-Smoking" sections of public sidewalks!  My mom worked in an Engineering office where all of the ladies smoked right there at their desk!  So, yea, it hasn't been that long ago that our smoking rules/culture have changed in the USA.  Additionally, I grew up in tobacco country, the South! Anyways, I digressed there...oh yea, so it was one night in the study rooms at the library I decided to try my first cigarette.  And, it was maybe my old soul of being from the 20's, but it felt like a more active conversation in these study groups to smoke, too. 

I was such a closet smoker.  My grandfather died from complications from emphysema, colloquially called "black lung."  He breathed in too much coal dust that never bio-decayed and built up and stuck in his lungs.  He died at 67, because he decided being tied to an oxygen machine was no way to live life and ventured to Colorado from Chattanooga for a pretty new procedure to clean the air pockets of his lungs.  For obvious reasons, he couldn't handle the elevation change, and was ambulance air lifted to Vanderbilt in Nashville where he passed away by suffocating to death (due to medical error - FYI, roughly 300 people die per day due to medical error). 

So why the heck was I smoking?  My family donates to the American Lung Associate.  Again, why?  I wasn't rebellious.  So, why? I grew up an athlete and always very active.  So, why?  Because I couldn't stop, for the long and short of it.  I wasn't just smoking during study sessions.  Now, I was smoking with coffee first thing in the morning.  I was smoking after every class, after every meal, while driving, while drinking, while crying, while sitting...you get the point.  I had become a pack a day smoker.  Not only was I smoking, I was smoking cowboy non-filtered and Winston Reds.  But, usually, unless in a study session or at a bar, I didn't smoke publicly.  It was always in private.  I guess I wanted the wold to believe I was only a hip little social smoker.

Anyways, this madness went on years.  I would make an oath to quit forever, and usually it wouldn't last long.  Like that one time my buddy Felix and I built an alter in the yard of this tree house apartment I was renting.  We took stones and made a circle alter for the sacrifice, doused it with lighter fluid, dumped all our cigarettes and lit a match.  Literally an hour later we were "jonesing" for a cigarette, and drove to the local gas station.  So years and years of this madness, but nothing in my head could connect I needed to quit.  It was what's called "Cognitive dissonance", where you know something is not right in your head but your body continues to do it.  I knew, but my strength of knowledge didn't outweigh my addiction.  I lacked mind over matter.  More importantly, in my 20's and 30's I lacked self love.  I often wonder which was stronger, the chemicals in cigarettes or my lack of self love?

Skip forward to 2012.  I had just had an awakening.  That is beautiful way of saying I had a slight mental breakdown.  Growth and awakenings are never pretty, by the way.  Rom-coms really screwed us up this way.  Fun to watch, but never real.  Awakenings, in real life usually entail mascara running down your cheek in front of a room full of your subordinates.  Again, I digress.  I had just lost my job in middle management, and I had reached my limit with the office culture.  I decided to take my first life sabbatical from adulthood.  Even though I was smoking, I started walking and lost a lot of weight.  I went to the Kentucky Derby.  I read some books I always wanted to read but never found the time.  I just had fun.  But, after three months, I knew I needed to get a job before I blew through my meager savings.  

I met a guy at my old job, named Greg.  Another manager there kept trying to get me date, and she set up me with this guy who worked for a local car plant that supplied BMW X5's to the world.  We met at Soby's in downtown Greenville and the other manager and her sweet son (with Downs) also met for the date so I wouldn't feel uncomfortable.  Anyways, that's how I met Greg who later got me a job interview at the Plant!  Yea!  So, I walked into this interview, and I remember this like it was yesterday, with a power suit and power bangs.  I sit down in the meek humble room with a wall poster and two stackable chairs chairs.  The first question I'm asked, "Can you operate a fork lift?"  And, stunned, I ask if she has the right candidate, "Kimberley?  English Major?  Administrative?"  And, that is when she revealed how much more a "production association" on the assembly line would make.  And, yes, I worked for 10 months (quite a feet) in the only North American BMW plant making X5's like Rosie the Riveter with my lip gloss.

Anyways, back to the cigs.  Sorry I get off on tangents sometimes.  In order to get the job, I had to be subjected to rigorous exams, physical fitness checks, and basically a military grade physical.  During the physical, the nurse had a spirometer.  For those who are unfamiliar, it's an apparatus used for measuring the volume of air both inspired and expired by the lungs and therefore can calculate the age of your lungs.  After all, BMW was basically hiring a human robot and wanted to make sure I was a good investment.  So, I put the spirometer in my mouth and took a deep breath...NOTHING.  I did it again.  Again, nothing.  So, the administering nurse explained to me, in somewhat of a somber tone, that if I failed to register the spirometer on the third go, she would fail me.  So, like the big bag wolf, y'all, I huffed and puffed and got the spirometer to print out the age of my lungs.  I was 32 at the time and my lungs were 12 years older than me.  I quit cold turkey that day.  That did it.  I was scared straight.

Not long after that, I joined my first MeetUp hiking group/team.  I hiked the highest mountains and coughed up quite a bit of lung.  And, it felt SO GOOD.  I was addicted to feeling good, breathing fresh air, and enjoying the taste of food again! I never suffer anymore from seasonal bronchitis.  I don't stink t to high heavens of ash trays.  Like I said at the beginning of the article, it's like my whole life pivoted on a huge change right after I knocked the habit.  Scared straight, some might say.  Indeed, the smell of someone lighting one up or smoking now makes me a little nauseous.  I cannot get into a car that smells like an ashtray or I will for sure puke.  So, it's been such a positive change for me these last eight years. 

Two nights ago, I met someone who shared with me that they survived a meth addiction in his early youth.  To learn how he started sounded like me in that study room.  Many people argue it's indeed easier to quite hard drugs than quit cigarettes.  Maybe because they are so readily available everywhere, except CVS, maybe?  I really liked the stance the drug store took on selling cigarettes as a health store.  But, on that note, shut down half your pharma too!  Bring in fruits and veggies, holistics, some more healing.  But, not selling cigs is a first great step.

What has been your addictions and how did you quit?  How did it change your life for the better?