Giving It Up

Losing weight and quitting smoking are always the top two New Year’s resolutions for us Americans. Not to brag, but I’ve done both—quitting a twelve-year, pack-a-day smoking habit and losing (and regaining and relosing) a rather substantial amount of weight in my life. I did neither by making a New Year’s resolution. Like most really huge life changes, each event was the result of a series of minor shifts. I’d like to say that these shifts were a series of decisions that I made all by myself. That would be very bootstrappy, don’t you think? In truth, sheer willpower was a shockingly small percentage of the overall picture. In each case, circumstances maneuvered me to a place where change of some sort was inevitable.

Take smoking. I did decide to quit, that’s true. But not because I no longer wanted to reek of smoke, or because my habit was siphoning perfectly fine cash from my meager bank account, or because people who loved me wanted me to quit before something bad developed. These things were also true. But I only decided I to quit once I started coughing up blood. This was not just traces of pink every once in a while, like maybe with a really bad cold. Nuh-uh. It was more hardcore Bukowski style. Some mornings I’d wake up, shut off the alarm, grab a handful of tissues, and yak up roughly half a teaspoon of blood.

After six months of this, I knew that the blood wouldn’t just go away like I had hoped. So I decided to quit. But of course, that doesn’t mean that I was able to. Three months after that decision, the best I had done was to cut down to half a pack a day, and the coughing fits worsened, if anything. Instead of hitting only in the morning, they came on any time of the day.

One creepy component of those last months as a smoker was that I could get the coughing to stop—by lighting up a cigarette. It was as though my very cells were crying out in protest. My body turned traitor, and it wanted its fix, damn it. While I was taking in a drag I could feel some kind of internal smoothing out. Whether this was physical or psychological, I couldn’t tell you. It felt like a vacuum making tracks on a shag carpet. Like something was progressing. Like some kind of change was inevitable.

Sometimes it takes people that long to realize that even indecision is a decision.

I quit my job and left my apartment and moved to my parents’ place in Wisconsin for two and a half months. The nearest store was ten miles away. I didn’t have a car, a driver’s license, or the lung capacity for walking more than one city block at a time. The first week, I slept. Then for seven weeks straight I remember having daily screaming matches with my father in his pole barn.

Every swear word and oath that we belted forth was amplified tenfold by the tin walls and the fourteen-foot ceilings. I don’t remember what we argued about, probably the usual suspects. My lack of direction in life, poor romantic choices, my ever-changing hairstyle. My Dad was a world-class yeller, and I learned the craft at his knee. He could yell about anything, anytime, anywhere. Not everybody can do that, you know.

Blessedly, it turns out this was just what I needed. Like a priest performing an exorcism, Dad shouted painful truths in plain language and my demons came roaring out to meet him, gnashing their fangs, matching him round for round with sickening retorts. Devious comments were designed to mirror, escalate, and confuse, thereby ensuring the marathon duration of our contest. It got to the point where I could no longer tell what was burning, my chest cavity or my rage. Dad, meanwhile, stood strong. He took what I threw at him and dished out some more.

People who knew me in those days sometimes marvel at the fact that I no longer smoke. When they ask me how I quit, it’s difficult to explain. Too embarrassing, you know? Admitting the complete loss of control. The terror of the bloody coughing fits and the shame of still being unable to stop. My big bear of a worried Dad tearing into me. So sometimes I tell them the complicated truth. And other times, I smile and say I did it cold turkey, even though I’ve learned that there is no such thing as cold turkey, just like there is no such thing as overnight success. Major change doesn’t happen without many, many minor shifts. I moved myself away from cigarettes. I eventually put myself far away from them, like a child who can’t get to the candy jar. In a way, I didn’t really quit—I just don’t smoke anymore.