Ending My Longest and Most Toxic Relationship

My love affair with cigarettes must come to an end. This summer marks the 25th anniversary of the birth of my smoking habit. I began the summer before high school and it had become a daily habit by the summer before sophomore year. I’ve quit more times than I can count, usually for just a couple weeks or months at a time. I did quit for both pregnancies and breast feeding times and I quit for a full two years after a scary medical incident in 2014, but all together, I have smoked roughly 20 of the last 25 years. 

In preparation for this blog post, I went searching through old photos to find pictures of me smoking. The earliest one I found is the blurry one of me in the baseball cap below. I’m 15. The oldest one in this series is the one of me above with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. There I’m 20. After that, I was hard pressed to find a picture of me with a cigarette. I have hated this habit for so long that any time a camera came out, I meticulously made sure my cigarette was always hidden. I didn’t want the picture “ruined” by having the cigarette show up in it. 

In the pictures, I noticed that my entire group of friends was also smoking. Smoking was so fucking cool to us. If there happened to be a friend in the group that didn’t smoke, I thought of myself as cooler than them. Smoking gave me a sense of rebellion and gave me the feeling of being an adult. When I thought of fun, smoking and drinking with friends was what immediately came to mind. For the first few years of my habit, I loved the way I looked when I was smoking. I would admire my hand and think how cool it looked with a cigarette daintily tucked between my pointer and middle finger. If I caught my own reflection, I would pretend to model with my cigarette. Again, it made me feel grown up, and that was really all I had wanted to be.

My early 20s is when I remember starting to hate this habit. I had changed friend groups and less and less people around me were smoking. When I was 24 I remember saying to a friend who had just picked up the habit, “WHY?! Why would you start now? You’ve seen the toll it takes on those of us who have been doing this for a while. Why would you do that?!” I remember being so sad for him. And embarrassed for myself. I was only 24 and yet I was already a decade long smoker. And that little cigarette had a tight grip on me and wasn’t going to let go. 

I thought for sure after I had my first child I would stop for good. Nope. I was able to hold off for 6 months after she was born, then right back at it. I would set limits for myself: only at night, after she goes to bed. I was able to stick with that rule but probably only because my second child came so soon after the first. After his birth, I only lasted 3 months. He stopped breastfeeding, and I started back smoking. Two months later we had a tragic loss and the “only after bed” rule went right out the window. 

In 2014, I experienced the first episode of a rare form of migraine that presents itself like a stroke. I woke up in the middle of the night unable to move my right arm and unable to speak or think clearly. The ER doctor gave me the informal diagnosis of a severe migraine and it was confirmed after multiple tests and MRIs showing no signs of stroke. Luckily though, my brain associated the previous nights’ activities, which included smoking more than usual, as causing this “stroke” so I immediately stopped smoking. I was able to fend off my toxic lover for 2 whole years. HOWEVER, my lover called to me every single day of that 2 years. “Come on, go buy a pack. Come on. You know you want to. Come on. Just one little cigarette. Come on. You know you love me.” Every. Single. Day. Finally, I couldn’t fend him off any longer and I gave in and went right back into being a daily smoker. 

Fast forward three years and we arrive in the present. I’ve tried multiple times to quit again but always break down and buy another pack. Then something changed. I’m not sure why, but I finally started to wake up. First I started making better eating choices. I have struggled with stomach issues my whole life so I finally started being mindful of what I put in my face and drastic changes started to occur in my body. Then I started to incorporate some sort of physical activity daily or at least every other day and I saw more drastic changes in my body. Next I started to be more mindful about the career choices I was making and I started to see huge positive changes happening in my work. All the while, I kept fighting with my cigarettes. “I fucking hate you. Why can I change everything else, but not you?” I would think as I sat looking at the lit cigarette in my hand.

Then a couple of things happened I couldn’t ignore. First was when a young castmate of mine said something and in my head I said to myself, “Oh honey, I’ve been smoking longer than you’ve been alive,” and that thought felt like someone had dumped cold water on me. In that moment I realized my smoking habit was the same age as a fully formed, college educated, financially independent, ADULT. That moment felt devastating. Not long after that, I was listening to Chelsea Handler on a podcast and she was talking about how hypnotherapy had helped her quit. That reminded me of a former coworker who had also had success quitting with hypnotherapy. And while I was thinking that, I noticed that the building right next to the stop light I was at, in a part of town I am never in, had a sign that said, “Stop Smoking Now! Ask us how!” And the business was a hypnotherapist. Well played, Mother Universe, well played. 

So I went home, did some research, met with a hypnotherapist nearest me and began the process. I went in completely open, but also pretty damn skeptical. The first session was just to get to know me and see if this seemed like a good fit. The second session was a long counseling session to delve into my past (much like traditional talk therapy) and then a session of relaxation hypnotherapy to teach me the process and help me learn to self-hypnotize (similar to guided meditation). The third session was the real deal. I chose to do age regression to return to the moments when smoking was introduced into my life and to then change the narrative of those moments. That shit was POWERFUL. Through reliving those memories, I had a series of “ah-ha!” moments that informed not only my smoking, but also my thoughts on authenticity of self, my parenting insecurities and my attachment issues. That session was also when I threw away what cigarettes I had left. Two days later we had a follow up session to cement becoming a “non-smoker for life” and also to dive deeper into some bigger issues. I have two more sessions this month which I will be using to further clean up old messes and create new positive narratives. 

July 2nd was the day I threw the cigarettes away. Obviously, that was only nine days ago, and anyone can dismiss that progress by saying that nine days isn’t long enough to judge whether this worked or not. But, as a long time trying-to-quit smoker, I can tell you that this time feels different. Why does it feel different? Maybe because of the connection with my subconscious. Maybe because of finding the root cause of why I was smoking in the first place. Maybe because I realized how much money I’ve spent over the years ($3,000+). Maybe because it was a pretty penny to go through this process. Maybe it’s just the power of suggestion. At this point…I don’t give a fuck why it feels different, I’m just happy that it does. I haven’t had the urge at all to go buy another pack. The nagging voice of my toxic lover sometimes still tries to call out to me but now very softly and much less frequently and immediately a loud voice yells over that one giving me positive reinforcements. I have even passed a few tests. I drank alcohol on the 4th of July and never once had the urge to pair a cigarette with it (a habit that I’ve had so long, this was actually my first drink without a nicotine chaser). I even binge watched Chernobyl on HBO the other day and couldn’t help thinking the Universe was REALLY trying to test me when the subtitle of that show could be: A look at nuclear disaster and the tremendous smoking habits of Eastern Europeans in the 1980s. Not to mention, my neighbors sit on their balcony chain-smoking all day/night long. The temptations have definitely been there but something has definitely changed for me. 

There you have it. I’ve told my toxic relationship to fuck off and never come back and I am the only one who gets to control whether that changes. I wanted to share this because I know a lot of people who struggle with smoking and this method happened to work for me. Much like anything in life, I will only get out of this what I put into it and I’m one of those who is stubborn enough to set my mind to something and stick with it. Also like anything else in life, this is a decision you’ll have to come to on your own. I fought this new me with tooth and nail. I had severe anxiety going into it but knew I HAD to overcome this. And I’m so glad I did. 

So whether by hypnotherapy, medication, nicotine gum/patches/lozenges, or cold-turkey; I hope that if this is something you struggle with and would like to stop, that you find a path that works for you and that you find out that you are much stronger than you could have ever imagined.