6:25 This Morning and "Quitting Again or Continuing to Quit?"

6.25 a.m.

Sipping the first morning cup of delightful bold coffee, trying to clear my head. I try to ignore it, creeping up on me, the freaking bastard demon. It stands behind me, as if I didn't know he was there. What does he think I'm stupid? As I take a deep sip from my cup, make the "ahhh" sound as I swallow, I say "I know you're there you bastard from hell, just stop thinking you're fooling me. If you have something to say get on with it." So now, less subtly, as I sip my coffee again and for the nine hundred and forty seventh time this month I lament smoking, and my right index finger taps my right middle finger absentmindedly reminding each other of the cigarette that used to be there, and how they miss that warm feeling of the paper burning barrel that would cushion them against each other, as the wonderful aroma (it really does smell good to a smoker) that would leak through the thin paper and onto their skin. My fingers sigh.

Listen you judgemental anti-smokers, I can hear you already, and you, you religious segment that consider smoking a sin, lay off for a moment here ok? It's Satan. The devil made me do it!

Bear with me, I'm leading somewhere, and by the way, don't be a grace killer. Man if I wasn't a Christian, I'm not sure I would pick Christians to be friends with. (Ok, I'm sorry I didn't mean that, I think we mean well . . . mostly) Besides, I didn't say I ran to light up, ok, kool?

You know, kidding aside (only til the end of this sentence), in this current culture, you could easier admit to having been a murderer or a wife beater trying to quit, and be less judged, maybe even supported in your struggle to "cut down" than to admit still craving cigarettes. We have done a great job of demonizing the use-to-be favorite pass time of yesteryear.

The reality is, I started smoking when I was 12, and smoking was not only socially acceptable, but it was the coolest thing a person of my age could do. It not only made me instantly cool on it's own merit, but was a wonderful prop for "the posing" that all young men in the seventies had to do to survive junior high school.

You could point off in the distance at something, calmly, with the smoking wand perfectly positioned between two fingers, and you could be so damned aloof and take a deep wonderful draw from the smoke while someone said something you were feigning as important, and while everyone marveled at how you took so much smoke without coughing, and look cool doing it, you would be nodding all-the-while you make the smoking-sucky-smoke face, and then make love to the cloud in your open mouth, as you nod again; allow a trickle of the smoke to escape your mouth, only to suck it into a nostril as if it were an attempted escape of a sexy naked woman. By the way, when I found out that was called "french inhaling," man did my cool level go up, I had thought that maneuver up myself, and then came to find I was as cool as the french.

Then one of the best possible ways you could smoke was: to savor the smoke deep in your lungs, blow it out forcefully, or, and this was my grandfathers favorite, thus mine, and the thing I loved to do in honor of him (he died from emphysema) you could talk and let the smoke just come out indifferently with the words, and from between your teeth. Man that was cool! A seeming indifference was of course the coolest thing a pre-man could do to be considered a man, and indeed the hardest to pull off. Boys in the pre teens and early teens were a fragile kind of cool, remember. Even a stif breeze could cause a boy to have to carry his note book artfully positioned in front of his fly. So to be aloof and "cool," well, took almost more than a hormone raging boy-man could muster.

At that time there was no cheaper or easier way to turn up the "cool" knob on your life in your friends eyes, than the simple and cheap art of smoking. Especially if you could do it as if it were the most normal thing in the world, something you barely even knew you were doing. Better when someone would make mention of it, and you could then roll your eyes, as if they were un-cool for even taking notice – that was just a free bonus. Side point: when someone else is observed being less than cool it automatically credits the cooler person as a level-1 cooler to roll one's eyes disgusted at the lack of coolness being displayed by said less-than-cool person.

Ok, ok, here it is, for you who are thinking I am gloriying the evil habit. Of course the hammer drops. The piper comes for his check. The bill must be paid . . . and if I were a fundamentalist or an ancient Hebrew living under the law, here is where the sin comes in, I guess; I try to act as if this were news to me that came only later in life. The sin then being (and I sort of agree here) the great lie.

Smoking as it turned out, when I approached fifty, not only is the most sure way of dying young. I had smoked and struggled to quit for decades on and off, well . . . I tried to believe myself that nobody told me in a way that mattered or made sense; I didn't know then!  When I was twelve, I had not developed the part of the brain that considers and weighs risk and consequences; how could I have understood that it was more addictive than heroin (by the way that comparison still makes me chuckle – but it apparently kills like a million times more people than heroin).

The raw truth, I don't think any of us honestly allowed themselves to think in our heart of hearts, that it was good for us. To suck smoke from burning weeds into your lungs, and call it healthful as the ads said in the nineteen forties and fifties, well, deep inside we knew it was a load of crap. Everyone knew it. We may not have known to the extremes, how bad it was but we knew. So all you non-smokers, when you ask the question, "don' they know how bad it is?" The answer is . . . of course we did. We just chose not to acknowledge it. Its kind of the same thing for me as a person struggling with weight issues–I can eat an entire cheeseburger with a completely empty and innocent mind, in the middle of a diet, and then not remember "cheating."  Why do you think we (smokers) always got so angry and defensive about it? Duh.

For your reading pleasure: here are a list of real slogans – only a smattering – of what we told ourselves through advertizing.

• Its a woman's thing

• You've come a long way baby

• For digestion's sake, smoke Camels

• Taste me, taste me, come on . . .

• You're never alone when you're smoking a Strand

• More doctors smoke Camels than any other ciggarette

• L&M its just what the doctor ordered

• Lady be Kool!

• Menthol-fresh, cool, clean, consulate

I had to stop myself, there are thousands of slogans that actually helped us to understand how good smoking was for us.

Most of the time, I am glad I quit, even all the time when I am honest with myself, but like the old country song says I still crave a good smoke "once a day." that is "once a day, every day, all day long."

Suddenly it occurs to me, (and the demon vaporizes frustrated with me) as I consider going to a lighter "creamer" in my morning coffee, as the thought rumbles around that it won't be quite as "creamy," well call me a simpleton but the stem of that word rared up for the first time. "So without "cream," it won't be quite as "creamy."" Oh, yes, it's the simple things.

The demon pops in for another moment:

"I think obesity and fat is much more dangerous than smoking. Wouldn't you be healthier losing all that extra weight and letting the cigarettes help distract you from the food? Doctors will tell you that people who smoke lose weight."

Shut up foul demon!

Then it strikes me again. The answer so close (as usual) and yet, I had almost missed it. My coffee was empty.

So here I go, off to the kitchen to grind beans and start up a fresh pot of wonderful rich and robust sumatran dark roast. Doctors do tell us, in more reports than not, drinking coffee is good for us. AhA moment. Now I am ready for my day. The demon vaporizes finally truly powerless, and I lift my praise hands to the sky! My additive personality has been distracted by the majestic drink of the gods (there is only one for me, but that was for my polytheistic friends). God is still in charge of the universe, and has blessed coffee once again for my use. He has shown His mercy and . . . I suddenly tire of verbal-bating and head for a warming refreshing of my cup and a good day's work.

Now I can start my day!

Best to you all!

P.S. I wrote this to answer the person a few weeks ago who asked, why I like coffee so much.