A Smoking Ex-Smoker Talks About Smoking

    I quit smoking almost seven years ago after being a heavy smoker most of my life. I started by sneaking a Camel from my mother's pack or finding an unfinished butt in the ashtray on top of the furnace in the kitchen. It was an old house with an old coal-fired furnace in the kitchen next to what had been a house heating fireplace in earlier years. Carrying coal from the dirt cellar to the kitchen was one of my daily chores along with removing the ash pan and dumping it in the metal trash can out back.

    That's about the time I started working part time at the local Esso station (Esso became Exxon) when service stations actually provided service — washing the windshield, checking the oil, checking the tires and pumping gas. I was eleven but big for my age and in a small town, nobody bothered about requiring working papers for young part-timers.

    At the station, the cigarettes were on a shelf next to the cash register and offered a delightful variety of cigarettes that a curious young experimenter could try. Back then, smokers unashamedly enjoyed their smokes anywhere and everywhere.

    Among the many "samples" I tried were Camels, of course, Lucky Strikes (LSMFT - Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco), Pall Mall (in hoc signo vinces - "By this sign shall you conquer" above the brand's popular slogan, Wherever Particular People Congregate), Herbert Tareyton, Old Gold, Chesterfield and non-filtered Kools. It didn't take long to get hooked.

    Smoking was, I thought, a kind of status symbol. I was born not on the wrong side of the tracks but close enough to the tracks downtown that I could never be a part of the uptown "in crowd".

    Fast forward to a couple weeks ago: Except for the last 6 years and 8 months of being an ex-smoker, the longest non-smoking stretch I endured was in the Navy during refueling, re-arming or at General Quarters. Aboard ship, any time the flag Bravo was hoisted, the smoking lamp was out. (Flag Bravo is a red, swallow-tail shaped flag often referred to by old Salts as "Maggie's Britches"). Beyond that, I was pretty much a chain smoker up to 3 packs a day until nearly seven years ago.

    What triggered my falling off the non-smoking wagon? In a nostalgic mood I read some French poetry by Jacques Prévert, Déjeuner du Matin and La Grasse Matinee both of which are talking about a cup of coffee and the former the smoke rising from a cigarette. Any smoker knows that coffee and a cigarette are almost an inseparable pair.

    My late sister discovered the French singer Charles Aznavour and shared his music with me. My head was in a different place and I was not as hooked on his songs as she was. After her untimely death though, I played the records of his she had bought and I listened with a different ear and began liking his music so much that when I had the opportunity to see him in concert at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, I gladly went.

    Another French song performed by "The Little Sparrow," Edith Piaf, was included in my trip down nostalgia lane. In her Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien she lights a cigarette while reminiscing about her past.

    How easily I remembered the taste and aroma of the Gauloises I smoked when ashore in France, kind of like a French version of Camels. In State College where I was a student, Gauloises were available at the book store on College Avenue. I thought finding a pack here would be a simple matter of going to a tobacco shop. Not so. (I learned that the French no longer make Gauloises. They are now made in Spain.) Although I discovered they would be available via internet, it is my firm intention to return to non-smoking status again so I will not pursue acquisition.

    Unable to close the nostalgia paragraph with French cigarettes, I yielded to the temptation to accept a couple drags from a young lady with whom I sang at a non-smoking karaoke event. I felt attracted to her and her beautiful voice (We sang the Bocelli/Brightman duet Time To Say Goodbye, in Italian) and when she went to the patio for a smoke, I went along to continue our conversation. The next event, I returned the favor by taking advantage of some coupons for Newports that I continued to receive even during my non-smoking years.

    What's my point? Simply this, addiction to cigarettes is forever. Even during my nearly seven years of abstention there was never a day that went by without my thinking about a cigarette. Walking in to a smoke filled room didn't bother me. My triggers were not related to seeing people smoking or to the smell of the smoke. I've often said if second-hand smoke is so bad, why can't I get my "fix" by just taking in deep breaths. My triggers always began as soon as my feet hit the floor in the morning.

    This latest excursion into the smoking world showed me I will never be free of the risk of addiction but, with judicious self control, I can yield to an occasional puff without reverting to my former heavy smoking habit.

    I am not now nor have I ever been nor will I ever be a didactic, proselytizing anti-smoker like some ex-smokers have become. I say, if you got 'em, smoke 'em, but fully know if you decide to quit, you'll have to confirm that decision each and every day.

One Day At A Time

(Where have we heard that before?)

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Abbreviations:To Your Health

    Some abbreviations are acronyms, that is, they can be spoken as words such as Radar for RAdio Detection And Ranging. Some are initialisms where the pronunciation as written would be difficult such as LCPD or LGH. (Wikipedia has an excellent entry on the subject of “Acronyms”).

    The health initialisms everybody should know are DVT, PAD and COPD. DVT is particularly important because it stands for the silent killer Deep Vein Thrombosis or blood clot. It was a DVT that killed newsman David Bloom when it broke loose and moved into his lung as a pulmonary embolism (PE).

    David’s wife, Melanie, has taken the tragedy of his death as an opportunity to inform everyone she can about this largely unknown killer of as many as 200,000 people in this country alone. That’s about 10 percent of those who develop a DVT and that death rate is more than AIDS and breast cancer combined. (Check the news article on Today.com and search for DVT or David Bloom legacy.)

    From the article, “risk factors include injury, surgery, illness, pregnancy, SMOKING [emphasis added by me], and prolonged immobility” as in driving over-the-road in a truck or sitting in one position without moving your legs for a long time.

    I was an over-the-road truck driver for ten years and I smoked 2 to 3 packs of cigarettes a day. I had a DVT 12 years ago. I also was diagnosed with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder) and PAD (Peripheral Artery Disease) both of which resulted from or were worsened by my cigarette smoking.

    I was spared. My DVT didn’t become a PE or a migratory missile winding up in some other damaging location. My dear sister, Bonnie, was not as fortunate. In 1972, multiple PE’s killed her.

    Even though I am smoke free now for more than 6 years, the damaging effects of being a long term smoker are still affecting me. The PAD has resulted in circulatory insufficiency which allows blood and other fluids to accumulate in my lower extremities and set up the conditions ripe for a stasis (stagnation in the normal flow of bodily fluids) ulcer.

    That is the apparent reason for my third occurrence of a leg ulcer. It’s similar to the open sores suffered by some diabetics. This type of ulcer is resistant to healing and calls for immediate medical attention preferably by a wound care specialist. I am immeasurably grateful to nurse Nancy and the doctors in the Wound Care Clinic of the Lebanon VA hospital for their patient, caring treatment of their patient, me.

    Even with all the foregoing, I have to say I still wish for a smoke every day even after all this time. A cigarette in hand was a friend for decades and the bond was an addiction that non-smokers can’t begin to understand. I am not now nor will I ever become one of those holier than thou, rabid, crusading ex-smokers out to “cure” everybody of their habit. If you got ‘em, smoke ‘em. But be informed — bad things can happen.

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Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

    Post hoc ergo propter hoc is simply Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”. It seems New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg is guilty of committing this kind of logical fallacy in blaming hurricane Sandy on global warming.

    Global warming and cooling have been occurring cyclically for billions of years. Have you ever heard talk about the “Ice Age(s)”? Have you ever heard of the great Galveston hurricane of 1900? Those events happened long before humans existed or before humans had any appreciable impact on the global environment.

    Now Mayor Bloomberg is using President Obama’s position on global warming as justification to endorse him for re-election‽ Remember this is the mayor who outlawed over-sized refreshments because he appointed himself the supreme authority on what is bad for HIS people.

    What is really sad is that there are so many sequacious people who glibly accede to his purported concerns about the health impact. They support their acceptance with comments such as, “Well, he’s right, you know” or “He’s only looking out for us.” It’s that kind of shrugging acceptance which seems symptomatic of our loss of personal freedoms!

    In a letter to the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, Doctor Kathleen Kreider of New Holland (PA) [published October 19, 2012], deplores the “growing and disturbing trend…[of] sacrificing our right to make individual choices about things as fundamental as what we eat and drink” in the purported interest of public health. She also mentions a local hospital which has recently announced they WILL NOT hire, or employ smokers even if those people smoke only off duty or off premises.

    Educating people about potential consequences of unhealthy behavior is part of her job. Babysitting them to prevent unhealthy behavior is not part of her job nor should it be. Neither should it be the job of a big city mayor. Even as a mayor, Mister Bloomberg has a right to his opinion but since his intervention to staunch Free Will, political endorsements seem a dangerous track for him to take.

    Prosit, Skol, L’Chaim and Cheers all mean essentially “To your health” -- They are toasts, not Orwellian commands!