27 Years Ago Today...

5:25pm, Eastern daylight time... That was the last cigarette I ever smoked.

How do I remember it? It was the day after Mt. St. Helens erupted, and here in Washington State, we remember that event every year on the date it happened.

I was living in North Carolina then, in the final months of my 6 year enlistment in the Air Force. I was living in a rented house with a young married couple--Both coworkers and great friends of mine. One afternoon Cindy and I were sitting on the couch in the living room, and if memory serves me, were both pretty high. I don't know where Skip (his nickname all his life) was at the time... Probably outside doing something. I turned to her and said, "See this? (holding up the cigarette I had just lit) It's the last cigarette I'll ever smoke."
"Yeah right." she said with the typical cynicism people reserve for statements like that.

I have no idea why I chose to quit. Nobody told me I should, begged me, coerced me, or anything else. I never experienced any health issues of any kind, and never felt that smoking interfered with anything in my life. Looking back on it now, I do seem to remember being annoyed at the few times I couldn't smoke somewhere. Rules were very loose governing smoking back then, and when a situation denied me the ability to smoke I remember being perturbed. How dare they, right? Boy, times change... Anyway, that may have influenced my choice to quit. You know what I think really did it though? Cindy's words: "Yeah, right." I remember saying something to the effect of, "Oh yeah? You'll see..."

Yeah, right.

I remember telling everyone, and telling everyone to tell everyone else. I wanted people to be watching me all the time--Never giving me an opportunity to slip and "lose it." I also remember thinking that it would be easy because I had a lifestyle that afforded me the opportunity to smoke a lot of weed, and I figured I would just smoke joints instead, and then ease up on them after a while. Ha. Weed may have a lot going for it, but it does NOT replace smoking. The fullness in the lungs (eww!) when you inhale a cigarette was not there. Obviously it was a nicotine thing. I do think, however, that being stoned a lot helped me lessen the urges when they did hit though--My mind simply wandered away from it more easily.

Anyone that has quit will tell you their own stories, but for me it was a "roller coaster ride" of urges and desires. I could go a few days and be fine--Only occasionally reaching for my smokes after a meal and instantly realizing, "oh yeah..." when they weren't there. Then out of the blue a huge wave of withdrawal would hit, and I'd run the gamut of emotions. As time went by, the frequency of bouts of withdrawal did get farther and farther apart, but their severity never waned much--For at least 6 months or so anyway. Little by little, even they went away. For years I might occasionally have a dream where I awoke and realized that I was smoking in it. It never affected me or made me want to smoke when I woke up, rather, I found it curious that my subconscious had still not let it go. I think it was at least 10 years until I really felt like I was a nonsmoker.

Sometimes it seems like it was just the other day, and and sometimes it seems like it was a lifetime ago. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since that day, but at the same time, I've sorta come full circle. I was young, single, and carefree back then, and now I'm old, single, and carefree (sometimes too carefree... Just like back then).

Thank you, Mount St. Helens, for affording me the way for me to remember this important date in my life.