Breathing Fire, Not Smoke

It’s been a month and a day since I abandoned my binge-smoking ways, but only yesterday did I truly kill my desire to smoke.

The most apt description of what I’ve been fighting is this: Smoking creates an itch in the lung that only a cigarette can scratch. This past week my lungs have felt like flea-infested varmints. Perhaps I’d revived the nicotine monster by cheating with a puff here and there, renewing old cravings. Or maybe my lungs desired smoke because I put myself on a roller-coaster ride when I started slapping the nicotine patch on willy-nilly last week. (I didn’t follow the directions at all.)

But this feels different than a nicotine craving. It is a very specific wanting that crops up in my lungs. Yesterday I was dying to get in there and scratch it. I looked through the advice I’ve received in the past month and considered the three options that seemed most likely to reach my lungs.

1. Smoke a joint.
2. Use a nicotine inhaler.
3. Practice yoga.

You probably guessed that the first suggestion didn’t come from a medical source. Smoking marijuana cigarettes damages the lungs. But the woman friend who swears by this method is no sloppy stoner; she’s a successful ex-smoker. She told me to fill up a cigarette case with joints and light up whenever I get that craving in the lungs. This breaks the habit, she promised, because a gal can only smoke so much ganja.

Hmm. It was fun to think that getting high as a kite every day could improve my life, but I seriously doubted I could keep a straight face while saying: “But I’m just doing this to quit smoking, officer.” So I looked to option 2.

Sucking on a nicotine inhaler probably would’ve been a great solution. Unfortunately, I was not prepared when the need came yesterday. First I would’ve needed to go to the pharmacy, which meant I’d need a prescription, which meant I’d need a doctor’s appointment, which meant I’d just have to wait. (Not that getting marijuana would’ve been any easier.)

Patience has not become a virtue of mine since I quit cigarettes, so I went for the more convenient option 3.