Not Smoking One Day at a Time.

I smoked my last cigarette at 1:00 a.m. on 1 /1. No ceremony, no drama. Just a Camel Wide on my front porch after ringing in the new year at Cam and Meredith's, then off to bed. All done.

I've tried a few of the stop-smoking aids -- patches, inhalers, nasal spray, gum -- to no avail. The idea, of course, is to make an easier, softer way for addicts to go straight. Just gradually reduce your nicotine intake until you can't hear its siren song. It sure sounds easy.

Ask addicts whether they were successful weaning themselves from their drug of choice. Maybe suggest this gradual plan for alcoholics: start out drinking a case of beer. Switch to a 12-pack, and then a sixer, then a 40, then a tall boy and then just stop drinking altogether. That's a mere five steps -- a savings of seven steps.

Yeah, right.

For me, there's no safe level of nicotine; no easier, softer way to quit smoking. A little bit of nicotine makes me want more until I'm back at the gas station, getting my fix from the Marlboro man.

I started smoking 30 years ago last month when I wanted to freak out my Carolina roommate. Our relationship was simple: he smoked a lot and I complained a lot. Until one night, during a daiquiri party in our dorm room, I lit up a Salem 100 just for the shock value. Not that there's a smart reason to start smoking, I still say this one ranks among the dumbest.

I quit smoking for a couple of years, but I was dipping Copenhagen and Skoal instead. Smokeless tobacco cans tell you that, duh, it's not a safe alternative to smoking. They don't tell you that one pinch in your lower lip will give you a cigarette pack's worth of nicotine in about 20 minutes. When I quit dipping I was so nicotine-dependent that I started smoking two days later. I said that I was stressed out about buying our first house. I guess I picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue, too.

Dad quit smoking and then tried to convince me to quit. "Eric," he'd say, with dramatic intensity, "when my doctor said quit or die, it was the easiest decision I ever made." At that point he had already smoked for over 40 years, had two heart surgeries, and was well aware that smoking had killed his father at the age of 60. I laughed almost as hard as when he tried to give me marital advice a scant two days after his fourth divorce. But that was just Dad -- completely irony-impaired.

Then Mom died of COPD this year. For several years it had been an ordeal to walk from her bedroom to the kitchen where she would lean on her forearms over the sink, smoking and coughing, for hours. If you made her laugh you could send her on a two-minute coughing jag. After being released from the hospital she extended her life from May to October by not smoking. But she couldn't overcome 50 years of lung damage. Her alveoli couldn't expel enough carbon dioxide: it accumulated to toxic levels which caused lethargy, then confusion, extreme sleepiness, and death. Last Monday would have been her 72nd birthday. Her mother, who never smoked, lived without assistance until her late eighties when dementia took her. I'm reminded of a line by comedian John Mendoza: "They tell me that every cigarette takes seven minutes off my life. What am I gonna miss out on? Drooling?" I used to think that was funny.

I sometimes crave a cigarette. Not when I smell it, though, and only rarely after a meal. My strongest cravings come after I've completed a task, when my addict's mind tells me I deserve a reward. The power of that entitlement is what has made quitting so hard.

This morning, for example, I cleared away a lot of snow on Wallace, N. Congress and S. Congress. After two hours of shoveling and plowing I stood in my garage, admiring my snow-free driveway and sidewalks while my addict's brain screamed THAT'S SO EFFING AWESOME AND YOU'RE SO EFFING AWESOME, DUDE, YOU NEED TO LIGHT UP A BIG FAT CAMEL WIDE! NO, MAKE THAT TWO CAMEL WIDES! YOU HAVE REALLY EARNED THEM THIS TIME! NO, SERIOUSLY, YOU DESERVE A CIGARETTE! LET'S HOP IN THE CAR AND GO TO SEVEN ELEVEN! NOW! YOU CAN SMOKE ON THE WAY HOME, MAN! NO NEED TO WAIT! LET'S GOGOGO!

My hands reflexively patted my pocket and located my car keys.

So, I thought, what did I really do? Did I rescue a child from the jaws of a saltwater crocodile? Did I quench the flames of a blazing apartment building? No, I moved snow from the concrete to the grass. Because I choose to live in Michigan. Duh. And I don't even live in the Upper Peninsula, where clearing snow might actually affect whether people live or die. In fact, where I live there's an ordinance requiring me to clear my sidewalks within 48 hours of a snowfall, snowfalls which are small and infrequent by Great Lakes lake-effect snow standards. No, I decide, I'm not as effing awesome as this disease wants me to believe. I don't deserve anything. But I could use a drink of water.

And so the reptilian/addict brain and the evolved brain go at it like this for minutes at a time, many times a day, although I see fewer battles every day. The difference for me is that I know the addict brain is lying. It will say anything to get what it needs. I also know that I am separate from my thoughts, my feelings and my desires. I can watch them as though I'm sitting on the edge of the Huron and they're mere flotsam headed for the dam. I don't have to follow them -- especially when I know where they will lead. Lastly, I don't underestimate the power of addiction. I've seen what it can do.