One day this week, a radio announcer mentioned that it was the annual Great American Smoke-Out, a day encouraging smokers to quit. It reminded me that I had passed eleven smoke-free years this summer, about half the length of time I smoked. It got me thinking about what kinds of things chain us---because we all know there are almost countless ways to be enslaved.
When I was still a smoker, the Smoke-Out was a yearly annoyance that I ignored. Now it just seems futile when I remember how it made me feel. Still, I know it must work for some people, and I hope it helps move them along the road. For me, that didn't happen until Laura was told she had to quit in order to get massive hormone treatments to avoid a hysterectomy, and I said we would both quit since it wasn't fair for her to live in a house with a smoker and try to quit. Otherwise, I don't know if I would have ever quit. Another friend once said that it depressed her just to think of giving up her "friend"---her cigarettes---that she kissed so often every day. The analogy rang true with me instantly. I even asked my doctor once why she didn't harp on me about it, and she replied, "Because I know that with you, it wouldn't do any good, but one day, you'll pick up a cigarette and say 'I'm tired of having these things run my life,' and you'll put them down and walk away." Her prediction wasn't far off the mark: the first time I tried to quit, I did it. It was the only time I tried; I gave up two packs a day and didn't look back. Of course, the whole first year is a blur since Laura was diagnosed with cancer three days after we quit, so my mind and my time were fully occupied. But I've not seriously considered having a smoke since. I know I'll never go back, never have to battle that particular demon again.
Except.....except, there are so very many things to be addicted to. I already wrote about my hard-core crush on sugar that led me to have bariatric surgery last spring. That has helped me lose weight, but it's not a cure-all. I struggle EVERY day to get all the protein I need and avoid things that have no nutritional value. One of the shocking things that came out of my surgery is that I can eat real food and feel full very fast; carbs, on the other hand, don't fill me up at all, so I really can't keep them around---I'll eat them without even realizing I'm doing it. I didn't lose a taste for sugar and have never experienced the "dumping" syndrome some have from consuming too many carbs after surgery: a kind of sickness that sounds very much like having an episode of plummeting blood sugar, with sweats, wracking nausea, and nerve tremors from head to toe. It's an awful feeling, but I almost wish I'd have it so that I could get my body to not crave sweets. Instead, I try to focus on just drinking protein and eating yogurt as often as I can when I feel that urge to gobble down some chocolate.
I never had a problem with alcohol, and I haven't had a drink in years because of meds that I take. There is, though, one other addiction that still jangles my nerves from time to time: the memory of one person I haven't seen in 23 years. I don't dwell on him, yet occasionally I have a nightmarish dream where he surfaces in some way I find happy and subsequently leaves a fading contrail across my consciousness for several days. I can't for the life of me figure why, for I know enough to know that if I ever saw him again, I would dislike him for an almost infinite list of reasons. For instance, when I knew him, he more than once told me that women were responsible for wrecking the American economy and idealism, because we refused to go back to home-making after World War II was over and soldiers returned home. "We" took jobs that men needed; "we" complained that men were shiftless and undependable; "we" were meant to be caretakers more than rule makers. He even told me that I (all women, really) should have remained at home under the "care" of my father until I married, instead of being out in the world on my own working as a professional. Knowing myself now, I can't believe I didn't see the many red flags that throws up. I was just that blind to his flaws, I guess. Thank merciful God I was NOT so blind as to do what he asked, which was to walk away from everything and everyone I knew to go with him. Still, here I sit speaking of him all these years later, racing through writing this so that my addicted spirit won't dredge him up to drag him through my dreamscape tonight. If he is the one addiction I never shake, I'll consider it a win that at least, at last, I knew even the sound of his name was bad for me.
There are so many things that chain our souls and our selves: debt, drama, drugs; bad marriages and lonely weekends and warm, soothing drinks to numb the pain of both; romance, caffeine, a new dress; pills or purchases to keep us wrapped up in cottony softness. I know the pleasure of breaking some of my chains. The others I'll keep rattling as a warning: some day, I'll be coming for them, too.
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