I used to smoke cigarettes. I don’t anymore, or at least I intend not to from the bottom of my heart.
It’s 2021, so I know full well that they’re bad for me. They killed my paternal grandmother, my maternal great uncle, and sometimes at night I lie awake thinking about what they’ll do to my loved ones ― and myself ― in time.
But there is a strange and well-partitioned part of my being that does not respond to such glaring logic. That part, which Freud might call the Id but I choose to refer to as the “monkey brain,” awakens upon interacting with the three factors that make me crave cigarettes the most: addiction, anxiety, and aesthetic.
The first factor is self-explanatory. Nicotine is a mechanism of addiction, and for a long time I was crushed under its wheel.
Anxiety is the factor that most closely resembles logic when it comes to cigarettes. They are remarkable where stress relief is concerned. I learned this at 17, when I was miserable, disillusioned, and falling in with a questionable crowd, that the raw angst which had settled atop my shoulders lessened the moment I took that first drag.
I wish my parents had been more outraged, telling me to smoke a whole carton if I liked them so much, smiling as I puked my guts up and swore never to take another puff.
I wish my friends hadn’t been so awe inspired when I pulled out a pack and nonchalantly drew one out by its filter.
I wish that smoking wasn’t such a reliable way to ingratiate myself and prove my mettle with all of my social superiors.
But smoking is the universal language of cool, and that’s where aesthetic comes in.
Who can say what makes something sexy? Where does such a thing start?
Beyond rough-and-tough characters like the Hells Angels and the Marlboro Man, there’s the suavity of guerillas in their olive-drab fatigues, French philosophers sipping red wine, Mick and Keith, Jimi and Janis.
Of course the history of cigarettes began well before modern times, but this idea of coolness is strictly a 20th-century invention. From flappers to silver-screen sirens to mods to punks to heroin-chic supermodels, cigarettes have latched onto all that is elegant and effortless ― time and time again. And here I am, desperately trying to leave it all behind.
What can I say? Somebody out there loves me.
Friends tell me to substitute cigarettes with vaping which is a ridiculous suggestion, not only because the two practices are equally unhealthy, but because vaping just looks stupid.
Imagine Lauren Bacall in a black gown rushing down a steamy alley with Humphrey Bogart (another casualty of smoking) in tow, raincoat flapping behind him. They pause, safely ensconced in shadow, danger averted. Breathing a sigh of relief, they both reach into their pockets and pull out … vape pens??? It simply doesn’t work like that.
The difference between overcoming addiction and anxiety vs. overcoming the lure of cool is that the former two are internal and the latter is external. We can change ourselves, but when it comes to a collectively-decided truth, all we can do is try our best to adapt.
I was relaying this grievance to a friend in my early days of quitting, ending my complaint by asking him if there was any habit I could substitute for cigarettes that was equally alluring. He thought for a minute, and finally said, “you could eat a bowl of oatmeal.”
I reminded him that if I wanted to do something unappealing, I might as well vape.
“No,” he said, as if I was the stupidest person on the planet. “Every time you crave a cigarette you need to eat a bowl of oatmeal because it is the least alluring thing you can do. If you can make that seem cool and mysterious, you won’t need cigarettes anymore.”
To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of oatmeal. But I’ve been hard at work coming up with something equally unappealing to become habituated to in place of cigs. Yo-yoing? Practicing bird calls? Drinking out of a silly straw? Imagine what Bogey and Bacall would have to say about that.
