You don’t need nicotine patches, Allen Carr audiobooks, or pricy hypnosis sessions to quit smoking. Contrary to the advice of addiction specialists, you can usually cut back with some good old-fashioned willpower, and by having all your friends tell you to, “Grow up and buy your own goddamn pack if you want a cigarette so fucking bad.”
When you’re young, hot, and charismatic, you can bum almost anything. Drugs, alcohol, jobs, sex, and especially cigarettes were all just one “Hey man, mind if I get in on that?” away, but time has a way of catching up with you. One day you find yourself as a 38-year-old man invited to a BYOB party where you’re actually expected to bring your own beer. The second I got my first gray hair, it seemed like even the gas stations in town made a pact to stop selling me loose cigarettes because suddenly it was “against federal law.”
If only people could see that I’m still a hot, financially irresponsible 16-year-old trapped in a rapidly aging body, they’d have more sympathy for me. It’s hard remaining young at heart when everyone around you grows bitter and cynical. It’s as if saying, “C’mon man, I’d give you a cigarette if I had one,” is no longer an effective bartering tactic. I mean, if my best friends don’t care that in a hypothetical world where I have a hypothetical pack of cigarettes and would hypothetically give them one, I have to seriously reconsider the type of greedmongers I hang out with.
Fortunately, It’s not all bad news. Being involuntarily forced to cut back doesn’t come without its benefits. My tattoo infections are healing at twice their usual speed, and now that coffee and discarded pizza crusts no longer satiate me, I’ve finally made it into a healthy BMI bracket. Even the skin on my fingertips is returning to what I can only assume is its natural color.
Whenever my cravings get extra strong, I find that positive affirmations like, “I am stronger than my cravings,” or “Health over addiction” are helpful mantras, but if that fails, having everyone tell you to, “Fuck off and get a job” is also effective. At the rate people are denying me access to free drugs, smokes, alcohol, and sex, I should be completely sober and abstinent by next year.