Adam’s Atoms

The Internet is chock full of web sites about smoking. Most are against it, some glamorize it. This one does neither. It is simply about my own personal experience with smoking. Some of you will see it as an example of the evils of smoking, others as a confirmation that smoking is great. While neither is my goal, knock yourself out reading into it whatever you want.

I was born on 23 April 1950 in Bratislava, Slovakia. So, as I am writing this on 22 September 2006, I am fifty-six years and five months old. As a youngster I had a great fascination with smoking. At the same time, I was strongly opposed to it. I explain that by my past lives, which may or may not fit in with your personal belief system. But, my view is that I have smoked in many of my past lives, and that is why I was fascinated by it. And at the same time, I unconsciously knew that if I ever try it, I will not look back but will become a smoker, and that is why I was so strongly opposed to it.

I was about nine, and I was riding a train. I had been on a train many times before, and I have been many times since, but on this particular ride, there were two big boys (teenagers, I suppose) in our compartment. Both were smoking. I found that so fascinating that I started talking about smoking with them, asking them a zillion questions. They were more than happy to explain everything about smoking to me. I wonder if my parents were not sitting next to me, whether I would have started smoking right there and then. So, this shows you how early on, I was interested.

When I was thirteen, I got a chemistry set and was playing with it, doing all kinds of chemistry experiments every day. One day I lit up a cotton ball and stuck the narrow end of a pipette into the burning cotton. I put the other end into my mouth and inhaled the smoke. It was kind of rough, definitely not the refined smoke of a cigarette, but I enjoyed it. I felt like a smoker, and it made me feel good. I continued smoking cotton every day for about a week. Then the pipette overheated and cracked. While I had other pipettes, this scared me, and I never smoked cotton balls since. Though to this day I am surprised that I did not take the next logical step and smoke a cigarette. Presumably because my parents would not be happy if I did, and that was enough for me not to do it.

In the following years, there were several ocassions for me to start smoking but I did not. I know that deep within I desperately wanted to, but externally I was a loud mouthed anti-smoker, so it never occurred to my smoking friends to offer me one. I am not even sure that I would have accepted, but I probably would have. Because during my teen years I often dreamed about smoking. I actually visualized myself in specific situations where I was smoking. I knew nothing about creative visualization back then, but I tell you that every single one of those visualizations came true later on. I distinctly remember two of those visualizations to this day. In one, I was walking by the Danube River, unseen by my parents, and smoking. In the other, I was smoking during my military service (which was mandatory for all males at the time in my country). That was actually a devious plot. I knew that smoking was addictive, so I had a perfect excuse. I would smoke during my service and by the time of my discharge I would be fully addicted and simply tell my parents: Sorry I started in the Army and now I have no choice but to keep on smoking. That is why I always have to laugh at the web sites which claim that nobody thinks they would get addicted to smoking. Au contraire, I was counting on it!

Anyway, the first big occasion to start smoking was the day I finished the 9th grade, which was the end of mandatory education. After that our class would be no longer as we all would move to different other schools. As the last act together we went for a walk by the Danube. Yes, I was dreaming about walking by the Danube and smoking, but as I said, my friends would not even dream about suggesting that I smoke. And what a perfect occasion it was. Why? Because there were so many mosquitos around us, and the girls turned to the boys and said: Smokers, please smoke, to keep the pest away from us! All other boys lit up immediately. As a galant 15-year-old boy, it was my duty, nay privilege, to say: I am not a smoker, but for you dear ladies, I shall smoke today! I am sure any of the other boys would have been more than happy to give me a cigarette and watch me struggle with it as they all had been harassed by me for smoking. And, further, as a valiant 15-year-old boy I should have stopped at the nearest refreshment stand and bought a pack of my own cigarettes and continued protecting the ladies from the mosquitos. Had I done that, by the time I got back home, I would have been a smoker. Alas, I did not.

A plenty of occasions came during the following three years, while I was in high school. It was in a different part of the city and I usually took a bus there. But I had a friend who lived not far from me and he liked to walk to school. Well, it is not so much that he liked walking but he was a serious smoker and he could smoke while walking through a rather anonymous section of the city. And often I walked with him. We often talked about smoking and I think I was sending clear signals stating, please, Peter, convince me to try it, please, please, please! But as I was outwardly still openly anti-smoking, he never picked up on those signals and never tried to twist my arm into doing what I so desperately wanted to do. They should really teach psychology to kids!

In our second year of high school, we took a field trip to Martin, a historic city in Central Slovakia. After we had visited the historic site, we got about an hour to just go anywhere. I had another friend. He was a math genius. No, wait, that is an understatement. We all were math geniuses. Our high school specialized in math and within that high school there was an elite class where you had to pass a battery of math tests to get into and where we had at least two periods of math every single school day. So, my friend was not only a math genius, he was a math genius among math geniuses. And we went for a walk together and he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up. Now, I never ever harassed him about smoking, we were really good friends. I actually said something positive about him smoking. Did he get the message? I do not remember whether he never offered me one because if it was not math, it did not trigger, or whether I chickened out and said no. So, I still did not start to smoke even though I really, really wanted to. We geeks can be really weird!

At last, in the Spring of 1968, we finished high school. We had final exams, and the day after they were over, the whole class, along with our teachers, went to a viecha, which is a Slovak wine cellar. Now, Americans, don't get all upset about underage drinking. This was perfectly legal and perfectly normal. We were drinking wine, plenty of it. Just about everyone was smoking. Except me, of course. But wait! An old Latin adage says, in vino veritas, in wine is truth! And it was. After some wine, I asked one of the smokers if, yes, if I could have a cigarette. Eighteen years old and under the infuence of wine I was, till I was finally able to say: I want to smoke!!! I really, really, really want to smoke!!! We decided it would be best if we walked outside on the street, just in case I would start vomiting. So we did. And finally, finally, finally, I was doing what I had so desperately wanted to do for well, at least half of my life (assuming that my interest only started on that train at age nine). All barriers were broken. I smoked the entire cigarette and I was rather suprised that I did not get sick as I was supposed to. So, we walked back in. And on that evening I smoked my first, not one, not two, not three, but five cigarettes. Of course, several classmates made some sarcastic remarks about me giving them such a hard time about smoking. Again, we specialized in math, not in psychology. They did not understand that beneath sharp criticism often lies deep unfulfilled desire, and the unconscious conviction that if I cannot have it, you should not have it either.

The next day I woke up and was wondering what to do next. We were taught that smoking was addictive. So I figured that I was a smoker and should get some cigarettes and smoke. I did not feel any different. I was still a bit worried about being seen and I walked through the streets of the city. I eventually came into the neighborhood where my old high school was, and then walked to the next bus stop where I knew a tobacconist was. There were many others in town, one in the same building I lived in, but I was still uneasy about buying my cigarettes near home. I decided that the one near the school was far enough from home and I bought some cigarettes. And I smoked on my way home. I was definitely not addicted yet. For days I had to remind myself that I was a smoker now and, therefore, I was supposed to smoke, and I then went to find a place to smoke. Several days later, I told my mother that I was a smoker now. She then told my father. You know what his reaction was? Boys imitate each other! Gosh! That really upset me. For one, it was not true, I was not imitating anyone, I had been wanting to smoke for years. And that was the main reason I was upset. I could have started on that Danube walk. I could have started when walking to school with Peter. I certainly could have started in Martin. And I should have, I thought. But no, I had to get half drunk to finally do it.

In July of the same year I had a visitor from Berlin. I had met him the summer before during a school trip to East Germany. We had agreed that he would spend two weeks in Bratislava and I would spend two weeks in Berlin. I was 18, he was 17. He already was a smoker. So, during his visit, we went out to smoke together. Where did we go? To the walk by the Danube. Yes, my old visualization came true quite literally. I would go hide by the Danube to smoke. In August I went to Berlin. While his parents did not know (or so he thought) that he was a smoker, he made it a point to tell them that I was. As his mother was a smoker, I was allowed to smoke in their apartment, and while his parents were at work, he smoked, too. It was during those two weeks that, for the first time, I smoked freely, like a regular smoker. In my mind Berlin became the city to smoke in. I decided that if I ever was in Berlin again, no matter when in my life, no matter if I was not smoking anymore, that I would smoke while there even if that meant that I could not quit after leaving the city.

After I came back to Bratislava, I continued to smoke as much as I did in Berlin. I enrolled in medical school (in Slovakia there was no pre-med, if you wanted to be a doctor and passed the entrance exam, you went to med school straight from high school). So, I smoked freely at school, on my way to and from school. Soon, my parents bought me my own apartment, so I was able to smoke at home, too. It was around October or November, some six months after my first cigarette that I finally became truly addicted. I woke up one night and I knew: I need a cigarette! I was a devout young lad at that time, and I thanked God in Latin: Gratias! I exclaimed. I had arrived. After all those years I had achieved my goal. I was not only a smoker, I was a life-long smoker. I was addicted and could never quit smoking.

The story does not end there. There was this girl in med school, and she was essentially my girlfriend. One day, about a year after I lit up my first cigarette, she told me that another student had been looking for me. When asked why, she said he was looking for a cigarette. Oops! She did not know. Sheepishly I asked what she told him. She said that she had told him: We do not smoke! So, I decided I had to quit. Despite having achieved a childhood dream, it was time to give it up for a girl. How ironic. I did not start smoking for several girls just four years earlier, and now I was quitting for one. But I was addicted! How was I supposed to quit? I bought a pack of really terribly tasting cigarettes. Each time I lit one up I had a terrible physical reaction to it. It took me several days to smoke that pack. And then I quit. I did not know it then, but I had used what is called aversion therapy.

After two years of med school, I decided to become a psychologist instead. I transferred to a different school. And I became an anti-smoker again. People who quit smoking often turn into very strong opponents of smoking. Not out of the concern for others, but because once you are addicted, you are always addicted. A non-smoker can become a smoker very easily. But a smoker can never become a non-smoker again. The addiction is suspended. People who quit are not non-smokers but ex-smokers, or rather smokers who do not smoke.

During my fourth year of psychology (in 1974), on a cold wintery day, I was waiting at a bus stop to get to my apartment. I was freezing and the bus was late. Very late. Everyone at the stop was miserable. Except for one young man. He lit up a cigarette and smoked it with gusto. At that moment I was wondering why I gave up something I loved so much, and why I continued to give it up after I had not seen the girl for years. Finally the bus came. When we came to the last stop, instead of going straight home, I walked to a grocery store adjacent to the stop. I bought a pack of cigarettes. As soon as I came home, I lit one up. And I was a smoker again. Well, a smoking smoker because as I said, you never stop being a smoker once you have become one. The addiction is suspended, but the moment you smoke a cigarette it is fully reactivated.

After graduation, I got my first job as a clinical psychologist at the psychiatric department of the university hospital. Guess in what city! The historical Martin where I could have started smoking years before. Well, I was smoking now. Several months later I was drafted to the Army. Of course, I continued smoking. When you are in the military, strange things happen to you. I came to a point when, for a few weeks, I was smoking the cheapest and coarsest cigarettes available. Not because I could not afford the expensive ones. I just started enjoying those. And, again, I was happy knowing that I was an absolutely real smoker. And my other visualization came true.

My home country was under Communist rule since two years before I was born. As I said I was a devout young lad. But religion was persecuted. I do not like it when anything is persecuted. So, I secretly joined the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and studied for the priesthood. If I got caught, I would have been brutally murdered (that did happen to someone I knew personally). After I came back from the Army, my religious superior was complaining about my smoking. I quoted the Scripture to him: He ate and drank with sinners! And he said: But he did not sin with them!

So, it was time to quit again. Not for a girl, for God. The same God I had thanked in Latin when I finally became addicted. This time I remembered how all my smoking visualizations came true. So, I started visualizing myself not smoking. I continued smoking but started thinking of myself as a non-smoker (yes, despite my later conviction that a smoker cannot become an actual non-smoker, only a suspended smoker, just like an alcoholic who has quit drinking is still an alcoholic). I actually started talking negatively about smokers on some occasions. About a month later, I was wondering why I was smoking when I was a non-smoker, and I simply stopped smoking. No withdrawal, nothing. So, if you want to quit, that is quite a good technique. Quit in your mind first, accept yourself as not smoking, and you will naturally stop smoking. As simple as that.

This time I had been smoking for four years in a row, and yet it was so easy to quit. I then travelled to Poland where I met a Slovak bishop living in Rome and I was ordained to the priesthood without telling the Communist government. A year later, during a trip to Switzerland, I met with the bishop again. He asked me not to return home because I was needed in the free world. I went to Vienna, Austria, and obtained a refugee status. I spent several months in Vienna studying Italian in preparation for the move to Rome. Austria was only a snowball toss from my home, but it was the free world, completely different from where I grew up. Cigarette adverts were everywhere, and soon I was smoking again. So, this time I stayed off for only a year. I moved to Rome and spent four years there. And a friend kept bugging me about smoking. It was time to quit for the third time. And please note how each time I quit not because I wanted to but because someone else wanted me to. The technique I used this time consisted of having to make some effort to smoke. I no longer smoked in my room, I had to leave my room and go to a community room and smoke there. And so, I smoked less and less and I quit again. But this time the hardest part of quitting was the thought that I would never smoke again. I loved smoking. I made a solemn promise to myself that if I ever felt tempted to smoke I would stop and ask myself: Do I want to have a cigarette or do I want to become a smoker again? And that if all I wanted was a cigarette, I would not get one. But if I wanted to become a smoker again, I would honor that wish, buy cigarettes at my nearest convenience and start smoking again.

At that time I was actually going to two schools. I was studying Canon Law (the law of the Catholic Church) at the Gregorian University in Rome during the academic year and Franciscan Spirituality at St. Bonaventure University in Olean, NY, USA, during the summer. At St. Bonaventure’s students were allowed to smoke in class. I never did. And my last summer at St. Bonaventure’s was right after I quit smoking. I started yelling at one of the students for lighting up in class. Another student started laughing: A convert! he exclaimed. I reminded him that even back when I was smoking, I had never smoked in class for the sake of non-smoking students. At the end of that summer I received a letter from Flavio Carrara, who was the Minister General of the Capuchins, the head the order I had joined back home as part of the resistance against Communist oppression. Flavio was from the Veneto Province of the Order (Veneto is the region of Italy around the city of Venice), and he hated me. Years later when I mentioned to a Zen master how Flavio and his cahoots had treated me, he laughed and said, You must have really pissed them off in a past life! In his letter, Flavio Carrara told me to immediately interrupt all my formal studies and stay with the Pittsburgh Province of the Capuchins. He sent another letter to Bob McCreary, the Minister Provincial of the Pittsburgh Capuchins, instructing him to put me in a Parish, away from any intellectual work or any work for the Catholic Church back in Slovakia. I stayed in a Parish in Cabot, PA, for a year. At that time I was getting really frustrated. I joined the Capuchins for the purpose of being in the Resistance, not to be a Parish priest. I left the Capuchins and spent some five years working in various Parishes of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. My Roman education was totally ignored. Eventually, I called up the Zen master I have already mentioned and asked him how to become a Buddhist, and then did become one. I got a job as a computer programmer in Pittsburgh. Away from the pressures of having to behave like a priest, I asked myself one evening: Do I want to become a smoker again? And I answered with an unconditional yes. I went to bed, the next morning went to work, and after work, keeping my promise from nine years earlier, I stopped at Monroeville Mall, bought a carton of cigarettes, a lighter, and an ashtray. Then I drove home and lit up.

Eventually the project I was working at as a programmer came to its end and, along with a number of other people, I was laid off. On advice of my Zen master, I moved to Rhinelander, WI, where I have been ever since. There were no programming jobs here, so I became a certified nursing assistant and worked in that position for many years.

Guess what! Now it was my Zen master who was pressuring me into quitting smoking. He was an ex-smoker. But I did not cave in. However, in the winter of 2000/2001 (and they can be nasty in Northern Wisconsin), I suddenly started chain smoking. I was buying a carton of cigarettes every four days, smoking 50 a day! And for the first time in my life I was smoking because I had to, not because I wanted to. Now, do not misunderstand. I had been addicted to it since 1968, so, yes, I had to even before, but it was an addiction I was enjoying thoroughly. But suddenly, I was not enjoying it. One evening, as I noticed I had two packs of cigarettes left, I was about to make a mental note to buy another carton in the morning. And then, on a whim, I decided that I would quit at that time. This was my fourth quit, but the first I did because I decided that. I was quite surprised by that decision because nine years had passed since I started smoking for the fourth time and I was quite sure that I would never quit again. But it made no sense to continue smoking just because I was addicted but was not enjoying it.

This time I used a method that the Buddha had taught to his disciples some 2500 years ago. He did not teach them how to quit smoking, obviously, but how to manage their own negativity. The technique is very simple. Suppose that you are getting angry. To manage that you do not try to fight it, you observe it: I am getting angry, you tell yourself. And it is not possible to be angry and to be objectively observing your own anger at the same time. Your emotion is replaced by an observation. Bingo, you have managed your anger. I had two packs left and I wanted to prolong their enjoyment as much as possible. It took me four days to smoke them. And, yes, I enjoyed that! In fact I enjoyed it so much that I was considering if I should just continue smoking ten cigarettes a day. But I figured I would probably slip back to fifty a day eventually. So, I quit. For three days whenever the urge came, I started observing it: Wow, how interesting, I am feeling the urge to smoke. And the urge vanished instantly. After the three days the urges stopped. The observation made me realize something very interesting: The urge to smoke is like a butler ringing: Sir, it is time for your next cigarette! And my reaction was essentially: Thanks for the reminder, Jeeves! And the butler stopped ringing. Then, some 40 minutes later, he would ring again: I am very concerned, Sir. You have missed your cigarette. And again, Thank you, Jeeves! And so it would go for three days until the butler realizes that, apparently, you have changed your mind and he stops ringing. That’s the nature of nicotine addiction.

In our society we are conditioned since our young years to believe that smoking addiction is something very difficult to beat. So when the butler rings, we think that we have to have another cigarette. Or else! But or else what? Or else the butler will stop ringing after three days, that’s what! In the old days in America, the Indians used tobacco in sacred rituals. For example, they used to smoke a pipe to seal a peace deal. Did they not get addicted? Well, that depends on your definition of addiction. I am sure the butler was ringing but they interpreted it as a reminder of the peace deal, not as an order to smoke.

At that time I also decided not to make any decisions and promises of what I should do in the future. If I feel like smoking, I will decide what to do when that happens. I made absolutely no decision on whether this was a quit forever, or how long it would take before I started smoking again. I wanted to be truly smoke free, meaning that I was free not to smoke but I was also free to start smoking (knowing quite well that I would then be a regular smoker again). But I did decide quite emphatically not to turn into an anti-smoker. After all, when I was smoking, I did not appreciate if someone tried to tell me I should not. So why should I do to others what I did not want others to do to me? Besides, I kept my options open. Quite possibly I might start smoking again. And sure enough, I was always capable to talk to smokers without judging them.

A year later I felt like having a cigarette but not like going back to regular smoking. I remembered how I smoked cotton balls at thirteen. I did not plan on doing exactly that, but I figured there had to be other things to smoke than regular cigarettes. I went to a local health store and discovered that they carried herbal cigarettes. They contained no tobacco and no nicotine. I bought a pack and lit one up. It was a very satisfying experience. I smoked the pack in about two days and came back for more. I decided that this was a perfectly acceptable alternative to tobacco cigarettes and that I wanted to smoke them regularly. The advantage was that they were non-addictive, so I would be in no danger of going up to fifty a day. The problem was that they were non-addictive, so I had to remind myself to smoke. I then decided to develop certain habits: Every time I would sit behind the wheel, I would light up a cigarette. Every time I would start a walk, I would light up a cigarette. I followed the plan and eventually I smoked in those situation without having to remind myself.

Some time after that I got very ill. Not because of the smoking. I have serious diabetes. Complications from diabetes have killed my father and my older brother, neither of whom smoked. I had an infection in my toe and had to have it amputated. I could no longer work as a nursing assistant or even as a programmer (the diabetes has made it very hard to concentrate as much as programming requires). I can barely walk, not so much because of the amputation but because of dead nerve endings in the soles of my feet. I have to take very short steps and use a cane. I go for a walk every day, except in the snowy winter. And during that walk I eventually settled on three herbal cigarettes which I would always light up at specific points along my path. So, on most days I would smoke three cigarettes, on some days four, on some days two. On the days I do not get out, none (no smoking allowed in my apartment).

Occasionally I would wonder whether it was time to go back to regular cigarettes. Eventually, it became very clear that it was not a question of if but of when. I applied for an apartment in a government subsidized building. On the application they asked whether I smoked. I said no (since they meant tobacco). But I asked why they were asking (I did not want to deceive them). They said some apartments were smoking, others non-smoking. I told them to scratch it and put down yes, as I intended to start smoking once I moved in.

I have been waiting for more than a year now. Unfortunately, any time someone 63 or older applies, they put him ahead of me. So, at the beginning of this summer I was seriously thinking about starting to smoke already. And that perhaps in the winter I may have to quit. But I kept postponing it.

Last week I was watching Wheel of Fortune and one of the contestants won a trip to Berlin. I was wondering how faithful I would be to my old promise from 1968 if I had won that trip. Back then there was no such thing as an herbal cigarette. All I promised was to smoke. So, I reasoned, smoking my herbal cigarettes would satisfy the letter of the promise. And then I thought, come on, the intention of the promise was to smoke real cigarettes even if it meant returning to regular smoking. And I started thinking how many years it took me to gather the courage to start smoking in my young days. And that I should be honest with myself: I used to enjoy real cigarettes more than the herbal ones. I have been smoking the herbals to keep smoking, so some day I can just buy a pack of regular cigarettes and reactivate my addiction permanently. And I was smoking the herbals to develop the habit of smoking a lot less than I used to before I quit. I reminded myself of the upcoming winter. But one thing is sure: A smoker will smoke in any weather. He will find a way. So, two days ago, at Wal*Mart I moved my wheel chair to the one cash register that sells cigarettes. After the clerk rang up my groceries, I said: A pack of Pall Malls, please. She said: What kind? In all these years since 2001 I had forgotten what kinds there were, so I asked. She named them. I picked full flavor 100, the same I used to smoke before.

I was very excited when I came home. I put away my groceries and was tempted to go right outside and smoke a Pall Mall. But I decided to wait for my walk. The second cigarette of my walk I always smoke while taking a sitting break. As nicotine can make you dizzy when you have not smoked for years, I did not want to take any chances, especially given my disability.

The first cigarette of the walk was herbal. The second was Pall Mall. And I am glad I decided to wait till I was seated. The thing with herbal cigarettes is that if you want to feel like smoking, you really have to take strong puffs. And without even thinking about it, I took a really long puff. If I had not been seated, it might have knocked me off my feet! Wow! I was back doing what was the most consistent dream of my childhood. I was smoking again.

While I did not feel any urge, I decided to take another walk in the evening. I wanted to reactivate my addiction as soon as possible.

The next day (yesterday), I smoked five cigarettes, just like on the day I started to smoke (except, this time without the wine). Couple hours after the third one I finally started feeling a little urge. Foolishly, I decided to watch a movie first and then go out to smoke. By the time I got out two hours later, I was really feeling the urge! I smoked the fourth cigarette very quickly. Not for pleasure, but for a fix. Then two minutes later I smoked the fifth and really enjoyed it.

So, I am sort of relearning how to smoke: Do not give into the urge immediately, but do not wait so long that all you get is a fix.

This morning I started getting cold feet. After needing that fix yesterday, do I really want to be a tobacco smoker again? This time, if I continue I am most likely going to smoke for the rest of my life. I decided that yes, I want to continue smoking and that hopefully I will smoke for the rest of my life. That may not even be that long, judging from family history. I went to a grocery store today and bought two more packs. By the time I have smoked all three packs, I will be a regular smoker again. And then I will start buying cigarettes by the carton again. Presumably for the rest of my life.