I was eighteen when I first started smoking cigarettes. It was somewhere in between high school and college.
But I wasn’t peer pressured to smoke. I chose to smoke.
While I was reading a plethora of English and American literature in high school and college, I realized that the majority of famous writers starting from the 19th century were smokers. Chain-smokers to be more specific. Mainly cigars and pipes until cigarettes became ubiquitous, efficient, and more convenient throughout the 20th century.
From Oscar Wilde to Mark Twain, from Ernest Hemingway to JD Salinger…
These affluent authors and writers were smokers. They all have written masterpieces in which they all became cult classics.
After reading more to their biographies pertaining to their chain-smoking habits, it gave me a theory.
My theory was that smoking nicotine would aid me into becoming a better writer. It did worked out.
When I first started college, I was an amateur writer; I still struggled with my own writing comprehension and skills. Despite it all, I remained bombastic with my verbal vocabulary, in which many of my professors were impressed with my grandiloquence.
But then when I had to write a plethora of essays and research papers, I still had a convoluted time with my comprehension. I turned to tutoring and I later received positive reviews from my English professors. However, it was not enough for me.
As I looked back to these affluent authors I’ve read about and learned about their smoking habits…
I decided to emulate them.
I purchased my own packs of cigarettes and I began smoking. It started off with only one cigarette. Then, it turned to half a pack of cigarettes. I ended up chain-smoking, like Wilde, Twain, Salinger, and Hemingway. I ended up smelling like cigarettes whenever I showed up to class, albeit no one cared about that as other students, as well as some professors, smoke as if they’re chimneys.
After my first chain-smoking experience, I then realized something that never happened before.
I became better at writing. My course essays became phenomenal and indescribable according to my professors. I’ve even written intricate poetry that were rarities from any other famous poets. I became the next Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
Once I read all the positive reviews on my essays from my professors, I decided to not relinquish my newly-founded smoking habit. My theory was right; smoking did turn me into a highly qualified writer. My dream of becoming an affluent writer and author was near the finish line of the Pacific Crest Trails.
Even after college, I continued to smoke cigarettes as an inspiration for my novels.
But then, there are side effects to chain-smoking.
I have been out of breath.
I gained weight (but mainly from my antidepressants and antipsychotics).
I became inactive from yoga and less-strenuous exercise.
Worst of all, my lungs were as if they were on fire.
I later received the consequences of smoking cigarettes, so I did my best to quit smoking, albeit with less effort.
It wasn’t until I read the news about that late-actor, Val Kilmer. I found out that Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer, in which the severity of his condition left him a stoma in his throat where his larynx was as an aftermath, causing him to be unable to speak verbally ever again.
When I read about Kilmer’s throat cancer prior to his passing, it became a wake-up call for me.
That was when I decided to quit smoking cigarettes for sure.
Not a lot of people know this, but I actually had a love-hate relationship with cigarettes. I’d smoke half a pack in a day or two, and later on, I’d throw the rest of the cigarettes away into the public trash. I loved the iridescent tranquility of smoking cigarettes; simultaneously, I hated the taste of tobacco burning down my tongue and throat. My sudden abhorrence for cigarettes caused me to quit them for good.
Although, that was not the end of it.
I suffered from a severe case of nicotine withdrawal. It wasn’t until e-cigarettes became ubiquitous and an efficient way to quit smoking that I decided to purchase vapes instead. I vaped for the first time, and now, I am addicted to vaping. I ended up chain-vaping instead, in which it became a more beneficial substitution for me.
Even though I’m aware that vaping e-cigarettes is as malignant as smoking real cigarettes… I never stopped.
Today, I still chain-vape while writing articles and my novels. I still need the nicotine to aid me into writing for inspiration. Without vaping, I wouldn’t be able to write prodigious books for my age. I wouldn’t be able to focus with all the nicotine withdrawal.
In spite of my incorrigible chain-vaping, I still make plans to quit them someday when I’m ready. I need to take baby steps. I just need to find healthier substitutions rather than vaping, such as knitting, writing short stories, and reading novels by other authors.
After all, I’m an aunt now and I want to be a better role model to my niece and nephew.
If I could quit drinking, then I could quit vaping. It may not be right away, but… someday.
It’s what I said to myself before as a self-reminder:
Habits can die, but the damage lives.