The Hunger

The Hunger

I finished my dinner tonight, laid down my fork, took a last swig of the soda I was drinking and then looked around. I felt like I was still hungry. Sort of. I thought about what I'd just eaten and realized that I shouldn't be hungry. I'd had more than enough food. But... Dammit. I felt like I was still hungry. But, for what? I had some fruit and yogurt for later in the evening. Didn't need it now. Didn't want it now.

Then I realized what I was hungry for. I hate to admit it and I hate to have to admit it.

I wanted a cigarette. Sure as hell, a cigarette would taste just fine right about now.

Let me collect my thoughts for a moment while I take a couple deep breaths.

OK, let's continue.

To begin with, you have to realize that I'd quit smoking over 20 years ago. More like 22 or thereabouts. I haven't taken one puff since then. Not one. I know myself and I know how damn hard it was to get off them. I can even recall the process that I went through to get that particular monkey off my back like it was yesterday.

I'd tried to quit a number of times. I really did. Tried cutting down. Tried the gum. Tried cold turkey. And also tried most of the other ways that were in vogue two decades ago. Nothing worked. I always returned to the comforts of my old friend tobacco. I finally had a conversation with a man with whom I worked who'd quit by using the patch. I knew the guy and I knew he smoked LOTS more than I did. He was a veritable chimney! And he'd quit using the smoke-cessation patch.

So I thought, if him, why not me?

At my next visit to my doctor I told him I wanted give the patch a try. It was a prescription item back in those days. He was a bit hesitant as my other attempts had ended so ignominiously. But he acquiesced and wrote me the script.

I remember the day I quit. I'd picked a day about a week after I had visited the drugstore and had the patches in hand. I had a little less than a pack of cigarettes left at the end of the day before, so I smoked one more before going to sleep and pitched the rest into the trash. I think I slipped a patch on before going to bed so I'd keep my nicotine level up. I woke up the next morning and suddenly remembered that I had quit.

It wasn't the best morning of my life.

First off just let me say that it was really, really weird. I won't say my life before that day revolved around smoking but, when I actually thought about it, I realized that yes, it did.

The feeling was exactly like a dear friend had died. That's honestly how it felt.

That day and for many days afterward my body was being delivered a dose of nicotine by the patch on my arm. But the patch was just an alternate delivery system. My normal delivery system, the big hit from a cigarette, was no longer available. Come to think of it, weird doesn't even begin to describe it. The psychological crutch that smoking is was gone and I had to “walk” without that crutch. I remember that one of the oddest part about those first few weeks was how strange my hands felt. I had realized that there is a lot of ritual involved with smoking. The handling of the cigarette, the lighter, the motions involved with smoking it, flicking the ashes, blowing out the smoke, putting out the butt. Etc. and etc.

My hands felt huge and useless hanging on the bottom of my arms. They had nothing to do! A large part of their previous life had been involved with the rituals of smoking.

And those rituals were now gone.

I made sure my patch was changed at exactly the correct times. I knew that my body still needed the drug and I knew that was the only way it was going to get it. I was crabby, I admit. Maybe more than I like to recall. I'm sure my wife and son could add some side notes here on my behavior during those weeks and months. The addiction to nicotine is powerful, more powerful than that of cocaine according to some accounts, and it had its claws in me deep. But I soldiered onward. I chewed on toothpicks by the boxful. And ate carrots and celery until I could hardly look at them. Anything to keep my mouth and hands busy while the bad habits of many, many years slowly dissolved. Over time the strength of the patches decreased and finally, one day I peeled the last one off. I was free!

But to say the urge was gone would be untrue. I missed smoking pretty much every day. I did finally get to the point where the smell of someone else smoking was starting to be a bit unpleasant. But that came a couple years after quitting. Before that the smell of smoke was still intoxicating, still a siren's call. I'd go out with friends who still smoked and sit downwind from them to make sure I got a whiff of their smoke. But I knew to never touch one. That'd lead to another and another and... I'd be a smoker again at once. Couldn't chance it.

So I've been off the drug for a couple decades. And the urge to smoke is gone. Or, to be honest, almost gone.

But... But... Every now and again my mind or my body remembers. And it remembers how simply marvelous a cigarette tasted after my evening meal. How it provided an end cap to the meal and satisfied a hunger than wasn't satisfied by food no matter how much you ate.

And that is what I think I was missing tonight.

Of course I'd never dream of getting a smoke now. That'd be ludicrous after all those years. Besides being incredibly expensive compared to what I used to pay.

But that ol' urge likes to pop up now and again. It likes to step in the door and say, Hello my old friend. How are you doing? How about you and I going down memory lane for a bit, just for old time's sake. And while we're there, how about a smoke?

So I sit here and smile at my old desires kicking in. I imagine the silky feel of the cigarette between my fingers, I hear the distinctive sound a cigarette lighter makes as the flame jets out, I hear the hiss of the tobacco as it feels the heat of the fire, the blue-gray smoke curling up from the glowing tip and swirling in the air currents. I imagine the feel of the dense smoke as it slides down my throat and how the smooth bite of the smoke feels as it goes into my lungs. And I can still feel the kick of the smoke as it hits all the needy spots in my body, lighting up all the receptors and feeling so damn good.

It's almost pornographic to imagine!

And tonight, as the minutes pass, I feel the urge die away. It always does now. Always. There's really no need for the drama anymore. That stuff is way, way in the past.

Uh-huh. Sure...

I remember my father saying something in his last year of life. He said that if he knew he was going to die sometime soon, he'd start smoking again. That day. And he'd been off cigarettes for many, many years at that time.

He missed it that much.

I remembered his words.

I hope I never say them.

But I still remember them.

I still remember.