I am quitting. (Part 3)

Hello, forgive the robe, I know it’s not proper attire for our meetings but I’ve just stepped out of the sensory deprivation tank and was offered one. I never refuse a robe, you see, not only is it at the height of bad manners, but it is also a great disservice to the self. But let’s stay on track. Remember that business I told you about wrestling my nicotine-addicted brain in the senseless darkness of a tank? Well, I’ll tell you all about it if you’re interested. Have a seat, please.

Well, it was a flop! Mainly. I’ll explain. All was quite enjoyable at first. You enter and check in with a young lady speaking to you in polite hushed tones…

She asked if I’ve ever done this before. I responded with a firm no. We made our way through the cavernous place—evocative of Antelope Canyon—in search of my designated room. It’ll serve to know that I was cranky, for I was missing my nicotine and because I stupidly made my appointment for 8 AM. We found the room at last. A shower was to the right and before me, a large, white, sci-fi-like pod lit with blue LED strips. The lady continued speaking but I didn’t pay attention (remember my crankiness). She finally left and I got right to business. I stripped took a shower, sat in the pod, closed the lid above me, and lied down as if ready for my cryogenesis.

Surprised by how effortlessly I was floating, I relaxed. Vaguely, I recalled the lady mentioning something like a ton of salt being responsible for the density of the water. And of course, I would go onto splash a bit of it in my eye. I climbed out of the thing—naked and blinded and vulnerable—in search of the towel. I spent a good fifteen minutes stuck with the searing pain. As I cried and regained my vision I noticed they had provided me with earplugs. The lady too had mentioned them, but again, I hadn’t listened, it was all coming back to be with a massive delay. So, I plugged my ears, which had already become like a pair of slide whistles, and gave it another shot. This time I was fully ready to face my addiction in the great void of conciseness.

Of course, I would just go on to fall asleep. Nothing truly life-changing happened in the pod. I didn’t face any flaming-haired, white-torsoed, orange-butted demon, as I expected. But—Yes, there is a but—it was after being awoken by the gentle Siri-like voice coming through the underwater speaker and the subsequent reignition of the LED lights that something happened. I got into my robe. And just a few minutes before you came in, I had an epiphany. I know, a man like me doesn’t seem like the type to get epiphanies. But I did! Perhaps it was due to the robe, and its empowering freedom.

I realized that my whole difficulty with quitting nicotine had to do with Grief. I truly was grieving.

And I was grieving at 1RPM. Yes, I mean Revolutions Per Minute. Let’s walk.

Alright, I know you know where this is going, but bear with me. I agree it’s a bit of a tired cliché to bring up the stages of Grief. But I must summon them in order to explain the aforementioned epiphany. They go like this: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Right?

I went straight to google, here in my robe, and found a reassuring quantity of articles equating grief and the quitting of smoking. I mean, it’s not hard to believe they might be very closely related. After all, the brain doesn’t have an extensive cocktail menu. Insofar as we can tell, on the feel-good menu we have only but two cocktails, dopamine and oxytocin. Nevertheless, I was relieved to some extent to find that perhaps it wasn’t all a fault of my character. That I could put some of the burden on this theory of grief.

What I failed to find, however, was someone reassuring me that it was normal to find myself in a revolving state of grief. Does Elisabeth Kübler-Ross mention this in her book? Have you read it? Can you educate me?

Back to the 1RPM business. Remember they go like this: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Well, I go through all five stages by the minute in no particular order. Right this second, as we speak, I’m bargaining What if I just smoke one cigarette a day? How bad could that be? Maybe, just on Sundays? Now, I’ve jumped over to anger. I’m furious that I even had that thought, to begin with. I should know better than that! Now I’m depressed because I shouldn’t be this weak!

You see? Does this happen to you?

Let’s sit down.

Let’s breathe in this clean air. Fmmm… Ahhh! I think the sensory deprivation tank really did me some good.

I scorned myself for romanticizing and speaking of smoking’s beauty the other day, but it is now clear that I was getting at something. If those of us who are quitting truly are, in some sense, grieving, I suppose we ought to treat it much like the departure of a loved one. We often hear the platitude “Go through the process” yet since we are already indulging in clichés let us admit it into practice. Let’s go through the process. Let’s look back on our smoking days with love. Let us remember fondly those times we enjoyed a cigarette with a friend or, more enticingly, with ourselves. When the weather was just right and we swam into that blue smoke that would beautify a sunrise or texturize a night sky. Let us accept our love for the cigarette. Yet let us accept that it is over. It must end. Ahead, new things await us. Such is the game.

Fmmm… Ahhh!

I realize this might be the last time we meet. There might be nothing to say about the matter, it could just be a cycle of the same stuff.

As I mentioned the other day, I have a visit to the beach and the gym on schedule. I will be going there now. Maybe we’ll run into one another sometime. But for now, I think that what we’ve left to do is just trudge. Trudge forward one step, one revolution per minute. I cannot thank you enough for coming to visit these three days. I wish you the very best, my friend. May call you that? Yes? Oh, that relieves me a great deal. My friend. Remember the 3D model version of myself? Who knows, perhaps next time we run into each other I’ll have become him. Goodbyes are always though—us addicts are really bad at them, eh? Anyways, I’ll be keeping in mind this thing about grief so that it doesn’t catch me by surprise when it hits again in a minute.

Fmmm… Ahhh!

It’s hitting me now, in fact. Okay, I won’t make you stay any longer. This is it. A good, proper, formal….

G O O D B Y E