Smoking Your Life Away

The story of Nicotine Hear the voice of everyday people — collection of stories and experiences

by Gabriella Kőrösi, PhD, MN, RN

Talking to Chloe she describes a lot of smokers in her workplace. Many had tried to quit smoking multiple times but could not. They had tried to switch products to quit. Chloe describes chewing tobacco to smoking to vaping, then starting the cycle again. It is very hard for them to quit. Her grandfather had bowel cancer which she feels was related to smoking all his life. He still smokes today. Michelle describes family members who are smoking and heard the warnings for years yet have the attitude that people can die from anything. There is a certain truth to this she said. Her family can hear the problems with smoking, but the addiction has already taken hold, they choose not to do anything about it.

I just talked to my mom about smoking. She used to smoke. She was never a strong smoker; she did not have time to smoke. She knew people who used to make pasta and smoke at the same time. She would only smoke if she had free time. She did not have a lot of free time, so she never smoked a lot. She did not smoke just to smoke. When she was pregnant with me, she stopped smoking completely. When I was born, everyone went to smoke, mom had the cigarette with her too, she went out to the hallway to smoke, took two clouds of smoke then she did not want any more. Later like 17 years later she went back to cigarettes when her new partner was smoking. Also, at that time my uncle, Attila, and his partner were smoking. Everyone was smoking around her. Still, then she was only occasionally smoking. She was the same way with alcohol as well. She knew her limit and too much just did not feel good. Then she got pregnant with my sister, stopped smoking, and never started again.

Growing up I remember seeing her smoking occasionally. She would smoke sometimes these minty, thin elegant looking cigarettes. I had no concept than that smoking is bad for people except that I did not like a very smoky room. Mom feels that if someone really wants to quit smoking they can. She was able to stop as well as my uncle and his partner. It is probably different for every person. Mom did smoke a lot when Józsika died, she was smoking one cigarette after another than like a chain. Probably because of the stress. A lot of things had fallen on her shoulder. After a while smoking so much decreased. Mom tells me for some people smoking is difficult also to stop because people are bored and don’t know what else to do. It just becomes a trend, something to do during a break at work. I am glad that my mom was able to stop smoking.

Me, Grandma and Mom, Budapest, Hungary, 2011

It is a nice summer afternoon when I go and visit Bill. We go to a conference room area with a big dining room table and chairs around. We have a conversation about the book project then I start my recording. I ask Bill about his experiences with addiction. Sitting in a church with Bill and we have a conversation about his mother. His mother passed away about 5 years ago related to smoking. Bill feels that as a society we pay attention to drugs and alcohol but not as much to other addictions like smoking. He talks about how smoking was even elevated to a fashionable level and become accepted in society.

Throughout his life, he has been witnessing his mother enjoying cigarettes at times and breaking from the habit at times. Then go back to smoking again, then stopping, then going back to it again over and over again. Bill felt that watching his mother confirmed for him how he wanted to live his life. He did not want anything to dictate how his day began, how his day progressed, the way the day ended. Bill talked about public advertising and how acceptable the behavior become. It seemed acceptable at least. He observed his mother’s struggle, she really did not want to do the smoking. In the beginning, it was comforting and had an emotional soothing effect, but other times she was at odds with it. When she got to be a point when she was not able to be without it, she spent time sneaking around thinking that she is disappointing herself and her family. She was trying to hide it, so the family does not know she was smoking again. For a while, Bill told himself that an on-again off-again addiction was better than a full-on addiction from age 16 to 80 day in and day out. It bought her some time, but ultimately it was doing the damage inside that ended her life. She had lung cancer that metastasized to her brain. Now, Bill understands the complexity of our lungs and lungs carrying oxygen in our body when there are other elements from cigarettes that are carried as well. Ultimately, the lungs communicated cancer along with the oxygen to her brain. This was devastating for him to recognize. It makes sense now. He did not realize that this could happen. His sister is a nurse practitioner, he felt she always knew what was going on, she told him what happened physiologically when he was ready. Bill describes himself as a professional hearer, listener and his sister as the clinical person with the knowledge and expertise to provide information on what was happening to their mother. We talked some about loss and grief and he felt that because of his sister’s clinical brain she did not allow herself to grieve the same way he did. He tries to check-in and support his sister in this process. Loss and grief are very important when it comes to addictions.

Bill’s story about his mother reminded me of my stepfather Zoli who used to smoke a lot. He died many years ago around 2010. I did not even know until after the fact. I found out from my father who heard it from people in town. I just thought he want to be with his new family and lost touch. He loved cars. One thing he did was to get a car, fix it up then sell it. We used it a little sometimes. He just loved to hang out in the garage and work on his cars. Spent a lot of time with the cars. He was very proud of them. He loved his cigarettes and smoked a lot. It was a trend, everybody seemed to smoke then. We did not know about secondhand smoking and its effects. Both my mom and I would sit in the same room when he was smoking. The company he worked for was a very stressful place. So stressful we were receiving letters to go to funerals, people seemed to die of a heart attack very frequently. I was young but it scared me. He just told me that his job was very stressful and there was a lot of pressure. He also would have some beer or wine every night a few, or more. I remember bringing him the beers when he wanted one. He switched from beer to wine because he did not like the stomachache the beer started to give him. He would drink the wine with sparkling water in a tall glass. I learned how to make them. I was young, I did not know any better so when he would ask for a drink, I bring him one, he smoked, I sat in the same living room. We did not know then what we know now about secondhand smoking. I certainly had no idea that I will lose him to smoking. He lost vision in his eye for a while I believe that was to be smoking too, then developed lung cancer, then developed brain cancer, then he died. He originally recovered from the eye problem. He was still so very young. Way too young to die. He could have lived another 40 years or more. He has 2 older sisters; he was the little brother. His sisters are still alive today. He never had children on his own. He and my mom separated after about 10 years or so. I wish I would have known he was sick; I wish I was more educated to warn him, maybe I could have talked to him. I wish he would have known what smoking will cost him. He was the godfather of my son. A very sad loss. Here is a picture of him on his 40th birthday:

Kiss Zoltán, 1988. March 11, Dunakeszi, Hungary

My father also smokes. He knows the risks but still smokes. It is scary. He also had cancer, survived it so far. It was super scary. Was it related to smoking? I don’t know. I don’t like that he smokes, but it is his decision. I am just hoping he is going to be ok. He told me recently that he has no intention of stopping. For a while I was very upset and angry about him smoking, I learned not to be. It was hard for me to accept that it is his choice to hurt himself. I am here if he needs help with it, but I don’t think he will ever ask. My dad tells me he grew up in Angyalföld in Hungary. I just talked to my dad and he told me he started to steal cigarettes and smoke when he was 7 years old. He used to steal the cigarettes from his mom. She did not know about it for a while then my dad got caught.

My dad around age 8, around 1961, Budapest, Hungary

It was a proletarian era. There were two types of people living in the area, either people who worked in the factories or police officers. Both of these groups smoked like a machine. So much so he tells me that my grandmother got part of her paycheck in cigarettes. This was the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. The police officers instead of getting more money than people who worked in the factories got cigarettes.

Everyone was smoking back then it was the trend. One pack of cigarettes than was 4 forint and for 5 forints. With the equivalent amount of money, people could have a nice lunch. This would include a soup and a main entrée and a drink. Dad grew up in this environment. He tells me to become a full citizen in this era people had to be smoking. This was in 1960s. He could go and buy one cigarette or just a few depending on how much money he had, many people did not have enough money to buy a whole pack. They lived in the Dagály utca. There was a small market. Right next to the bar. The owner of the market would open the packages and make little bundles of 5 cigarettes a time, people did not have enough money to buy the whole pack. When he was attending elementary school on the way to school if he had 20 fillér he would go into a small market and buy a cigarette. There were two types Sport and Mátra that were half the size of other cigarettes. My dad tells me they were big boys from smoking in the bathroom in the breaks. This was still going on even in high school. Kids smoke in the bathrooms. Sometimes a teacher would come in and say 2–3 kids need to go out because the smoke is so bad, they could not breathe in there anymore. Then there was a trend that started that the end of the cigarettes that had the filter on them were licked and thrown up to the ceiling. The butts were hanging of the ceiling. The school did not like this. After that, the school sent a teacher to the bathroom in each break. The school forbade smoking but if kids went into the stall like they had to go to number two and smoke would come out the teacher did not care unless there was a butt that flew up to the ceiling.

Now my dad had been smoking for almost 60 years. He stopped once for few months and pretended to stop some other times but did not really stop. He would go to the basement where the wood is to heat the house and smoke there. Erika would get suspicious why he keeps going to the basement in springtime, then she found the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He was denying it at first, he thought he would get into less trouble. Dad is so used to smoking that he does not even think about stopping. He could stay maybe 2–3 hours away from a cigarette but not much longer. I could watch a movie he tells me without smoking. Then Erika asks him what about 5–6 hours, he said he did not know never had to go that long without a cigarette.

My dad and his wife Erika, Hungary, 2017 Christmas

Erika also smokes and she tells me her story about how she got started. She was a teenager in the 1970s. She had a friend/neighbor her name was Gréti. At that time, she explains everybody was smoking in the whole country. People could smoke everywhere even at the birthing center, movie theater, playhouse. It was normal then that 90% of the country was smoking. People knew it could cause problems, but nobody talked about it. Erika was around 13–14 when it started by Gréti asked her to light her cigarette for her. It was a big deal. Next was that Erika could light the cigarette by putting it in her own mouth, it was a very cool thing then. Gréti smoked a lot Erika describes her smoking like a factory chimney. In about six months they were smoking together. Thinking back Erika is horrified at what was done to her. Gréti made her start smoking and become addicted to it probably she adds without knowing what she had done. Same with “konyak” which is cognac.

Gréti (Ditti) around age 80, Hungary

During pregnancies Erika did not smoke but after she went back to it. My sister Hédi, who is my youngest sister Erika did not smoke for 3–4 years. It was hard because both my dad and Zsiga were smoking at the house. There was a conflict in the family that created a lot of stress for Erika and she had one cigarette. She thought she could have one after not smoking for so long. She did not smoke again for a few months then she had another one. In about 3–4 months she got back to smoking. She likes it. She laughs. My dad laughs too. They both like to smoke that is the problem. She would like to stop too.

She remembers that when she did not smoke for years it was a very freeing experience. She gives me an example of going to a play and it was nice that she could enjoy it without feeling after 1.5–2 hours that she does not care what they play she just wants to smoke. She also gives me an example of going shopping wherein the end she would not care what they sell just go so she can smoke again. It is an addiction she tells me, and she feels sorry that she robbed herself of the freedom she had. She is still dreaming that she will stop one day. Right now, she tells me that the addiction is stronger than her willingness to stop smoking. Gréti did stop smoking when she was 70 years old. From that time, she was upset with Erika about why she was smoking. Erika had observed that people who stop have a hard time when others smoke around them. They give comments and say bad words. Even more than others who never smoked before. She thinks this might be related to being unconsciously scared that they might start smoking again since they were addicted before. Could be also she adds that they are so proud that they stopped, and they want to keep preaching it to others.

We have a conversation about people who smoke and do not die from smoking and others who don’t and still die from lung or mouth cancer. Gréti started smoking as an adult which was unusual at that time, usually, smoking started at the teenage years. Erika brings it up that even in all the movies in the ’70s everyone is smoking. I said at this point that now everyone drinks in the movies. Erika laughs. Yes, she said, they will probably stop that at some point too. Erika also remembers that when she was very young the schoolteacher would send the kids to get cigarettes for her from across the store.

Erika Hungary 2017

Dad Hungary 2017

My grandfather liked cigars. My dad just told me he used cigarettes too, I had never seen that. Apparently, grandpa stopped smoking when he was in Moscow. This was around 1968–1970. He did not smoke for about 5–10 years. Then he started using cigars and a pipe once he come back. I remember buying him some. Because he liked them, I bought him cigars as a present. I had no idea that they were harmful to him. He died. Probably smoking did not help prolong his life. I bought him something that caused him harm. I was young I did not know, but still. My father told me grandpa would be happy if I get him a cigar for a present, so I did. My dad just told me that yes it was very true, grandpa loved his cigars. Later in his life if he had a cigar that is what he used, he loved them dad tells me if not then he used cigarettes. Erika found a picture of grandpa with his pipe, see below.

My grandpa with his pipe picture by Erika

I talked to Bob about smoking and vaping. He tells me that in his experience a lot of people are still doing this, and vaping is popular now. He feels like most people who smoke it has to do with stress or something that happened in their life and is not sure how to deal with it. Nicotine is very addictive. We talk about cool advertisements. He tells me that he feels like something bad has to happen a lot and then slowly change happens. It is democracy and people want what they want. People still smoke. People still start smoking or vaping.

Thank you for reading,

Gabriella

Previous chapter

This book is dedicated to the memory of

Bagóczky József my uncle who died at age 19 — alcohol-related car accident

and to everyone else who has been hurt or lost related to addiction

Many people had been supportive and inspiring to me so I could create this book. Both of my wonderful children told me, just write that book, mom. My mom. I could have not done this without all the stories provided and the encouragement love and caring from my family and friends, nurses, doctors, counselors, teachers, professors, friends who are dealing with addiction and staying sober; and children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers of people who are dealing with addiction currently. Thank you for speaking up, sharing your stories and life experiences. Thank you to all the people who read this book while in progress to provide feedback, ideas, and encouragement for me to continue writing. I would like to say special thanks to my friends and family for believing me and encouraging me to go on.

Front cover acrylic painting created by Andrea Mihaly October 2019

Our Society: Addiction and More Uncovered. Hear the voices of everyday people — a collection of stories and experiences.

Copyright @ 2020. 1st addition on Amazon KDP. 2nd addition Jan 2021 Barnes & Noble. By Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi. All rights reserved. Dancing Elephants Press.