A Week In The Life Of a Smoker

[mrs apps]

DAY 1: Wake up and put on a nicotine patch to once and for all quit pack-a-day habit. Write list of reasons: Live 15 years longer, have healthy children, be socially acceptable. Tear up list and make better one: Look younger, have fewer wrinkles, get more dates, spite enemies. Decide to go out and buy carrots, celery, gum, orange juice, fruit, sugar-free lipops and rice cakes. Eat it all by 11 a.m., desperately craving cigarette. Try to work. Instead take all-day nap. Have a drink later with old boyfriend Peter, who says, "Kissing a smoker is like licking a dirty ashtray," then drinks seven beers and a Cognac and comes on to me. Actually consider it, but can't face sex without a cigarette later. At 2 a.m., go out and purchase three packages of fat-free Entenmann's brownies.

DAY 2: Wake up sick from brownies and cold caught by walking 14 blocks to get them at 2 a.m. Put on patch. Buy Sudafed. Take two. Feel better. Feel delirious. Take a nap. Try to work, but can't concentrate on anything but wanting to smoke. One hour on exercise bike: Oprah's "Mothers Who Want Their Kids Taken Away" puts problem into perspective. Read that schizophrenics and manic-depressives in mental hospitals commit suicide when their cigarettes are taken away. Decide never to have children. Ask brother the doctor for 65 more patches. Take another Sudafed. Is there a Sudafed group in the city?

DAY 3: Put on patch. Have breakfast with friend Vern who says that after he quit smoking, his concentration didn't come back for two years. Scan obits for people who died of lung cancer and feel happy when they're in their 50's. Take a nap, dream I'm smoking and feel sad that I went off the wagon. Wake up and find I'm not, but want to be. Take 100 deep breaths. Breathing is overrated. Take a walk and count how many stores on the blocks sell cigarettes. Get more patches in mail from brother, along with pictures of cancerous tumors. Try to work. See a movie with Peter in which all actors smoke. Eat two buckets of popcorn. Peter says: "My cousin Jane quit in three days on Nicorettes. Try Nicorettes," though I told him I tried them and threw up, then went out and smoked two packs to get the taste out of my mouth. Don't invite him in. Read that nicotine's harder to quit than heroine. Take another Sudafed.

DAY 4: Pu on patch. Think of smoking. Brother calls to say don't even think of smoking with patch on, someone's fingers fell off. Lunch with Andrea, who coughed every time I took out a cigarette for 15 years but now says,"I can't hang out with you when you're like this, you're too intense." Bump into old colleague Dave, who quit smoking and gained 29 pounds in four months but thinks it was the smart choice. Consider heroin. Try to work but realize it's impossible to be a freelance writer, a nonsmoker and thin in the same year. Sudafed losing its bite, check intro Comtrex. Negotiate self-destructive behaviors: decide that taking sleeping pill, smoking a joint, getting drunk or having sex with Peter one more time is better than a Marlboro or Oreos, though not if done on the same night.

DAY 5: Put on patch. Feel depressed and edgy, sweating. Hand shaking while reading the newspaper, where tobacco company executives say nicotine isn't addictive. Buy a pacifier, pretending it's a cool rap toy, wondering why anyone expects morality from the people who plastered penis-faced camels all over the country. Think of 10 70-year-old smokers still alive. Dinner with novelist friend Kathy, who chain-smokes in my face while saying she thinks it's great that I'm quitting. On way home, try to buy a 25-cent loosie (loose cigarette) at local bodega but guy thinks I'm cigarette police. Take it as an omen. Try to think of one famous writer to doesn't drink or smoke.

DAY 6: Put patch on. Walk around city chewing. Do high-impact aerobics for three hours. Walk out of health club wanting cigarette. Stare at people smoking and wonder why they look so beautiful and happy. Think of money I'm saving from not smoking. Spend $46 on seven boxes of fat-free cookies, 27 cinnamon sticks and three Lean Cuisines. Snap rubber band around wrist 100 times. My father, an oncologist, says, "You'll never do it," forgetting that when he quit his 35-year three-pack-a-day habit he gained 35 pounds and smoked a six-inch cigar every night. Decide neurosis is genetic. On stationary bike watch "Saturday Night Live," which quotes tobacco execs saying that the 400,000 annual smoking- related deaths aren't really dead. Neighbor complains bike makes too much noise. Do serenity exercises. Picture sitting on a tropical beach, where I'm happily smoking.

DAY 7: Put on patch. Have brunch with Peter, who says, while drinking six margaritas, that I've gained weight and need to learn more self-control. Make note to quit Peter. Read article about Bosnia, noticing only that soldier in picture is smoking. Eat more celery, fruit, salad. Polish off Oreos. Feel sick and bloated, dying for cigarette. Take off patch. Run outside. Bum cigarette from homeless person, who lights it. Puff slowly. Feel happy for the first time in six days. Stop coughing, calm down. Finish two articles. Go back outside, offer same guy $2 for two more cigarettes. Smoke them quickly. Feel nauseated, dizzy. Bump into Vern and Andrea, who say: "We were just coming by to say how proud we are that you haven't smoked in a week! Congratulations!" Feel guilty, defeated. Drink bottle of wine by myself. Fall asleep on couch with clothes on.

DAY 1: Wake up and put on nicotine patch to once and for all..