Where There's Smoke...

My mother has an extremely obsessive personality. Thankfully, she doesn't like the taste of alcohol, and, to my knowledge, has not had any experience with addictive illegal drugs. She doesn't like feeling drunk or high. Her pain medication usually goes unfinished. As a result, her obsessions tend to be somewhat unusual and harmless, and she switches them often.

Back in the early 80s, when Atari first came out, she actually missed a few days of work because she could not stop playing Missle Command. She had the same problem with Tetris when the GameBoy was introduced. Her current obsession is knitting funky scarves. I think she has upwards of 35 in her closet which, when you consider she lives in South Florida, makes them as useful to her as snowmobiles, although they are very pretty. 

For a while she made jewelry and purses out of pop tabs, and if she found out you had thrown a pop tab out or put it in the recycling bin, you were in big trouble, buddy. Tuesday nights were her favorite nights, because Wednesday morning was garbage pickup day, and she would prowl around after dark looking for pop tabs in people's recycling bins, no matter how many times my father begged her not to.

Smoking, on the other hand, is one obsession - and this one is a full-blown addiction - that has remained unchanged over the years. Thankfully, I am not addicted to anything, so I cannot personally relate to the need that addicts feel for their drug of choice. The closest I can come on a personal level is the extremely specific and urgent food cravings I had while pregnant. I remember one day while pregnant with my daughter thinking that if I did not have overcooked cauliflower with fake bright orange cheese sauce I might actually die from the lack of it.  Another day it was pineapple upside down cake. One day I stopped at three gas stations along the road to find Lemon Head candies. My sudden absolute need for a Coke was what clued me in that I was in fact pregnant with my daughter in the first place.

So let us assume that my mother's craving for cigarettes is at least that strong, and likely stronger. I get that it is an addiction, which creates a psychological and physical need in the addict. What I don't get is why you'd start in the first place.  I get that you feel like you must have another cigarette, I don't get why you'd ever have the first. "Gosh, my lungs are feeling awfully clear today. Look at the blue sky!  Smell the fresh air! I think I'll start smoking!" I don't get the peer pressure argument, either. "Want a smoke?"

"Ummmmm, no thanks." I just don't see the conversation going any further, since every smoker I've ever met at every stage of my life was apologetic about the bad habit (except, of course, my mother). I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist to think that the tobacco companies plant fifteen year olds at parties to lobby for their product and respond with, "Are you sure? I think smoking is a great idea, it will make you look super cool, and cigarettes today are only 35% as addicting as they used to be - and did you know that you can quit any time and within a year your risk of lung cancer and heart disease is cut in half? So just quit by 35 and you'll be fine!" Not seeing it happen, sorry.

But I digress. My mother, an intelligent, educated woman, has been smoking unrepentantly since the late 1950s. She has had cardiac catheterization surgery, and a stroke in recent years. And yet, as I type this, she is sitting on her screened in porch with the sliding glass door opened, smoking away. If I were not here, she'd be sitting on the sofa, which is only about ten feet away from where she actually is. This small concession is one she agreed to only after years of intense arguing.

My own children do exactly what I did at their age - they hide her cigarettes, hide her lighter, leave notes all around the house, and beg her to stop in dramatic ways. Don't you want to come to my wedding? They ask. Don't you want to see me grow up? She tells them to quit bugging her, but I know her well enough to know what she's thinking: What would be the point or pleasure in living if I couldn't do it with a cigarette dangling out of my mouth? This boils down to the following: my mother loves nicotine more than her own life, more than her desire to watch my children grow or remain a force in the life of her own children. That's some powerful love. 

I don't get it. I truly don't get it. This is a free country, and I support people's rights and freedoms to make idiotic decisions like the one to light up a cigarette.  I just struggle with why, given the unlimited choices this country offers, you would choose this kind of slow suicide.

It's enough to make you start drinking.