Busted

Busted. If stereotypes had speakers, mine would be busted (get it? stereos? speakers?). For the past three years, I’ve had the opportunity to work for the one of the largest nonprofits in the nation with the role of helping people put out an unhealthy, expensive (even more expensive as of April 1st), potentially fatal habit. Addicts. Nicotine addicts. Smokers. Prior to working for this organization, the term “smoker” always lit up images of weak-minded, dirty, broke, uneducated outcasts who had no willpower and didn’t care about their health; people who had some kind of oral fixation that somehow seemed to be satisfied by sucking on some “little white stick.” I didn’t make that phrase up. I once had a caller tell me –in an exasperated voice- how desperately she wanted to quit and how she was tired of “worshipping these little white sticks.”

This habit never made sense to me at all.

Why would any semi-educated human being take such a risk? I mean the box itself has a warning label. From the surgeon general. I’ve never personally met the surgeon general but I always imagined her (yes, the surgeon general is currently a “her”) to be donning some military garb, standing at attention two inches from my face giving me the evil eye and saying something like, “You really gonna light that, punk?" I just assumed smokers had extra money to blow and extra time to flick away. I still remember this one caller who –and I’ll chalk up his biting sarcasm to withdrawal- when asked if he had a pen and paper replied, “Pen and paper?! No! I’m in my car driving! I could just light up a cigarette and write the number down in ash!”

So smokers are moody too.

After working a couple of months, reading through our information, talking to those actually quitting, gathering their information, and speaking with our talented group of quit counselors, I started to realize a few things: nicotine is a drug. A drug as addictive as heroin and cocaine according to the guide to quitting smoking which can be found at cancer.org. It’s carried through the body. It interferes with the flow of information between nerve cells. It acts as a depressant and can produce pleasant feelings. Who doesn’t want pleasant feelings? Now mind you, I’m not defending smoking. I’m merely saying that I can see how some might find it appealing. And once you’re hooked, it can be hard to unhook.

Eventually my disdain for smokers began to taper off.

After speaking with the young man who was in his junior year of law school, working two jobs, who made “raw smoothies every morning for breakfast” and worked out two hours a day. Somehow, he found time for a cigarette or two and realized he needed to quit but just couldn’t figure out how. After speaking with the young woman who had lost “ninety-two pounds through diet and exercise” and was afraid of gaining it back. She explained to me how she had smoked throughout her weight loss journey and was now focusing on extinguishing her smoking habit and in the past week she had gained back two pounds. “I don’t want to rock the boat, you know?” she explained. “I don’t want to mess with any factors that are going to make me gain the weight back even if it means I have to continue smoking.” It was a common concern among the people I spoke with. Battling body image and a habit that could help fight off the pounds. Or maybe it was after I spoke with the woman who had unexpectedly lost her mom the day before to a stroke. The woman had lived with her mother most of her adult life, taking care of her and was now facing life on her own. And she was getting kicked out of her house and had no money, no family, no friends. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “I’ve never smoked before in my life. I just don’t know what I’m going to do.” Or maybe it was the man whose son had asthma or the teenager whose grandfather had died of lung cancer.

The stories are endless.

I’ve learned how powerful of a drug nicotine is. How using becomes a habit (mental and physical). How there is a process to breaking these habits (God bless you those that quit cold turkey. And to the caller who called me one day and said, “So I want to quit smoking cold turkey, what’s involved with that?”) There is a process to breaking these mental habits and as with anything you have to find your own approach to quitting. Much like I did. I quit. Quit stereotyping those I thought were weak-minded, dirty, broke, uneducated outcasts who had no willpower and didn’t care about their health...by speaking with them...directly. I think I’ll go find some new speakers to blow out now.

-Rhiannon is a blogger for The Sorbate. Check out her bio to see where her view comes from.