Not Addicted, Just Never Free
Smoking is one of those habits I buried, but it refuses to stay buried. I was a teetotaler for most of my life until I got a taste of a cigarette and liked it. Before I could even register what was happening, I had moved on to a pack a day, until it got so bad that I was reaching for a cigarette the moment I woke up.
I would wake up in the evening and begin my day with a cigarette, until one day, standing on a balcony, I noticed a young kid watching me smoke. I realized I might be inspiring someone to start something they would have no control over. I also realized I was addicted to something that now dictated my routine. It wounded my ego, so I quit in the only way I knew how: suddenly, and with brute force.
For years I never touched a cigarette, except occasionally, maybe a few times a year, when I was out with friends. I never noticed that the addiction was gone. And while I know I can never be addicted to cigarettes again, perhaps because I no longer smoke with that frequency, I've realized I can never be entirely without one either.
My relationship with cigarettes has been like the one you have with a woman you can't have but also can't live without. I no longer carry a pack, but I'm back to smoking one or two a day. The cigarette has become an integral part of my psyche, and I don't know why I love it so much, even though I can't imagine going back to a pack a day.
Partly it's because I have an obsessive nature: if I want something or like something, I go all in. If I'm having a bottle of whisky, it isn't unusual for me to smoke eight to ten cigarettes in a night. But the next day, I won't crave a single one. I don't know how it works, but there's undeniably a toxic relationship here, in the most literal sense.
I've had some of my best bonds with people over cigarettes. Some of my best ideas have come to me while smoking. Even my best solitary moments have arrived while standing alone with a cigarette. My very idea of freedom involves smoking a pack a day.
Some would argue this is a clear sign of addiction, and I want to say I've thought about it deeply. But addiction implies you cannot live without something, and that's precisely where I differ. I can live without it just fine. I can smoke a few cigarettes in a day and then go without for weeks, even months.
At this point, I've accepted that it's never going to leave me. It's also never going to become a severe addiction, because addiction, in my mind, is flagged as something to be rid of. So as long as the craving doesn't arrive on schedule, I'll be fine.
There are some relationships in life you can neither have nor be rid of. They stay with you, quietly reminding you who you truly are.