Gimme a toke, I'm so broke, gimme a cigarette I can smoke

I spotted this pack of Marlboros alongside the road as I trotted along with my iPod last week. It looked like a fresh pack, and yes indeed, 15 cigarettes remained. Who would toss a pack of cigarettes?  A couple was arguing about one's inability to quit?  The other grabbed the pack and hurled it out the window as the car careened down the road, tires and voices screeching? Coulda happened, but the violence that likely ensued would have made the local news. You don't want to mess with a smoker's stash or wrestle with them over a nearly full pack in a moving vehicle.
Less likely, a solitary smoker, guilty and self-loathing, threw them in a fit of resolve. I don't think that would happen, though, because a person who wants to quit smoking would finish off the pack and then start a new life, which, of course, is going to be unbearable and hideous into the distant future.
Least likely of all, the pack fell out of somebody's pocket or backpack. Had that occurred, I think the person would've backtracked. Cigarettes cost around $4 a pack these days, and have you noticed that a lot of smokers, especially those who would be walking along a highway, look like they can't afford it? Not that smoking cigarettes has anything to do with having the means to support the habit. I'm as self-righteous as the next non smoker, and can't help but wonder how homeless people and wandering-around-town-at-all-hours-teens afford cigarettes.

I tucked the pack into my pocket and haven't been able to trash them. Why? Because somebody wants  them and, more critical, needs them.

I understand smoking because for 10 years of young adulthood, beginning with my first I-won't-get-addicted-cigarette as a high school senior, I inhaled two packs a day, often lighting one Tareyton off the last. I loved my Tareytons. However, if the pack was empty, I was an absolute whore for any other brand, even the dreaded menthols. That's because I was morbidly addicted. Phillip Morris had my number and called me about 40 times a day.
Cigarettes were cheap back in the 60's and 70's, but I occasionally ran out, and when I was also out of money or the stores were closed or my smoker buddies were not around, I went scrounging.
Memories of those desperate searches for used cigarettes, sometimes my own butts retrieved from an overflowing ashtray or the garbage,  hit me when I saw a man pick up a ground-out butt in a grocery-store parking lot recently and light up the few remaining damp hits. His face registered euphoria. Pathetic. But I remember how it was. How my body craved tobacco on a cellular level and how when I lit up, relief and a weird sort of pleasure quickly hit and I could go on. I also remember quitting. It was ugly.

It was spring 1976. The heavy lust that had protected my habit during the first two years of the relationship with the future father of my children had lifted enough for him to complain. In fact, I was banished to the porch for Tareyton time,  and was informed that "no mother of my children will smoke cigarettes." Harsh! I was 30ish, baby-clock ticking like crazy. But wait. There's more. Despite being piqued at PK's command, I secretly wanted to quit. The mess and smell of it was bothering me, and I was beginning to feel the sting socially. Smoking was still allowed in teacher lunch rooms, (I was an English teacher back then) some movie theaters, and all restaurants. But unspoken disapproval—disgust even—permeated spaces filled with my smoke. And that baby thing was quite insistent. (Hi Quinn!)

I'd failed several times before. People who've never smoked can't understand the power that cigarettes exert. There were certain things I could not do without them: talk on the phone, be up for more than five minutes in the morning, drink coffee, drink alcohol, write, read. It goes on. It was clear from previous failures that I had to change more than one habit. And so here is what worked for me.

1. Get all cigarettes out of the house, the car, the garage....anyplace you may find yourself when cigarettes are calling to you from the cellular level. On about the third day into my new and unbelievably unpleasant life, I spied one cigarette that had fallen between the seats. I reached for it, punched in the lighter, and in the moments of waiting for the lighter to pop out, gathered the will to throw the damn thing out the window. Hardest thing I ever did. I cried and shook.
2. Read up on how cigarette manufacturers profit from ruining your health, and how they're now preying on young people and women in countries where cigarette advertising is not banned. Thirty years ago it was enough for me to learn how incredibly harmful they are and become incensed that somebody was getting rich off my habit.
3. Believe that smoking ruins your health, makes your teeth yellow, and your breath stink.
4. Change your routine. In my case, I had to give up coffee for awhile and I quit writing for about a year. It was summer vacation, and I took up tennis and spent more time gardening between bouts of rage at PK for imposing this suffering and then not understanding it. And who cares about a baby, anyhow?!
5. During those desperate first days, smoke something that doesn't deliver nicotine. Clove cigarettes or something. At least you'll have the "business" of smoking. I don't recommend the smokes that I resorted to maybe a half dozen times - thin joints made out of "shake," pot-plant leftovers. With today's potent weed, is there such a thing anymore?

Of all the above, the most effective for me was gnawing on the knowledge that a corporation was profiting from my weakness. Screw you, Phillip Morris.