Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Addictions

Addiction is complicated.  It works in all sorts of complicated ways that are at once bio-medical, social, and cultural.  And yet, the stories of nicotine addiction that I've encountered as I quit are all strangely similar, strangely simple.  We live in a world with a common-sensical understanding of addiction, a 12-step version of recovery that can be cut and pasted into any new circumstance, and big pharmaceutical companies who are happy to coach you through, well, whatever you might need to be coached through right now.  The scary part is that none of those stories is very novel, or very different from the rest.

I want to tell you a secret.  Quitting wasn't that hard.  There, I've said it.  

Here is the most common story you'll hear about nicotine addiction:  it is among the most powerful addictions there is, as powerful as cocaine or heroin.

Being a good cultural subject, I believed this story wholeheartedly.  I had never tried to quit, so I had no idea what it actually felt like.  But I knew it was almost impossible.  I knew it was "the hardest thing I've ever done."  

So I imagined the sort of fight I would need to put up against cocaine or heroin addiction.  I pictured myself in a Trainspotting-like daze, shaking and sweating, out in my backyard in the middle of the night, flashlight in hand.  I would crawl on my hands and knees, through the muck, desperately searching for an old butt that had escaped the outdoor ashtray.  I would brush it off when I found it, raise it to my lips, feeling the dirt in my mouth, and light it, cursing its dampness.  And then, once it caught, I would have one perfect drag, deep into my lungs, and my body would sink back, satisfied, and there would be some kind of dream sequence.  And just like that, I would fail.

I thought of a close friend, who once told me that she knew it was time to stop using cocaine when she was ready to snort the last few bits from a shag carpet after dropping some.  The backyard butt was my shag carpet.

The truth is that it was never like that.  The people who say it is as bad as cocaine have never been addicted to cocaine, have never loved someone addicted to cocaine, and have probably never even tried cocaine.  

So what was it like then?  The craving bore a much closer resemblance to the urge to keep eating an entire bag of cookies even though you know they'll make you sick.   I know.  Not Trainspotting-worthy.  Not even a little bit.

It seems to me that if the point to all of the stop smoking rhetoric is to encourage people to actually quit smoking, then you'd want people to feel like they actually stand a chance.  You'd want people to feel confident, self-assured, even, gasp, competent.  Sadly, there are far too many vested interests at stake to let that happen.  There is mileage and profit to be had in making this impossible.   

Was it hard?  Sure.

But if you can say it's the hardest thing you've ever done, then you've not done much my friend.