by luther barbarrossa
Quitting nicotine is really hard. Everything in life right now is really hard. A few weeks ago, I decided to fuse those hardships together and see how it played out.
What is the hardest thing I’ve ever done? No clue. Maybe existing?? Every day, waking up, knowing life is chaos, knowing there is no linear path, knowing we know nothing. That is hard. And now it’s harder than ever before.
Yes, after Corona, life will return to a new normal. To an era where we turn over our biometric data to go to concerts the way we take off our shoes at airport security. The rich will be able to buy their way out of the most humiliating aspects of these new “safety” measures. However, an inevitable climate catastrophe, a civil war, or something else unforeseen, will fuck up the new normal and give us an even more pathetic, impoverished existence.
Living is not a choice we made for ourselves. It was a narcissistic gift to us from our parents that really was a gift to themselves. So what decisions have I made to influence my own existence? What is the hardest thing I’ve ever chosen to do? Quit nicotine. Twice.
The first time was easy. I’d been smoking cigarettes off and on from 20 to 25. By the end, I was smoking over a pack a day. My hands always smelled like shit. I had a brutal, brutal cough. The doctor told me I had a lung capacity of an eighty-year-old man. I was deeply ashamed of this habit. It was clearly killing me. Finally, I reached a point where, despite my cynical feelings about existence, I didn’t want to die. Smoking cigarettes was a passive attempt at suicide, and by November 9th, 2016, the day I quit, I really wanted to live, fight, and survive.
At this time, Trump had just won the presidential election, and I wanted to feel some semblance of control over something in life. So I quit. Not exactly cold turkey, I smoked spliffs daily and weaned myself off nicotine. But it was clear cut, obviously for the best, and it made me happy to do so. In fact, I went close to four years without even craving a cigarette.
Like the buzz-chasing-fool I am, I picked up Juuling a few months ago, during the winter of 2019. Friends wanted me to quit, and I knew I should quit, but it wasn’t tearing my body apart like cigarettes were; it didn’t produce nearly the shame of smoking cigarettes. Juuls are like a one-night stand: fun and enjoyable, and I was intent on sucking every ounce of pleasure I could from Juuling before walking away.
So when the first stay-at-home orders went into place, I was ready to put my Juul down. The last major traumatic world experience was Trump’s election, and that got me to quit smoking. I assumed this would be easy.
That first quarantine quit lasted 12 hours. By the end, I was miserable. Irritable with everything and everyone. And I gave in and kept sucking that joystick. And I was happy (enough) again.
After a few weeks of Juuling, the oral ulcers came. My earliest memory of this pain was while sitting in sun-drenched seats at Shea Stadium with an oversized mesh blue Mets cap, trying to eat a hot dog and not being able to. Shooting pain throughout my mouth. I couldn’t chew, I couldn’t swallow. I’ve had canker sores my whole life, but none ever matched the pain from this memory. Until this recent quarantine batch.
An ulcer grew on my uvula. Who knows the exact cause of this new friend on my dangly-mouth punching bag? But every medical professional I talked to made it clear that Juul wasn’t helping. And every time I drank water, it felt like I was swallowing razors.
So I put the nicotine down again. This time cold turkey. I threw out my sticks. I gave away my pods. Physically I craved it for days. My body followed the nicotine withdrawal timeline. I know because I googled them about 30 times a day during the first week. Those timelines also suggest you can use vapes to help yourself quit tobacco. Juuls are infinitely safer than cigarettes. If I didn’t have such constant, inescapable pain, I don’t know if I would have rallied to quit this thing that I still don’t fully know if I need to quit.
But I did. And my joyless, lonely, touchless, sad existence in my bed during Corona has only become worse. Now I constantly crave cigarettes. I eat too much, but nothing tastes good. Masturbation has turned into a chore.
Hitting the Juul had never been an act of suicide. It wasn’t pain; it was pleasure. Or it represents what pleasure was back when we were able to have pleasure. The Juul gave me something to clutch in my sleep. It gave me something to be excited about when I woke up every morning. It kissed me deeply all throughout the day.
I obviously can’t go back, then all the energy I put into quitting would be for nothing, and I’d hate myself even more.
This all fucking sucks.
But now I can blame my healthy decision for my misery, which actually does make me feel in control, just a slight bit more. And control is all we can hope for during our existence anyway. So I think I have made the most of quarantine. See you in the sunny air sometime soon, Juul and oral ulcer free!
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