Wayward: Addiction

A Pilgrimage of Its Own

“You can’t climb uphill by thinking downhill thoughts.” -Zig Ziglar

Actually, you can, it’s just tedious and disheartening. It can also be illuminating.

When a pilgrim doesn’t make it up the steep hill, the first responders draw chalk lines around the body off before carting it off. Then, the children in the village come armed with chalk and color inside the lines. At least that’s the story I told myself. I knew that if I stopped for a rest on the hill, I’d be done in, so I just paused for this photo op and soldiered on.

I’ve hated hills for as far back as I can remember. I’d get breathless just looking at them. Or my psyche did. Likely because I started to smoke so young - in utero, actually.

Both of my parents smoked. When my older sister and brother turned sixteen, they could light up in the house, too. A rite of passage. I remember faking the first puff in front of our parents much like I had done for real at thirteen. I persevered to be cool. The danger of secondhand smoke wasn’t on our radar then. In those days you could smoke in restaurants, movie theaters, and even airplanes. A pack of cigarettes shot up from fifty cents to three dollars to land at about fourteen when I last quit. Almost everyone I knew smoked back then, starting at home - often the first doorway to addiction.

Like my parents, I subjected my children to my smoking habit. At first, it was a case of ignorance being bliss. I didn’t really know better. I quit when I was pregnant, but that was because I had morning sickness from sun up to sunset right through to delivery. And then I’d start up again soon after. But when I think back to all the colds that turned into bronchitis, or to why my pregnant body turned off nicotine - I realized my body was wiser than my mind. I stopped smoking in the car, then indoors. I’d stand in the rain and snow for my fix. I’d manage to quit for months, sometimes years. Triggers were everywhere and I could be blindsided just watching a movie when an actor lit up. I’d suck in my breath and want to be in the scene. Movies and television have an influence. Sometimes I’d wake up feeling guilty because I’d smoke in my dreams.

My dad died of lung cancer when I was about 23. He was only 52 and he passed within weeks of his diagnosis. My mom died of lung cancer at 69 when I was 43. My children have few memories of them other than the photos I’d show them and the stories I’d tell. I helped provide hospice for my mother so that she could die in her home looking out on her garden. I hadn’t had a cigarette for almost ten years so it was hard to cope with all the emotions and the secondhand smoke. Mom would turn off her oxygen and light up. One night she muttered “stupid, stupid.” I had a moment of anxiety, worried she was referring to me - I was that insecure. Still, I asked, “stupid what, Mom?” “Cigarettes. I could have had more years with you.” Even though I’d quit, I knew that would be true for me and my children, too. My older brother quit smoking after having a stroke but died at 57. My younger brother at 58. Smoking kills. It also steals years of could-have-been memories and leaves empty places at the family table. And yet, a few years later, with sixteen years as a non-smoker, I had that “only one” that led to many more.

We live in a highly addicted society, if not hand-to-mouth, then hand-to-credit cards, video games, cell phones, or to “likes.” These habits are all addictive and have financial and social costs, smoking just stinks more. Not judging - just saying. Addiction is addiction. That pleasurable surge of dopamine. Nicotine was the most gripping of my vices. It’s said that it’s a harder habit to quit than heroin. I used nicotine gum, patches, spray, and even hypnosis - which always helped the most. I was burning time off my life and money that could go to better use, like traveling.

Why am I telling you this? It feels relevant - and I loathe unreliable narrators. Before getting on my flight to Spain, I butt out what I hoped would be my last cigarette and put on a nicotine patch. In my daypack, I carried the last lonely left-over cigarette to test my resolve, something I could burn on the famous pyre in Finisterre, as was the custom. The hills that left me wheezy reminded me that my very breath was at stake. Wonder how I did? You’ll have to follow.

Ultreia! - Forward together! (Cigarette and all.)

Human beings are so complex with our vices and virtues, our fight for wellness even while we excuse our self-harm. Industries make fortunes off our “strength for the weakness.” Who profits from yours? Fighting addiction, or addictive tendencies, is one of the greatest pilgrimages in the world, so kudos to those of you on that journey.

What vices do you struggle with?

Were they modeled for you in the home?

How have they impacted your health, relationships, and/or travel?

Did you conquer them? And if so, what helped?

These are the stories that fuel memoir writing. They’re also slices of life to fictionalize and give to our characters to work out. There’s healing in that.