The smoking lamp is now extinguished

It’s been a month now since I stopped smoking. While I insist on preserving the option of becoming insufferable about it, I haven’t exercised it yet.

My motivation for quitting was aggravation and cost. I still enjoyed smoking, and presume that I would now if I started again; the problem was that I couldn’t enjoy it in peace. Before I could take that first, deep wonderful pull when I lit up, someone would be along to bum a cigarette. I couldn’t get a minute’s peace; the relaxation that was the whole point of the exercise was simply not to be had; I finished the cigarette more tense and aggravated than I was when I started it; I was spending $100 a month, which I don’t have, to make myself miserable.

So I quit. It worked wonders. I still got the occasional request/demand for a smoke, but I was so smug and aggressive in my response, which was, more or less, “I quit, you bastard, so go plague someone else,” that people stopped asking in relatively short order even though I still spent a fair amount of time in prime panhandling territory.

The peace of mind factor was important in helping me stay stopped, but it alone wasn’t enough. I don’t think I could have done it without the help of the UCLA med students who ran the smoking cessation class to which I turned in the first instance, and who provided me both with the nicotine patches that helped me cut my pack a day habit down to the point where I felt close enough to quitting to quit, and the mp3 player with the anti-smoking self-hypnosis track that has rendered me curiously incapable of asking for a cigarette.

Another important factor was my mantra, which I repeated every time I felt tempted: “The smoking lamp is now extinguished.” This is a reference to the light that used to signal whether or not smoking was permitted on airliners. During takeoff and landing, the lamp was off; in flight, it was on. We had stewardesses back in those days, who would announce that the captain had lit or extinguished the smoking lamp, as the case was.

“The smoking lamp is now extinguished” has a pretty faithful iambic beat and if one wasn’t me, one could dance to it. It’s easy to remember. I was proud of it. I told the UCLA medical students about it. They returned the most scarily blank expressions I’ve seen in years in response to something I said. I felt like the most enormous fool explaining myself. One of them said, “Oh, I’ve heard about that.” Lord.

I still use the mantra but it’s sullied now; I can’t think it’s as effective as it was when I first deployed it, but neither can I think of something to replace it, and of course I’m very fond of it since it helped get me off the demon weed. I’m open to suggestions for replacements or the sorts of modifications that might help the young folk understand the premise without lengthy explanation.

Meanwhile, I have grown very fond of my Junior League compilation CD. I listen to it and never once must I think about the smoking lamp. I do worry about the recipient’s expectation that the disc will reveal something of me, which I suppose would be, based upon track selection, that I’m a demented guitar lover with an extraordinarily bent conception of romance. But it’s not about me, damnit.