My first introduction to tobacco was when I was in my single digit years. My Dad would smoke the occasional cigar while drinking a Rum ‘n Coke in the backyard after he came home from work, and he would often indulge my curiosity concerning the forbidden beverage by letting me have a few sips; Mmmm, delicious and I quickly discovered that larger “sips” were accompanied by a strange and wonderful new feeling. I think I looked forward to his Rum n’ Cokes just as much as he did, but I didn’t show much interest in the cigars even after he taught me the technique on how to smoke them.

“They are not to be inhaled, and most of the guys who smoke cigars only do so because they are great thinkers and contemplators of life”, he told me when I was about 7 years old. Hearing that from my Dad, an ex-professional football player wasn’t strange, but quite different than the usual athletics rhetoric, and no matter how much I wanted to appreciate thinking, I could not master the technique and I quickly abandoned it as foul. “Only when you get older will you be able to appreciate the cigar; you are simply too young to be a great thinker or contemplator of life”, he told me, and boy did I believe it!

My next introduction was by way of a close family friend who smoked cigarettes. “Hi, Troy; how are you? Do you have a girlfriend yet, Troy?” she would ask me every time she saw me as she lit up a cigarette. She is a very close family friend and our two families share many memories of fun vacations and football games and many other great times together, but I also always associated her with two things I didn’t like. The fact I did not have a girlfriend, and that awful cigarette that I knew always preceded the dreaded question. It wasn’t so bad when I was 5 years old, but it got to be increasingly embarrassing the older I got. I think she might be part of the reason I don’t have a girlfriend even now; yes as a matter of fact I am sure of it for reasons having to do with my understanding of the human mind that I’ll not go into detail concerning at this time. See “Society and the Sacred Mind” (upcoming) for more information.

I Quit Smoking…

The first time I ever tried a cigarette was when I was about 8 or 9 years old. A buddy of mine said he had one hidden near where he found it and he wanted me to try it with him. I held it and smelled it and we lit it up and I puffed it. It was not bad. He said inhale it. I either wasn’t sure what that meant exactly in the context of a cigarette or I was reluctant but I recall him then saying “breathe it into your lungs”, which I then did, and BANG! The smoke burned and made me cough like I never had before. “I’ll never smoke!” I said as I gagged.

I Quit Smoking Again…

A few months before I got arrested for misdemeanor malicious mischief at the age of 20, I began smoking with friends, and while in jail for those two months I got heavy into rolling my own to avoid the high cost of pre-rolled as I was only allowed a certain amount of commissary money per week. I turned 21 in jail… the hommies surprised me with a midnight bag of fried chicken and a birthday cupcake that someone stole from the kitchen earlier that day… good times that jail… not really, but for what it’s worth! When I got out, I continued to smoke, at the rate of about 1 or 2 packs a day when I was 21, to about half a pack per day just before I quit when I was 26… mostly nonfilters. I also smoked cigars… most of which I inhaled… during that interim, I believe as a result of my incarceration, which I’m certain, compelled me to become a great thinker and a contemplator of life. Anyhow, about the time when my thinking and contemplation convinced me it was about time to give up the habit, I met a guy who told me he quit by replacing the craving for smoke with a craving for oxygen rich fresh air. It worked! I had quit; for about a year.

And again…

The next time I quit, I was 30 years old. I had reduced my rate of consumption to about 3 or 4 cigarettes per day, but I couldn’t quite resist it completely. I then had the idea to assertively ritualize my desire to quit smoking, so I bought a new pack and then immediately crumpled it up and threw it away unopened. It worked! This was just before I transferred from junior college to Humboldt State University to get my degree; where I studied ethnobotany; and my senior project thesis was called “Nicotiana in Native North America”, which I have since updated and expanded. Nicotiana is the tobacco genus. I studied tobacco in the Native American context; I collected, pressed, dried, and mounted specimens of native species, some of which I collected on hikes while traveling, and others of which I grew in my dorm room window. I got some of my seeds from the Traditional Native American Tobacco Seed Bank and Education Program (TNAT), which is located at the University of New Mexico. The anthropologist Joseph C. Winter, who is the TNAT director, and also the editor of “Tobacco Use by Native North Americans: Sacred Smoke and Silent Killer (Civilization of the American Indian Series)“, even sent me some of their rarer seeds (Nicotiana clevelandii) after I assured him that I was having good results with the other native species he sent me and after I promised to give him some of the next generation of seeds, which I did. During my research I became very interested in the spiritual aspect of native tobacco tradition and I tried some of the kinnikinnick that Winter had sent to me along with the seeds. I loved it. Kinnikinnick is a bend of many different plants including one or more species of tobacco. The native strains mostly contain more nicotine and I smoked mine uncured. My experience with them is that they are much stronger.

Late one night, while drinking alcohol with some colleagues outside the dorm, the topic turned to what some of them had seen me smoking earlier that evening. I explained my new kinnikinnick ritual and then the topic quickly turned to cigarettes. The next thing I knew, one of the girls had seduced me into catching a strong buzz off my first cigarette in 4 years! I was drunk and happy with the experience, mostly because of how strong the effect of the smoke was after not having had one for so long. Despite the cigarette, the next day I decided to only smoke native tobacco in kinnikinnick and only in the tradition that the natives smoked, that is to say only in reverence of the spirits and always accompanied by a prayer ascending to the heavens by way of the rising smoke. This was justification at its best (or was it?), although I did not realize it at the time.

Well, my kinnikinnick soon ran out, and I returned to commercial tobacco once again, and was smoking as non-traditionally as anyone. After a few more years of this, I began to wonder if I was ever going to quit smoking. Smoking began creating more anxiety than it relieved, but because I was living with two Native American sisters at the time, I was constantly reminded of the traditional ways. So I reduced my intake to a few per day, only smoking about half of the cigarette at a time, and I also began praying into the smoke as it ascended to Wakan Tanka. I figured as long as I was going to be a smoker, I would at least embrace the spirit of it and send my prayers up high in hope for a better world. I had been doing this for a few days, and one day immediately after I sent my prayer up with the smoke, an ancient sounding voice said to me,”Troy, you either need to quit smoking or come up with a new prayer because I heard you the first time!” I was done. That was the summer of 2005.

It might be a good time to mention that I have what the psychological community likes to call schizophrenia. This is only relevant because it may help explain why I hear voices. Anyway, after I quit in the summer of 2005, every now and then I would hear what sounded like an older male’s voice annoyingly telling me that I wasn’t done smoking; that I would start again, and he even mocked that he would make me start again. “I won’t start again, I quit!” I insisted; “Not until I die will you quit.” was his reply. “Not until you die? Then die now!” I demanded in anger. He joyfully laughed and then said “Not yet.” “Who are you and why are you trying to make me smoke again?” “So you can quit”, was his reply. He was mocking me and I couldn’t help but feel infuriated at what he said but I was also a little in awe at the way he said it like he believed he was doing me some kind of favor or something by saying he’ll make me smoke again so that I could quit; and that laughter of his; what was up with that? Surely this was madness! I struggled with this voice on several occasions, and each time it taunted me I insisted that my will was stronger. Not until years later could I realize and appreciate the true significance of this voice.

And Yet Again…

In the early morning darkness of January 14, 2007, my life changed again. A friend of mine who I met in the autumn of 2005 named Glenn and I were drinking beers with a few new girls we just met that evening who were all smoking cigarettes and I was explaining to them how I had quit smoking a couple years prior when soon enough in my intoxication I caved. After about an hour I asked for a cigarette and when asked if I was sure, I said yes, and…, dang it! I was out on the second story balcony, smoking a cigarette. Glenn was out there with me and he said, “Troy, it’s strange; ever since I have known you, you never smoked a cigarette, even though we always party like we do, but now…” All of a sudden interrupting Glenn’s voice was that annoying mocking voice, seemingly of an older male, which said, “I told you.” I was just exhaling my second drag on the cigarette when I yelled telepathically to the older male voice, “Die! Die!” and then I said aloud, “What am I doing? I DON’T SMOKE!”, as I threw the cigarette down and as I watched it fall to the ground. Watching it fall to the ground, those two stories falling, it was as if in slow motion, and when it finally came to rest in the darkness, all that was visible of it was the fading glowing orange end as it disappeared; and as it disappeared I willed it and my addiction to it along with the mocking voice to be gone from my life forever. I knew I would not smoke again as long as I did not drink alcohol. That was the last time I smoked. That night was also the night I quit drinking alcohol. But that’s another story of later that night…

Anyways, I was adopted when I was an infant, and in researching who my blood family is, in the winter of 2009 I found my birth-father Rob to be living in Montana. Turned out I have a half-brother and a half-sister there as well, both Rob’s, so I sent them all a letter telling them I would be taking the train on up so I could meet them. Greetings all around and we were all getting acquainted having a BBQ and enjoying the crisp late winter early spring Montana air at my half-brother’s and half-sister’s sister Amber’s house. They all were smoking cigarettes. Damn the luck! But I knew that as long as I didn’t drink alcohol I wouldn’t smoke. I was talking to Rob and Amber and I explained to them how I had quit smoking and when, and their eyes went sort of just-seen-a-ghost weird and Rob and Amber then both explained to me that Rob’s best friend who was also Amber’s father was a smoker dependent on an oxygen tank. He smoked up until he died of illnesses caused by smoking. He died in the early morning darkness of January 14, 2007.

Since quitting, I have felt much happier and healthier. Even at the age of 40, I often feel as athletic as I did when I was 15. I never felt so capable and free when I smoked. I encourage everyone to quit smoking tobacco. When it comes to quitting smoking, anything within reason is worth at least a try. Please don’t let the years go by hindered by tobacco.

What methods have you tried to quit smoking… or what else is on your mind?

Speak Your Mind!!!

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