Now Departing Flavor Country

No one likes a quitter…

I’ve decided the best way to beat this is to confront it head on, and really explore the subject. To get a better understanding of how to quit, and make it last this time. So I’m going to torture myself by looking at all sorts of images and flashbacks to memories of positive smoking times. Good and bad and the role they played. Not sure what the psychological angle of writing a love letter to cigarettes, at the same time as I’m attempting to break up with them, would be…

Always used smoking as a bridge from completed task to starting the next one. When is it time for a cigarette? Finished writing a several paragraph piece for a story… Mowed part of the lawn… Going to bed… Looked at the ceiling… Washed the dishes… This TV show sucks… Sorted a part of a box of baseball cards… Woke up… Changed my mind…

Well, now it’s time for a cigarette…

I bought my “Last 2” packs after work, on March 6, 2026, amongst my other purchases at the Kwik Trip on my drive home. Instead of zoning out or contributing to small talk, I looked at the screen adding up what I was buying. Even though I pretty much already knew the cost, I rarely pay attention to it. I’m buying them anyways, I’ll budget later. Those “Last 2” packs rang up at $13.66 each. $26.72, just for two days worth of smokes. Accounting for more than 2/3 of my total bill, which also included two days of lunches for work. At $13.50 per pack (on average, depending on which store I buy them from), I realized that I was spending around $420 a month, just on cigarettes. 

Well, that’s just stupid.

I quit.

It’s not like it was even a year ago, when Laura and I spent a week plus in Florida. Where a carton (ten packs) of cigarettes cost about $80. Over $50 less than Minnesota prices. I know that $80 is still too much, and $145 is absolutely too much. Just took that epiphany at Kwik Trip, to knock me into reality.

After all, I knew this day was coming.

For X-mess 2024, Laura made up this card as part of a gift. Sitting on top of some other wrapped up stuff underneath in the box.

She gave me three boxes of nicotine patches, “For when you’re ready”. One box for all three stages. (I’ll still need additional stage one patches, but this is a huge assist.) Even though it was well over a year ago now, all three boxes are still within their expiration dates. They stayed in the box she wrapped them in until I decided I was ready for them. Comforting knowing I had these available in my back pocket for when I decided I needed them.

Now I couldn’t use the excuse that I didn’t have any patches…

This part of the story goes back to May, 2017, in Englewood, Colorado.

My first attempt at quitting came in 2017. I saw the PSA on TV for Colorado Quit Line, one night on the TV, and made a mental note. Colorado Quit Line is a state run program, funded by Colorado state tobacco taxes. They provide assistance to Colorado residents, in helping smokers quit. With a program of online and phone support, plus free patches, gum or lozenges. A little later, I went to their web site and read some stuff and promptly chickened out. I went back a few weeks later and decided to fill out their questionnaire, and give them my contact info. After starting the process, one of their volunteers called me so I could ask the questions I had, and sign up for the program if I was interested. 

At that point, I agreed. Though it would take several more weeks before I finally started it.

 

They sent me the first two weeks of Stage 1 NicoDerm patches, then had me do an initial phone interview. Which would answer any of my questions, and help me understand how my lifestyle will be affected and the best way to handle quitting, in relation to my current lifestyle.

From a June 28, 2017, Notebook writing.

I had just received the patch program when I wrote out some of my thoughts on quitting smoking. Because my writing was hard to read then (it’s even smaller and more condensed now), I’ll type out a few pieces I still believe are important.

First I want to note that I flagged this paragraph(s) in the margin for possible use in Wasted Quarter. Well, there wouldn’t be any new issues of Wasted Quarter, but it was written less than a month before I started Four Baggers and Foreclosures. Hopes of filling my new found free time, where I would have been smoking, with more writing, I needed some sort of new outlet. Wasted Quarter became obsolete for what I wanted to so. Quitting smoking inspired me try something new… And this blog was started in July, 2017.

But I hadn’t quit cigarettes yet.

Kept chickening out.

One of the key sentences in the introduction to Colorado Quit Line’s program read: “It is important to decide for yourself that you want to quit. It is normal to both want to quit and want to continue tobacco use. Many people have mixed feelings before they quit.” Which is good, because I have those mixed feelings, and wondered if I was doomed to fail because my mind isn’t 100% committed. 

There’s an estimation in there that quitting smoking would save me over $2000 a year. To compare then to now, and there to here, quitting smoking now will save me over $5100 a year.

That’s insane.

Under my “positives” for smoking, entered into the Why Quit Worksheet, I cited: Socializing with friends and co-workers, quick and temporary relief from anxiety, and smoking during home and work tasks to clear me head and refocus. Today, the friends and co-workers isn’t a thing, but the anxiety very much is…

I completed the 8 week program in late October, 2017. I was concerned about going off the patches, and how I’d respond to my typical stressors. But I was fine. I hung out with smoking co-workers while they partook, and it didn’t really bother me. I dealt with the two months of bullshit from Laura’s car being totaled after killing a deer on the interstates of Nebraska. I handled our having to pack up and leave Colorado, while Laura had 2 broken legs. 

Quit for over 11 months. Everything was going great, cravings were reduced to an “I really don’t care” level, I felt a lot better and was saving a lot of money. 

So… What changed to cause me to go back to smoking cigarettes?

Yeah… That checks out.

My second quitting attempt, via nicotine patches, started in June 2022. I lasted about 2 weeks after finishing the patches. Excuses used were: Laura’s health issues had gotten worse, and she was facing some serious surgeries, in the very near future. Then my cat got sick and had to be put down. Took it all as that as meaning it wasn’t the right time to quit.

I’ll try again later…

Like in March of 2023...

Oh, my closest friend of nearly 30 years, just killed himself.

Give me a pack of Winston Gold Lights 100’s with Raisins BOX!

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Front and Back Covers

Walgreens put some effort into their program, including a 32 page booklet inside each box of their patches.

Not going to say anything else about it now, since that’s what I’ll be basing the story from.

Now if you want a little piece of trivia that I found very interesting, check this out… As mentioned, Walgreens packages that little booklet with their nicotine patches. But both “store brands” (Up & Up for the Targets, and Equate for the WalMarts), package the EXACT same folded up sheet of paper, inside boxes of their generic nicotine patches. This folded up piece of paper has essentially the same basic information as the Walgreens booklet, but it’s condensed and very low effort in comparison.

So I’ll be writing my story based off the Walgreens booklet. However, I’ll be using nicotine patches from the Targets and the WalMarts, because they’re cheaper by a few bucks. (Have to pay the printer!) Unless you can get a promotion from Walgreens, sometimes they sell them at buy 1 box, get the second for 50% off. Shop around for your best value… But buy at least one box from Walgreens, so you can get a copy the Behavior Support Program booklet. 

Don’t waste your money on the brand name NicoDerm patches. They are nearly twice as expensive, for the exact same patch as the generics. However, I cannot speak on whatever support documents are packaged inside NicoDerm boxes. I wasn’t about to pay $55 to find out. Not when Up & Up was $25 or less…

The inside front cover featured a table of contents. 

I have nothing funny, insightful or interesting to add to this. Just a little sneak preview for what you’re about to read. 

Before getting into all that, let’s go back in time 32 years, to view a little film on the dangers of smoking cigarettes. From the March 24, 1994 episode of 201 Proof Television, here is a brief puppet show that will answer all of your questions. Sorry about the poor quality. Both in presentation and content.

“Smoking… Causes you to lose at popular games like Monopoly…”

Informative… And with a positive message!

We didn’t set out to be role models, just people who cared too much.

Producer Ben smokes outside the NCTV Public Access studio, in bountiful Blaine, Minnesota, on December 29, 1994.

201 Proof Television ran on the NCTV Public Access channel, broadcast in the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis, during 1993-94. After a brief run in 1992 as Don’t You Have Anything Better To Do?, where I co-hosted 2 episodes with Doktor John. Both my Doktor and Producer Ben smoked, as did a few others that worked on/appeared on the show. During the 2 years the TV show ran, not once did anyone ever try to “peer pressure” me into a cigarette. 

Certainly not in the laughably lame real PSA’s we all sat through in public school…

Producer Ben smoked Winston Light 100’s, so I’ll always feel a kinship towards him for that. This was his pack of Winston Light 100’s (SOFT PACK!) was used as a prop in our 201 Proof Television’s The Price Is Obviously Right sketch. For this segment, after Kerrie lovingly showed them off, you had to guess the price of the pack of smokes. “I’ll go with $2.55, Bob!”

Then you win the (Name Redacted) Star 2000.

I’m not going to share the link to the video, you could probably find it without too much difficulty. 

Before moving on, I have to address something brought up in the last picture. Which would be Producer Ben’s Soft Pack of Winston Light 100’s. Into the late 1990’s, RJ Reynolds was still producing Winston cigarettes in both Soft Pack and BOX! Customers at the 99 Spiillhp would always ask for their cigarettes, emphasizing the word BOX!, so you knew they hated Soft Packs. It became an inside joke with the rotating cast of friends that hung out with me during my shifts. From my time as a convenience store jockey, almost no one ever wanted any cigarettes in soft pack form. Except old ladies, who would then transfer them to a fancy -yet discreet- carrying case. One time I had to suffer through a Soft Pack of Winston Lights 100’s (which I immediately transferred into an empty), and they tasted awful. Had no idea the taste was that different from what I knew.

I met up with Producer Ben, when he came through Denver, in June, 2000. Was all excited to share my love of Winston Lights 100’s BOX!, but he was smoking a Marlboro. Traitor!

In December, 1995, I wrote a little story from a dream where I made a small fortune selling a line of flavored cigarettes. Even typed it up for inclusion in Wasted Quarter #22. Wasn’t a smoker then… In the late 1990’s, the 7Eleven by my apartment was selling individually wrapped single flavored cigarettes. They had Cherry and Grape. They did not have Roast Beef…

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Pages 1-2

For comparison’s sake, before I dig into the Walgreens program, I’m leading off with the opening few paragraphs of the generic quitting smoking fold-up, used by both Targets and WalMarts, with their store brand of nicotine patches. 

Don’t congratulate me!

If anything, it’s embarrassing this is attempt number 4 at quitting cigarettes. 

I’ve read the second sentence of the second paragraph, several times, and it still doesn’t quite make sense. “Many Nicotine Patch users will be able to stop smoking for a few days but often will start smoking again.” Besides needing a comma, I’m not sure if it means that the patch will only work for a few days before I start smoking again. Or if after I finish doing the entire program, I’ll go back to smoking after a few days. Either way, there’s a lot of information in there that should be allowed to breathe. Not rushed through like this. 

Advantage Walgreens. 

Part 1 - Thinking About Quitting 

Why the Behavior Support Program leads to success

Thanks for the congratulations, Walgreens… 

I guess I haven’t followed the Behavior Support Program closely enough to make it work. While I’m not likely to follow it to the letter, I’m going to spend more time exploring it in relation to why it didn’t work, and what parts of it did work. Pointless as it is to define blame to the program, when I simply caved to life’s pressures and stresses and needed to go back to that calming and convenient stress reliever. Just to keep my sanity in every day life.

If most smokers usually have to try several times before they completely stop, maybe this will be the time it sticks?

First, I’m not going to talk to a doctor because I failed this program in the past. I know why I failed. In each occurrence, it was entirely on me. No one held me down and forced me to smoke. I did it all on my own. Second, the nicotine patch has been a very good tool for helping me quit in the past. Third, as I said above, I’m going to take these six stages a little more seriously this time. 

That’s cool. Maybe I’m stupid and weak for saying this, but I’m not the type of person that talks to people about myself. Sure, I’ll write stuff like this out over the course of thousands of unnecessary words, and put it on the internet without a care. But talk to someone? In person? On a phone? Are you crazy? 

While I appreciate the Behavior Support Program for offering these resources, I’m good with reading and figuring it out on my own. I have developed a track record of some success, and ultimately, failure. Taking what I’ve learned over those attempts, to (hopefully) produce a better outcome, this time around.

So why am I here?

Notable Places for Smoking - The Azzip Tuh

Located at the corner of Broadway and Wing Street, in Englewood, Colorado. This old Winchel’s Donut shop has been remodeled since my 1997-2000 tenure of bringing very low quality pizza-style food product, to the greater Englewood area. Going into my employment, I’d dabbled in cigarettes between June and October, 1997. Smoking was just a when I was out drinking with friends from Overpriced Art School thing, until I started giving rides to pizza. That was when I discovered the joys of smoking while driving. 

Now not smoking a cigarette when driving is one of the hardest parts of quitting.

Very early (maybe 3 shifts) into my run there, I was introduced to Dubb’s Pub. Which didn’t have this terrible mural painted on the wall back then. The proportions on that woman are nearly impossible, but someone enjoyed painting it. Dubb’s was the unofficial Englewood Pizza Hut watering hole. Every driver in the area was here nightly. You came here after your shift. You came here after other people’s shifts. You came here whether you worked a shift or not. This was where you went to drink beer and play pool. 

And smoke cigarettes.

Dubb’s Pub’s outdoor smoking area. You could smoke inside the bar until October 2006.

After that, you had to go to outside smoker’s jail. 

One summer night in 1998, Dubb’s was using these strange napkins, with a rather ridiculous budget printed on it. 

They were actually a promotional item advertising Winston cigarettes. R.J. Reynolds was trying to get “Straight Up Winston” over as a new slogan. As a current Winston smoker, it made me want to switch my brand. Seemed so… What do the kids say? Cringe. (So glad I’m in my 50’s now…) Anyways… I thought this was a rather clever method of advertising. Supply bars with drink napkins, with your new slogan printed after something that most people would take the time to read. So I made sure to keep one of the napkins. I’d never used it in a story until now. 

Notable Places for Smoking - The Screened Porch at Cheryl’s House

After an ill-fated 19 month hiatus in Crapids, I moved back to Colorado in May, 2005. For the next year, I lived in a small room in the basement of a house, shared with 4 other people. Two of whom, worked with me at the Englewood Azzip Tuh. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of the porch, besides this one. Featuring another pizza taxi driver I worked with. He moved to Seattle around 2012, and died a few years ago. Really cool guy, was fun to hang out and drink with.

And smoke cigarettes…

The porch was long and narrow, running the width of the attached 2 car garage. Most of the windows were glass, but had several panels that opened to screens. Which gave it nice air flow in the summer. Four of the five people in the house at this time, were smokers. There were couches and chairs out there to lounge on, plus a small table that I used to write in my notebook. The backyard was heavily covered by trees, so you didn’t see the neighbors. It was a nice and peaceful place to escape. That porch was one of my all time favorite places to smoke.

When I moved out of Cheryl’s House, I took the ashtray with me.

It’s still used for ashes today, but it hasn’t been used for cigarettes since 2006.

I’ll let you figure that little riddle out.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Pages 3-5

Working Towards Success - The Stages of Change

The generic fold-out from Targets and WalMarts, pretty much glosses over this important section. As a quitting starting point, you should understand what’s going on, going in. Now going through this for the fourth time, I’ll go through the first three stages much quicker than someone on their first attempt.

Pre-Contemplation Stage

You don’t really notice you’re in this stage, as it’s just a random thought that pops into your head. Which have happened from time to time, throughout my cigarette smoking history. Eventually, these thoughts happen more and more frequently, and they start becoming a plan. That would characterize the faint background music playing underneath everything else that’s going on.

Q is the shape of quitting!

Probably hit the Contemplation Stage just after the first of the year. Not in a “I’m going to make a New Years Resolution to quit smoking!”, then you tell everybody you know, without ever following through on any of it, sort of way. This was more about opening the books, and examining how much it was really costing me.

Never experimented with making changes. The only thing I ever really did, was smoking only half a cigarette, then finishing the other half later. But this wasn’t about cutting down. This was due to extra cold Colorado and Minnesota winters.

I went through the Preparation Stage in 2 days. I decided Friday night that the two packs I bought on the way home from work, were the last two packs I was buying. The game plan was the boxes of patches in the bathroom cupboard. My quit date was Monday morning. I told Laura when we stopped at the Oak Park Place Cub Foods, in Blaine, MN, on Sunday night. For old times sake.

“This is my last pack, I’m going on the patches in the morning.”

Okay…

Indeed.

The Action Stage kicked off as expected. I put the patch on as I got ready for work, and went about my day.

“You will probably experience cravings for nicotine and urges to have a cigarette throughout the day…” Understatement much? Yeah… Pretty much all day. Every few minutes. It get’s better, but that first couple of days, your head doesn’t shut up. Let’s go have a cigarette… Let’s go have a cigarette… Let’s go have a cigarette…

As of writing this sentence, I’m a half day away from one week in. It has gotten better. But not by a whole lot. And this is what I expected going in. Each day is a fight with that voice in your head telling you to smoke. And how good it would be to smoke. And how good it would feel to take one of those smoke breaks you enjoy so much. That’s the psychological struggle that you have to figure out, while the patches solve physical dependency.

I made it to the Maintenance Stage in early 2018, but have never made it to the Termination Stage. 

And I’m not naive enough to say that I will definitely do it this time.

Taking all of the factors into account, my own chances to stop depend only on me. 

The ones listed here to additional ones in my head.

I need a cigarette…

But I’ll think about baseball cards instead.

Here’s an absolutely insane story, that ran in the December 1992 issue of Beckett Baseball magazine. An unopened pack of Piedmont Cigarettes from 1910, came into a card store in Florida. With a possible T-206 Honus Wagner inside. The story says the guy who brought it in, had picked it up at an antique shop, for just $5. The owner of the card shop traded $3,000 in cash and cards for the unopened pack.

Looking at this with 2026 eyes, lead to so many questions…

Whatever happened to this unopened pack of cigarettes? What card was inside the pack? If it was indeed opened? Did whomever opened it try to smoke one of the cigarettes?

I know I probably would have…

Especially today!

About 15 years later, a small blurb ran in the September 2006 Beckett Baseball magazine, about a recent sale of an empty pack of 1890’s era Old Judge Cigarettes. Unlike the 1910 Piedmont pack, the cigarettes and card had been removed (likely decades ago) and it was just the empty wrapper sold for $900. 

Still would have been a cool thing to own.

Yeah, you’re right Equate Up & Up, Quitting Smoking is hard!

And these patches aren’t doing enough to reduce that withdrawal. 

Craving? Check… 

Nervousness? Maybe a little more than usual…

Irritability? That was at record levels even while I was smoking.

By the way, if I’m supposed to refer to this guide for support and answers to questions that may come up, it should have some actual content inside. This is the bare minimum and poorly presented. Show some respect to the people you’re claiming to help.

******

In honor of my first day of quitting (the 2026 edition), I’m going to take a gander at the 2017 Notebook, and see where I was after the first day of quitting (the 2017 edition).

Wednesday August 16, 2017. (2+ Days Inn…)

Since Monday at 1:20pm, I have smoked two cigarettes. One each day between patch changings. Won’t make a habit of doing that. Overall, I’m doing okay with the nicotine patch. But I’m so missing the taste of cigarettes. The feel of it rushing through my blood from my lungs… I get it, that’s the power of the drug. I knew that going in. 20 years of using that to go outside, time for a break and get back to work on whatever. 

Don wanted me to come into work tonight… I wanted to not. Though I needed to and will likely regret not doing it. Tomorrow I will return there to now try and do my job without smoking. I’ve not worked without cigarettes since before Pizza Hut. Put into perspective how long I’ve been smoking. And how difficult going to work will probably be. Guess I will be taking more walks around the place. Most likely som work breaks taken writing on my notepad. If I end up following through on my plan of taking quitting notes, to turn them into an issue of Wasted Quarter, I need to make a good effort in documenting what I’m going through. 

I was told that one side effect of the patches is having intense dreams and nightmares. With the amount of weed I smoke, I wasn’t expecting to dream much at all since I usually don’t. Or at least don’t remember them as soon as I wake up. Now I am, but the dreams are just slightly modified versions of everyday life. I’ve dreamed about grocery shopping, talking to co-workers, taking pictures of abandoned buildings with a soundtrack of King Missile’s Mystical Shit. So if that’s as bad as it gets, bring on the nightmares! I’m looking forward to tonight’s terrifying visions of writing a blog post… Then a blood curdling podcast downloading…

Been two and a half days so far, and though it’s driving me crazy, I’m doing okay without my smokes. Doing this without the patch would be a different story. Intend to follow the plan through to completion, but am worried about what will happen when the patches are finished. If I don’t smoke any cigarettes, how will I feel once I complete the plan? Can I do it? Yes. But it’s only been two and a half days. Hard to say how I’ll feel about smoking in a couple of months. I’m doing okay. Not great, but okay… Tomorrow will be a big test, and a major reason I didn’t want to go into work tonight. I need a period of not smoking while being at home, before I try it at my job.

As far as fighting the cravings, I was told they get easier. The best thing to do is fight through them and do something to take your mind off it., and they will pass. Which has proven true. Some take longer than others to pass. Hopes are that once I’m ready to get off the patches, I won’t have the same problems. But I can’t get ahead of myself. Key is sticking to the plan and working on the mental side. Re-training my brain to not do things the way I have for the last 20 years, anymore. 

This is where writing will become more valuable. Gives me something to focus on, while I practice fighting those cravings. Which pop up intensely at either one of the logical stopping points, or when I get stuck in my head and need to step away from it all… I can do the dishes! Just like I did now. Or I could play baseball on the PS3. Like I’m going to do right now.

Actually, I’m not.

It’s time to move onto the next segment.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Pages 6-7

Notable Places for Smoking- Kenyon Place Apartments 

I lived at the Kenyon Place Apartments, from October 1996, until October 2003. It wasn’t a terrible places to live, but if you had more money, you wouldn’t choose to live there… I went there as an overnight gas station jockey, and left there with a nearly worthless diploma from Overpriced Art School and a big boy job (with big boy debt). A whole lot of writing that very few people ever read, and a pack a day smoking habit.

The apartment building had about 130 single and doublewide, narrow tube shaped living spaces, with an open courtyard. Typically, I leaned against the railing that lined each floor’s walkway, smoking a cigarette, while looking at all the activity around the courtyard… At any given time, I could watch the antics of the mean spirited mentally challenged tricycle guy, that 15 Year Old Homewrecker and her wacky boots, the Awesome Battery Guy, Tustin and his hot sister, the five people who died in their apartments while I lived there (those are just the ones I watched get carted out on a gurney, there were probably others), Mr. Maintenance, 212 June, AAIIEEEEESSHHAAAAA!!!, the Parrot Guy, and Crumbliss…

Crumbliss…

Crumbliss eventually left Kenyon. And in late 2001, a new neighbor moved in. We didn’t along instantly. This whole ordeal lead to not only a story in Wasted Quarter, but I was so irritated by her, that I even drew a cartoon! Takes a special effort in annoying me to go that far…

From Wasted Quarter #52 (March 2002) - A Small Jazz Accident 

If I ever knew her name, it was long forgotten. Two months after I printed this issue, she was evicted from her apartment, for not paying her rent. Now I was irritated that so much of an issue was made over a long time tenant like myself, in favor of a whiny old twat that didn’t fulfill her part of a six month lease.

In case you were wondering where I bought most of my cigarettes when I lived at Kenyon, that would have been…

Cigarette King!

Located in the southernmost end of the Way Cool Shops on South Broadway. Well, they were through July, 2014. When I arrived to pick up my first carton of Winston Lights 100’s BOX, of August, I was greeted by this sign:

Never did go to “Puff n Love”, as that location was really hard to park a car at. It was easier to buy them elsewhere. The Way Cool Shops on South Broadway, were Way Less Cool after a sudden turnover of long time tenants. Between 2013 and 2017, Cigarette King closed, as did Buy Back Games and Mike’s Sports Cards. Three places I spent a good amount of money in that little strip mall, over the years. Replaced by a nail salon, Boost Mobile and an expanded Dominos Pizza. 

7Eleven is still there. But not a preferred location since I didn’t live at Kenyon after 2003.

Listened to a lot of Bill Hicks at that apartment, and while giving rides to pizza...

While smoking cigarettes…

I used to wonder what Bill Hicks would have thought about current events of today, given that he died in 1994. Can only imagine what his takes on Clinton’s blowjob, Bush II’s Iraq II, electing Obama and how he would have loathed President Pedophile. But the correct answer is, he likely would have killed himself by the time the second Iraq war became a thing… 

I’m going inside. It can’t get any colder than this… What would be the point?

Which way now?

That’s the part you have to figure out. Walgreens Behavior Support Program does offer some great resources, if you choose to use them. Back in 2017, I did a telephone consultation, about a week into starting the program. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but I chalk that up more to my severely introverted personality, than any flaw in their system. For research’ sake, I did check out www.lung.org, and found it to have similar basics to the Walgreens booklet. However, there are a lot more options that you’d expect from a web site vs what’s in a printed book (can’t fight progress). 

Checking off that list of reasons would just be a check on the money part. I never felt like a cigarette was controlling me. This was a partnership.

Living a longer life? These days? We’re closer to a nuclear war today, than at any point in my life before. Health care will be an impossibility once I retire. That is if I can even retire. Highly doubt I will see anything other than working a job until the day I die. And hopefully, I die while at that job. Will give them something to clean up after. 

More time for myself? Smoking cigarettes was never a hindrance to my spare time. It was an enhancement.

Look and smell better? The way I look is not cigarettes fault… As far as smell goes, if that’s what it takes to keep people away from me, is that really a down side?

Setting a healthier example for my children and grandchildren? Heheheheh… Yeah right…

As far writing any other reasons go, I’ve thought long and hard about it and it just comes back to money. $400+ every month is as deep as I need to go. Everything is else is just a big whatever… And not even the good kind.

Yeah… That’s cool. 

Up & Up and Equate’s generic quitting smoking fold-up has a slightly different take on the same subject. Their picture of the “first few days” was pretty spot-on. I was very edgy and did have trouble concentrating. Time that I set aside for writing went to sorting baseball cards, and when that didn’t quite click for me, I ended up dragging the old Sony Playstation 3 up from the basement. Four hours of Katamari Damacy filled the need.

One of the thousands of items you can roll up in that game include cigarettes. Got a little satisfaction from adding those to my Katamari!

Up & Up and Equate want to ask: “How will I feel?”

Yes… All of this… (With the exception of increased appetite and weight gain, so far none of that.) The effect of “trouble concentrating” has been a side effect that has probably bothered me the most. I’d hoped it would give me more focus for writing, but it’s kind of been the opposite. At least through the first two weeks. I’m way behind on getting this written, because when I sit down to write, I’m too all over the place to focus. Also tired… So I fall asleep while trying to write. Everything else on that list is more noticeable to certain degrees, though as I’m getting closer to finishing that first two weeks, things are gradually getting better.

I still really really really want a cigarette, but it’s easier to just forget about it than it was eleven days ago.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 7-9

Part II: Your Personal Quit Plan

Thought I already covered my quit date, It was Monday March 9, 2026.

Which was the start of the work week. Bringing more of a routine, rather than a weekend when I was able to do whatever I wanted, smoking-wise. Problem being, either solution would be a conflict between the first two notes on the list. I would have increased stress, and I would be confronted with all my smoking triggers. The last on the list wasn’t an issue. Smoking at work wasn’t a social situation, and it never involved alcohol. Neither has my private life in about 20 years.

I forgot to write it on my Daily Success Calendar, but I’ll be able to remember it. I count back to it every morning. 

Which is why I chose nicotine patches, instead of gum or lozenges. Using the gum or lozenge is something you take to immediately address a nicotine craving. So it’s not all that different from smoking. Because you’re still rewarding the craving with nicotine, you’re just not smoking it. Patches allow that craving to be fed subconsciously while you focus on the psychological side. If you pop a piece of gum in your mouth at each craving, you’re still performing an action to gain an expected result. Training yourself to just follow a different path to the same reward. With a patch, you don’t think of needing to perform an action for your reward. It’s just low-level there… You are able to focus more on dealing with the need to perform an action to get that reward. As time goes on, that’s easier than if you have to deal with both sides while quitting.

Easier to tell your head to shut up, when you don’t have to first perform an action before you can tell your head to shut up.

It’s also easier to quit when you’re no longer in social situations and settings where you have positive memories of smoking, and good times enjoyed with fellow cigarette smokers. 

Notable Places for Smoking - Crazy Carl’s House (Various dates, between 1998-2002.)

Photo from January 2002, with Trav and myself, standing behind Supa-Couch-O-Matik 3000, Crazy Carl seated in front. He bought his house in 1997, after I’d moved to Colorado. But over the next 5 years, it was where I spent a great deal of time, when I was visiting Minnesota. Hanging out on the five seater couch, watching TV, smoking, drinking and wasting time with Crazy Carl and whatever rotating cast of characters showed up that night.

Photo from October 2001, with Trav, Doktor John and Crazy Carl. The Camel Lights Pool Table ashtray, Carl’s smokes, my smokes, the $4.20 + Tax Roadtrip Kit, a copy of Wasted Quarter Issue #49. The Champagne of Beers, a fountain drink, and far too many remote controls. Dart for Carl’s electronic dartboard in his left hand. Possibly a dictaphone off camera, recording audio of the evening, for a future project that would never come to light. Weird Al videos or South Park or Infomercials or Cable Access television or Comedy Central or just pain good old channel surfing, on the TV. No matter what form of entertainment the television is dispensing, it will be met with a long form running commentary by all in attendance.

With that grand finale at Crazy Carl’s House, coming October 2, 2002, when we held our very own Karaoke Rave!

Mind if I scratch in Welder Helmet?

Because they’re not related, but absolutely related…

Notable Places for Smoking - Flintwood (October-December, 2003)

My brief,19 month Minnesota return began in October, 2003. Kicked off with unemployment checks and the closure of Doktor John’s clinic on Flintwood. He was slowly relocating to a temporary office, behind the hollow, soulless shell of Crapids Perkins. Occasionally I’d help him move stuff between properties. Mostly we’d sit around and I’d watch him play Grand Theft Auto or The Sims on the Playstation. Drinking gallons of cheap beer and expensive whiskey, then trading a pinball machine for a big bag of weed, with Dust and Zanthar on the TV. Which ever one of the three wasn’t set to broadcast static 24-7. It was a marathon of intoxicated therapy, both of us at our lowest points to that point, debating where everything went wrong, crashing out in a creepy weird old house.

Hand wrote tens of thousands of words in my notebook, while sitting on Cowboy Couch. Drinking and smoking until the sun was about to come up. Then I’d go back to the parent’s house. I was 28 years old! Yay for me!

“Hey Honkass… Bum me a smoke. Because I know you’ve got like seven cartons in your backpack…”

Sucks to run out.

Three Flintwood televisions, joining forces with old typewriters, stared back at me. While I sat on Cowboy Couch, smoking, scribbling and observing. Watching Primus videos and Gummo… Maybe Sargent Sweet Ass was there with us… Maybe GAG just wanted to go to Northtown… Or that ignorant smart right wing kid who thought Canadia was a state… Or Keith dropped by… And that’s just the people that made the list of being allowed inside… Wonder What Wedall Wanted?

One of the last days before shuttering his office, Doktor John gave me the official Flintwood ashtray. This weird ass Jetson’s looking thing, sat on the end table next to Cowboy Couch. Next to our drinks, packs of smokes, the $4.20 + Tax Roadtrip Kit (now promoted to daily use), and whatever else was going on that day/night. 

That period of time was really gross, yet one of my favorite three month stretches of my life.

On the morning of January 1, 2000, Doktor John, Crazy Carl and myself ended up in the smoking section of the Crapids Perkins. We saw the end of the 1900’s in Carl’s basement the night before, and had an early morning mission of photographing the remains of the Crapids Burger Time, and a few other places. 

Crazy Carl offered up an idea for the next issue of Wasted Quarter. Using his digital camera, he’d take close up pictures on the table, then I could print them for people to guess. Well, I don’t know of ANYBODY, who guessed this picture correctly. For those of you stumped for the last 26 years, this was a close up of our ashtray.

And there’s a very fat me, writing in my notebook, inadvertently flipping Doktor John off as he snapped my picture.

Not officially boothrotting this morning, but pretty damn close.

Wasted Quarter issue #56 (October 2006) - Bottomless Pot of Wasted

A full issue dedicated to stories of boothrotting. Hours of drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, while writing in a notebook, at various IHOP’s and Denny’s, in the middle of the night. Which was something I absolutely loved doing, until laws were passed, banning the art of smoking inside restaurants and bars. Ending a long time personal favorite writing habit. I tried to do it without smoking, but it wasn’t the same. You need to have the coffee, with the cigarette going, at the same time as you’re writing out your nonsense. Take any one of those three elements away, and you’re just wasting your time. May as well stay home.

Which I did.

I had no idea that smoking was addictive… They really should warn you or something.  

Found it kind of funny the withdrawal symptoms of quitting nicotine ingested from smoking, are the same withdrawal symptoms you have from getting the nicotine from the patch. Which is supposed to cut back on withdrawal symptoms. I guess that’s the whole physical vs psychological struggle quitting brings on. I can agree to the statement that withdrawal symptoms peak between the first 24 to 72 hours. Those first few days were really hard, even with the patch. As I write this, I’m just 11 days in, and those withdrawal symptoms are still very noticeable.

And we’ll see if 8 weeks is enough, once I get closer to 8 weeks.

Which sounds very far away…

Oh I absolutely have a psychological dependency… I can say yes to all of those and then list out several hundred more. Although I don’t fully agree with the last one. While I am used to smoking, I’ve never felt uncomfortable without one in my hand. I don’t have that need to hold something. Though I can see where it’s definitely a part of the whole psychological dependent equation.

Well, they’re not listed to the right, you’re going to have to wait for that. But here’s the part I disagree with… These “triggers” aren’t so much a thing that makes you smoke, it’s just that smoking becomes something that adds into your everyday routines. If your “trigger” is something as simple as lighting a cigarette each time you get in the car (which I did), you can’t exactly never use a car again. You have to figure out how to tell your head that you’re not going to light that cigarette when you get into the car.

That’s the hard part. And where the patches come into play. They take away the physical craving, and slowly dial it back. You take that dialing it back period of time to figure out how to rewire your head to not go back to cigarettes once the patch period is over. 

So it’s a learning experience.

Well, here’s the one foremost in my head right now… I’m finished writing for the night and am going to bed very soon. It’s quarter to three in the morning, I would typically take my men’s over 50 daily vitamin, step outside to smoke a cigarette, come back in and go to bed.

Yes, sometimes this song would play in my head as I was doing this… More often than I’d like to admit.

Now I take my men’s over 50 daily vitamin, and then just go to bed. Feeling of missing something necessary to my routine keeps me up briefly. Again, there’s not a whole lot of alternatives. I’m not going to not go to sleep, I just have to get used to not having that Last Cigarette… Last Cigarette… Last Cigarette… The one before I go to bed…

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 9-11

Walgreens’ graphic design department did a terrible job in laying out their “If you smoke… Then try…” chart. Not like space was at a premium on most of these pages, plenty of room to present your information in a legible manner. Basically this is offering suggestions for how to deal with smoking triggers, brought on by certain routines. Again, I completely get the principle. It’s about replacing learned negative behaviors, with new positive habits. For me, it’s just easier to tell my head that’s not what we’re doing anymore, and going about what I was already working on.

But coffee and cigarettes… Such a perfect pairing…

Chef’s kiss…

In mid-2004, I was putting an issue of Wasted Quarter together, and gave Official WQ Staff Cartoonist Tracy a list of cartoon ideas I’d like to enhance the stories. One of them being: “Draw Coffee & Cigarettes”.

While writing this story, I found out that Tracy died two years ago. I started entering her name into a Googles search, and it autofilled the rest of her name, along with “obituary”. Oh man… That really floored me. Our past goes all the way back to the late 1980’s. Going back that far, she was big Into drawing cartoons. In high school, we exchanged daily notes, that were mainly comical drawings about what was going on in our day. We drifted apart, and didn’t start talking again until 2000, when I was visiting Minnesota. For the next 4 years, she supplied cartoons for Wasted Quarter several issues, including a wrap-around cover for issue #57.

Damn... This one’s hard…

I admired her cartooning because it really captured the moment, with minor touches that added better context. Even going back to the primitive high school stuff. All of them were kept from then, because they had value for the stories. In a way, her creativity was an inspiration for me. While I never was the same sort of artist, I wanted to write details in the same manner as she drew them. This was all early on of course, and styles have changed drastically over that time. Sometimes when you write something you have a specific person in mind, as if you were telling a story to that person only. There’s been a few stories in Wasted Quarter (and even Four Baggers) that were written with her as intended audience. Just because I figured it would be something she would have found interesting. 

After 19 months of frequent hanging out, drinking and smoking at various local bars and restaurants, we drifted apart again after I moved back to Colorado in 2005. We talked occasionally online. But I never saw her after I left Minnesota for the second time. Some point down the road, I’m going to put up some of my favorites from her cartoons that she drew for me and Wasted Quarter. They should be seen.

Hey look, another trigger… The death of someone who played a significant role, at multiple times in your life.

Tracy was a regular visitor to Crazy Carl’s basement in 2001-2002, smoking cigarettes and drinking beers with the rest of us. The above picture coming when she couldn’t figure out why the darts wren’t sticking in the board. She didn’t believe me when I said they were flopping coming out of her hand. I said I’d take picture to show her, but it would take several months to present my case, since it was 35mm film, and not a digital camera. Sure enough, once I developed that roll of film, milliseconds after the dart was released from her hand, it was already aiming straight down. 

She appeared on several Wasted Audio recording sessions in Crazy Carl’s basement, along with others in the rotating cast. Hard to believe the night of John, Trav, Carl, Tracy and myself (and Breast Men), from January 2001, now has two people no longer with us. Those recordings are becoming harder to revisit.

Well, now that I’m completely depressed as shit, let’s go buy some cigarettes!

Not literally, I’m not doing that anymore… But in February 2014, I could have pulled into the south Denver Smoker Friendly  store, on South Broadway, for a decent deal on cartons of Winston Lights 100’s BOX! Next door to Subway, which is whatever… But past the Metro PCS store (that outnumber hydrogen molecules in total locations nationwide), you have Joyce’s Famous Pizza. Joyce makes a great calzone, if she’s still in business…

Smoker Friendly also has an Englewood location, just north of Belleview, on Federal. Given my addresses between 2005 and 2018, if my cigarettes were’t coming from the nearest 7Eleven, they were most likely purchased at a Smoker Friendly. 

And if you were at 7Eleven buying cigarettes, chances are good it was the Englewood location, at Broadway & Dartmouth…

Located roughly half way between my job and my apartment. Meaning the cigarette that I lit as I was leaving work, would be just about out when I’d pull into the gas station. And the one I lit when I left, would be just about finished as I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment. Of course traffic and lights would affect that. Which is why I only stopped here on the drive home from work. They usually had some attractive young ladies working the graveyard shift, a couple I got friendly enough to smoke with. Cigarettes and/or stronger than cigarettes. 

You still owe me money, Linda…

Reducing the Urge to Smoke (?)

Well, everyday life is certainly not reducing any of my urges to smoke, that’s for damn sure…

I’ll agree to the statement that urges come and go, and that’s pretty much their duration. You just wait them out and convince yourself that’s not how you’re doing things anymore. The “Three-Second Breathing” Exercise is good advice, and something that I need to remember when stress and anxiety bring on a panic attack. (That I usually calmed with a cigarette, if a bowl wasn’t readily available.) Perhaps I can use this latest attempt at quitting smoking to work on some other of my head issues…

Switch Your Focus. Again, good advice, and the method I’m putting the greatest value into. I’ve been filling up my notepad at work faster, but it hasn’t been because I’m concentrating on writing instead of smoking. This is just a by-product. For the most part I’m fighting the urge to smoke by doubling down on the effort to continue doing what I’m doing, I’ve noticed a benefit in doing this over the past 2 weeks. Once my concentration skills recover from this underrated jolt to the system, I’m looking forward to better productivity in things like writing and getting stuff done around the house. 

No… I don’t see this working for me. I like to have a cold bottle of water on my table while I write, so I can just have a drink. Which I wouldn’t process in my mind in this way. This reads too much like a high school creative writing class instruction. There is nothing I hate reading more than attempts to appeal to all of your senses at once, in a simple narrative. I certainly don’t think like this. And I absolute will not write like this. More likely, I’d just go back to the “Three-Second Breathing” Exercise, described earlier. 

Bacon

From my experience and understanding, you want to make the quitting process resemble your everyday life as much as possible. So you can remove the smoking aspect by focusing on what you’ve always done, now you’re doing it without smoking. Don’t see much point to adding new things to replace the old. I’ve got enough things, this needs to be more about simplification.

Yes to all of those triggers.

My solutions to fill in the chart? “Not Smoke.” For all of them.

I don’t know how else to deal with it. “To give myself a lift, now I will… Start knitting?” 

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 11-12

Remember when?

Yes I do.

I have very fond memories of this day. Friday June 20, 1997.

Notable Places for Smoking - Overpriced Art School

I started classes at Overpriced Art School in April 1997, for a 2 year degree in Graphic Big Buncha Words Design. Saddling myself with a lifetime of student loan debt and just enough of a career to pay the bills. But not afford to live alone. June 1997 was a turning point. I’d been going to school after working graveyard shift in a gas station, Sunday-Thursday night. For some ridiculous reason, I took that job completely serious and completely unserious, at the same time. It was this day I decided I’d outgrown the gas station.

Less than 2 months later, I finally quit.

Don’t worry, that’s a real Bratwurst, not a real Bratwurst…

Wasn’t peer pressure in the ridiculously stagey format 1980’s kids were force fed from all sorts of guilty media and propaganda. I was simply provided an intelligent and relevant argument that crushed my preconceived notions. For years, I turned down opportunities to smoke weed. Gas station always held the “random drug test” card in their pocket, and I had to go once in 1994. I didn’t want to deal with that worst case scenario of losing my treasured gas station gig, so I never smoked. 

“Is that job REALLY worth it?”

No. No, it’s not.

I smoked Marijuana for the very first time that afternoon. And it changed my everything. Immediately after we passed the bowl, I smoked my first cigarette in my life.

From then through now, if you added together every day that I’ve smoked weed, it would be roughly 26 out of 28 years. For cigarettes, it’s closer to 25 of 28 years. That ratio will grow wider. I’m still proud of the fact that I’m one of the very rare who smoked pot before a cigarette. 

Which is all completely meaningless. 

Amy With The Big Hooters smoking and drinking at the Hooters in Aurora, Colorado, December, 1997. After our final class on Fridays, EVERYBODY went to Hooters. It started as a joke, because it was close, and... Well.. Hooters... Over the months following that first one in June, I became a social smoker. By October 1997’s new employment at the Azzip Tuh, I was about a pack a day. I loved my two new habits. Cliche and stupid to say, but I felt like I was finally starting to figure out the life I wanted and my role in it.

Smoke break at the Overpriced Art School hack circle, on the front sidewalk. No matter how many times Keller/Williams Real Estate asked us to not stand there and smoke while playing out little reindeer games. Cigarettes meant breaks, friends, fun, drinking, and all the great early 20’s stuff that makes that time of life so much fun. Because you don’t have to be overly responsible, and you can do all these things and who cares because you’re young. 

And it was about fucking time that I started actually enjoying it.

On the very far right side this photo, is part of the Wendy’s I wrote about a few weeks back. An abandoned Safeway sit across the parking lot.

Well, Up & Up and Equate want me to Plan Ahead…

Okay… That’s cool. Again, not contacting someone to whine about wanting to smoke. My smoking friends have all been here. And we all know what we’re doing, and what we are up against. We also don’t need to write down what caused us to smoke again. Answer: “Being alive in 2026.” Not doing an emergency kit… Not a toddler… Don’t need a reward. However I can see myself justifying an impulse purchase with: “Yeah well, I’m not smoking cigarettes, so there!”.

Here is my plan for not having a cigarette...

I will not have a cigarette. 

I’ll always be tempted to smoke, because I loved smoking.

Now it’s time to distance myself from that love.

After my first quitting attempt in 2017, that failed in 2018, I’m not interested in building that support cast again. This is attempt number four. I’d just rather not talk about it. At some point it becomes its own punchline. The people I’ve told that I’ve quit are supportive, but I’m not looking for (or wanting) cheerleaders. The only person I told before I quit was Laura, and that was less than 12 hours before I quit. 

Check back with me in a year.

Maybe then I’ll deserve a small accolade. Until then, I’m fine with going through this on my own. Fully accepting if my stubbornness to follow is naive and self-sabotaging. After all, I’ve never succeeded in quitting.

That’s probably the most accurate sentence in this book, when it comes to quitting smoking.

A non-smoker would never get it. Unless you understand how the nicotine addiction affects your brain, which only really comes from experiencing it, you can’t imagine what it’s like. Without a frame of reference, I can’t describe how incessant the nagging from your head can be. What relieves that is such a simple and easy fix, and you have to constantly deny your head that very thing. There are many times it feels maddening. So yeah, it absolutely affects every part of our day. Think if you asked the people closest to me, if they’d even notice an increase in my irritability, the baseline is already so high on the charts it simply wouldn’t register. 

Now I’m about to move on to the next set of pages. This would be the time that I’d get off the couch, go upstairs, put on my jacket and hat, then go outside for a cigarette. That would clear my head. I’d mentally go over what I’d written and see if I felt satisfied with it as a first draft. Then I’d prepare what the next part would say. Get distracted by a woman driving by, whose car I never seen on our street. Now I better look up something random on my phone. Then a rabbit would hop across the yard. My cigarette ash would drop down the front of my jacket because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to know it wast time to flick the ash off. Then I’d start thinking about if I want to reshuffle the order of images in the upcoming segment, because I’ve changed my mind on how I want to tell that segment’s story. Then I’d stop to watch a helicopter flying overhead. Now another completely different story idea will pop into my head, so I have to make some new notes when I go back inside. And now it’s time to go back inside. 

Since I’m quitting, I’m just moving onto the next segment, without clearing my mind first. Cigarette free writing is an adjustment this book didn’t offer any suggestions for adjusting. 

If any fellow writers with nicotine addiction have any advice to offer, I’m willing to add you to my non-existent support  network.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 12-14

That’s cute, quick tip… But the reason I’m quitting smoking is because they’re nearly $14 a pack. I’d never buy a pack again, to “Just have one”, that’s cost-ridiculous. Absolutely not running the rest of the pack under cold water and throwing them out. Does it have to be cold water? If you run them under warm water, do they multiply or something?

Described how the first attempt to quit cigarettes dissolved shortly after moving back to Minnesota, at the beginning of this love letter to cigarettes. For three and half months, I was working a new job on first shift, Laura and I were living apart, at our respective parent’s houses, and I was dealing with major Colorado withdrawal. Life wasn’t about managing my triggers. Life was dancing on a Manhattan sized trigger.  

Notable Places for Smoking - Kwik Trip Andover

Laura and I had no where to go. So I’d typically meet up with her after getting off work, then we’d go anywhere to hang out, that wasn’t our parent’s houses. Which ended up being various Kwik Trip convenience stores around the north metro. They sold cigarettes and decent food, and each of them had an uncomfortable, plastic coated picnic table I could smoke at. 

Decent people watching as an added bonus.

Notable Places for Smoking - Oak Park Plaza

A recently renovated Oak Park Plaza shopping center, in Blaine, MN, was another frequent hangout. There was the patio furniture or planter bleachers to sit and smoke on, outside of Cub Foods. Or any of the park benches going down the sidewalk. Located near my job and her mom’s house, it was a very handy place to waste time at. And we found many around town, during that 3 and half months, before we moved into the house. 

There was a reason I had to smoke one of my final cigarettes outside the Oak Park Plaza Cub Foods, and tell Laura that I was quitting.

Again.

Countdown to Quit Day - 10 Steps to Success

Unknown to everybody but myself, I was officially on my countdown to quit day, for two days before the final Oak Park Plaza cigarette. The last two packs I bought sealed that deal. Going in, I was a good frame of mind. I feel like it just might work this time. Because I think it is the most appropriate time. Needs to be done for many reasons, and I’m ready to give it a serious try. 

To prepare, let’s go over the 10 steps!

1. No.

2. As discussed, not doing this either…

3. Fair to say, I’ve used the Behavior Supply Program, far more than I ever expected. It wrote this story.

4. Everything and yes.

5. Too dependent on routines to change them for cigarettes sake. The point is to adapt said routine, to not include cigarettes. 

6. In this economy? Food?

7. No.

8. Absolutely not. The cigarette related materials that I’m keeping are being kept for reasons that go beyond smoking. Makes sense if you are me.

9. Whatever.

10. Absolutely. They’re my only hope of getting through this.

Again, I’m certain most people would look at my responses to the 10 Step Program, and predict a quick failure. I wouldn’t blame them. To disregard this much of what is good advice, is an absolute recipe for failure. But I know myself better than you do, and I know what parts of this program work for me, and what parts of the program work better for people who aren’t me. And if it fails again, I’m the reason it failed. 

Usually I’m a twice-a-day reward guy, but that’s none of your business…

A co-worker asked me: “What are you going to buy with all the money you’re saving?”

“I don’t know… Cigarettes?”

Ooooh… An out card!

I have zero concern about “slipping up” in the context of people or places or previous habits, but I’ve very concerned about the cases of near overwhelming anxiety that cigarettes have traditionally helped calm. After going through the cycle of patches, I have no doubt that I can maintain my normal everyday life, without too much difficulty in staying away from cigarettes. I’ve been down that road and it’s easier to navigate than it would seem. 

Emergency detours on that road are going to lead to the highest of anxiety and lowest of depressions. And my little buddy cigarettes will be jumping up and down on the horizon, calling my name and the promise to feel temporarily better. It’s how I’m going to respond in those situations that worry me. 

What went wrong was I couldn’t handle things and needed something to shut my head up. Failing at keeping everything together in Colorado, leading to a return to everything Minnesota, cracked me in 2018. Dealing with the increasing mental stress of Laura’s advancing serious health issues, cracked me again, a few years later. Bit later than that, I think I can quit again, now my closest friend of 30 years kills himself on his birfday. Which he all but announced he was going to do, 22 years earlier, in Crazy Carl’s basement. Which I have on tape.

These are the types of mega-triggers that I’m concerned with.

Sometimes you just need a coping mechanism.

The first two paragraphs are re-printed from earlier in the book, so I’m not going to address them.

And I did keep these materials, dating back to when I received them, because I wasn’t ready until now. Like to think I’m prepared for a successful quit, and I’m mentally there. But I can’t predict the future. In a present too tragic and stupid to even try to predict a future. Where exactly does living under a fascist takeover by the far right, led by an incontinent pedophile with dementia, starting wars of the whims of foreign nations, while destroying our own economy, fall on the scale of triggers?

Pretty fucking high!

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 14-15

You see Walgreens, thinking about dealing with future triggers has triggered me into craving a cigarette again. Highlighted by the start of a new set of pages in this story. Guess I’ll take a walk into the bathroom, take a little “Three-Second Breathing” Exercise (good thing I cleaned the bathroom earlier today), go upstairs, look out the window and come back downstairs. 

See I’m dealing with my triggers!

Notable Places for Smoking - Greenwood Point Patio, Building 9-303

I moved into the Greenwood Point apartments, in Englewood, Colorado, in May 2006. I fell in love with the apartment they showed me. Third floor, patio facing south, with no one in your sightlines. Other notable smoking areas had the appeal and/or drawbacks of socializing with others. But the smoking section of the Third Floor Dungeon was absolute perfection. I could be alone there, with all sorts of calming elements and/or interesting distractions. No one could really see me standing using there, and if they could they were pretty far away.

This was what I saw when I walked out onto my patio. There was a bike path running parallel to Big Dry Creek, providing both nature and entertainment. On the left side of the picture would be part of the athletic fields of Littleton High School, with an old Target store (demolished some point after 2019) as part of the Grove Auto Complex, on the right.

Lived at Greenwood Point from May 2006, through May 2018. My apartment had a fireplace that was only used as a Honkass shrine to cool stuff. But the red brick mantle was an especially perfect hight for packing a pack of smokes. Seven times facing you, then 7 times facing the other direction. Every smoker keeps their own rituals/traditions when it comes to smoking. And it’s those odd little rituals/traditions that you come to miss, when you’re no longer following them.

Be a positive guy in a Negativland...

“They’re behind the Doggie Diner dog heads.”

Part III: The Patch 

Funny they added the line: “This product is only for those who want to quit smoking.”

As if there are recreational patch users…

Then I noticed the Walgreens book replicated the very same vague miswording as Up & Up Equate’s fold-up pamphlet. Time to trace this misleading and vague sentence back to its source, and make the correction to the master file. Please explain, are they using the product and only being able to stop for a few days, or is that few days after they use the patch all the way through?

Didn’t ask either my doctor or my Doktor, but I’m good there.

No brainer.

And I’m glad Harley has never been one to dig in the trash cans.

When researching my options, the patch made the most sense for me, and my habit’s habit. This a good summary of how the patch addresses what I felt to be the most important part of quitting smoking. The last sentence being the key factor for me. Take care of the withdrawal, so I can focus on the psychological side.

Life is going to “trigger” me non-stop. I need to teach myself how to get through it.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 16-18

I haven’t been under 18 for 33 years now, and we can absolutely skip the 10 cigarettes or less, per day idea. As of writing this sentence, I’m almost 2 weeks into Step 1. So I should have another 2 weeks, before stepping down to 14 mg/day. However, my first box of patches was short by 6. Which were used for the flights to Florida and back, and a few instances where I knew I was going to at the hospital with Laura, for long periods of time. Instead of shorting Stage 1 by a week, I’m extending it by a week. Made that executive decision on my own, and stand by it as the right thing to do. Believe I have a better shot at making this stick, given my history, with another week of 21 mg/day.

Especially with as entrenched as I was with smoking in my car…

Notable Places for Smoking - Blueberry Honksicle (April 2000 - May 2018)

The last year or so of ownership I was rarely driving it in favor of Laura’s car. Which I didn’t smoke inside. But I was rarely inside this car, without a cigarette going. Made many trips from Minneapolis to Denver, and took me all over the Denver metro area, for pictures of abandoned buildings. With a cigarette smoldering the whole way. The car was so old, there was a running joke with my coworkers, they’d all talk up the fancy digital screen and internet connections, in their cars, just so I could say: “My car has a broken cassette deck!”

But one of the better features was the seam between the dashboard panel and the panel holding the heating vent. Used to hold pieces of paper with notes on them when needed. Today it had a fortune from a recent fortune cookie, and a faded sheet with likely directions to somewhere written on it. With one permanent resident, a 1998 Upper Deck, Pat Hentgen baseball card. Seen through a bad reflection, immediately right of the steering wheel. This card was in a big box of cards going from my apartment to the Kenyon dumpster, in 2003. It fell out of the box, and never made the dumpster. The card survived a second attempt to throw it away, and at that point, I decided it could live in the car for the rest of its life.

One half of the cup holder has my “removable” ashtray. Consisting of a portable cup-style ashtray (with lid), jammed tightly into a Colorado Avalanche ceramic coffee mug, with the handle broken off.

Before leaving Colorado, the Blueberry Honksicle was donated to the evil jingle. I had quit smoking in August of 2017, and that was still holding in May 2018. So these last butts in the ashcan, are likely from August 2017. They sure were good! This was my commuter car, bringing me to work and home, with stops wherever a stop was needed. 

When I’d get to work, I’d occasionally find notes like this at my desk.

That note was left for me by a supervisor, so I must follow…

This was the east side smoking area, where the smoking usually took place. About a 90/10 split, over time. The west side had no seating, and was just a flat area outside the door. It did provide a different scenic backdrop. With a street, hill and warehouses. The east side had a parking lot, street and river. And more homeless people. 

Well, I understand how important this program is. So I’m going to study even harder, and take 9 weeks to complete the 8 week program. That’s how certain I am in my success.

And also the most delicious parts of smoking…

Yeah… I am…

Committed… Not enthusiastic.

I don’t think I’m currently breast feeding, perhaps I should consult a doctor? The rest of these warnings have previously been covered I think. Although the one at the bottom about vivid dreams is something I’ll talk about later on…

The continued warnings on the following page had some new stuff to look out for. This was the first mention of patch caused rash possibilities. Over time, I’ve applied the patch to both upper arms and both of my shoulders. Some area’s leave only a faint red square for a day after revamping the patch. And just inches away, my skin will have a brighter red square that lasts for days. You’re warned to not use the same area of skin more than once per week, so the skin can heal. And after a week of using them, you have all sorts of marks from them. 

Another thing they aren’t warning you about, is around the 8 hour mark, your skin underneath where you applied the patch, is going to start itching like crazy. And you can’t scratch it. You can press firmly on it, which provides a little minor, temporary relief. But yes, prepare for that itch that only goes away when you remove the patch and go to town. Scrubbing that area extra hard in the shower, once it’s gone.

Not that I would do it, but I find the idea of cutting the patch apart for smaller pieces interesting. Say you don’t feel that Step 3 (7 mg/day) is enough of a weaning dose. You could create your own Step 4. Buy more 14 mg/day patches, and quarter them, to create 4 tiny 3.5 mg/day doses! From previous experience, when I’ve finished Step 3, I felt like I was good as I was going to get.

But not good enough, or I wouldn’t be doing this today…

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 19-21

So the big day is here. It’s time to put the patch on and forget about smoking forever. This will answer all my prayers and solve all my problems. Life will be peachy-keen and problem free from this point on… Right?

I have ruined a patch or two from my skin not being dry enough. I chose each morning’s post shower routine as the time for new patch application. With removal coming before said shower, so I can scrub off the patch residue. The edges inevitably pick up shirt lint, and sticks your skin in a gummy, nicoteeny, mess. 

Luckily, the patch itself is a nice and thick, sturdy piece of plastic. So you can easily hold it by the edges and even transfer to a dominant hand, without worry of it folding, or slipping off your fingers. 10 seconds of pressure is fine, but these stay in place amazingly well. If I put one on my shoulder before work, I’ll feel it as my arms move, and worry about it coming off. That really hasn’t happened. Once they’re in place, they stay.

I have showered with it on, because I forgot to take the pervious night’s patch off. Even with water running down over it, the patch didn’t slip. Once you start washing around it, it will come off pretty easily. So I wouldn’t recommend thinking it’ll stay on through a shower if you want to wash that area.

Applying the patch at the same time each day seems like it should just be implied. You’d want that to become routine.

Already covered the moving the patch around factor. It’s good advice.

Now that our patch is perfectly applied to our skin, let’s go about day! Starting off with a look at some of the looks of Winston Light 100’s BOX! during my smoking time…

Winston cigarette advertisement in an issue of Sports Illustrated, from July, 1969. The simplicity of cigarette ads of that time is the lack of make-up and airbrushing to make him not look like a smoker… 

Yup, me and my Winstons had a real good thing going as well… They stayed with me through every experience of my adult life. They shaped a lot of my perspective over that time as well. When you go through something, then process it over a cigarette, that becomes normal. Anticipated even. Despite them ditching that slogan by the time I started, it’s still a very basic and accurate slogan. Your cigarettes become you, regardless of brand. Whether you view that as a negative is simply a matter of taste. 

Red box (soft pack) is represented in this ad, but the lights were a similar design. Just replace the red area, separated by the gold trimmed white banner, with a lighter gold color. As seen by Producer Ben’s pack of Winston Lights 100’s on that episode of 201 Proof Television.

Winston kept that look until early 1999, when they switched to the new design (on the left). Silver was added to the layout, and it seemed like a pretty 1990’s design. R.J. Reynolds stuck with that same layout for their three flavors. Keeping red for the “Full Flavor”, gold for me, and white for the people who want the Ultra Lights. Which are basically hot, dirty air, filtered through tobacco colored shredded paper. Don’t waste your money on Ultra Lights. There’s no point.

In 2016, the Winston packaging was updated again, to a design I liked better than the previous two. The red disappeared from the Lights box entirely, giving us a dignified gold, silver and black palate, with embossed silver elements. The bars across the box and the eagle, soaring deep into your lungs with satisfaction! (See, the silver represents the smoke from a Winston!)

By 2022, and entirely new design debut for Winston… The eagle was now a sketch, where it’s holding one end of the ribbon in one of his feet, clenching a bunch of arrows in the other. The other part of the ribbon is hanging out of its mouth. Hopefully hasn’t been swollwed, because I know ribbons can be harmful to cats if swallowed. I can’t imagine that a cigarette ribbon would do well going through an eagle’s digestive tract. 

While you ponder that, enjoy another musical interlude…

Guilty pleasure from the early 1990’s… It’s the Encyclopedia Brittanica guy’s band!

(Not really…)

Walgreens would like to add some more specific topics about the patch, since I’m now wearing one.

Remember the “Vivid dreams” warning from my first experience with the patch in 2017. It was a legit warning. And I couldn’t wait! The first night with a patch on led to an insanely vivid dream that both horrified and fascinated me. So if these patches are going to bring nightly entertainment like this, sign me up! I’ve even more anxious to go to bed tonight! Overall, they’ve been pretty tame on this go round, but I did make note of the first vivid dream from the 2026 attempt at quitting. I wrote this out while it was still fresh, but I didn’t remember all of the detail that made it so enthralling at the time.

First night wearing a patch again, I had a dream I was in a hospital. But I wasn’t a patient, just a visitor. I don’t remember the chain of events leading up to it, but I was stabbed in the testicle with a hypodermic needle. That irritated me, but I was assured it was just a practical joke. Annoyed by this, I left the hospital and was walking to my car. At this point, I recognized that I was in Denver, Colorado, and not anywhere in Minnesota. This is how I knew it was still a dream, my car was parallel parked. I don’t do that in real life.  I started talking to a woman on the sidewalk, then a masked guy carrying an AR-15 started shooting all around him. The woman on the sidewalk and I hit the ground, but we were each shot over 25 times, by the gunman. Then I woke up.

This has never happened, but it’s how you’d assume to handle it.

Haven’t tried swimming with it on.

I also haven’t tried smoking while swimming, 

I should probably do this. I just fold it together and toss it into the trash.

Oh, I thought you were supposed to take them all out of the individual wrappers, and keep them in the freezer. Giving them a quick 45 second microwaving to defrost the frozen patches.

Have I been doing this wrong?

Yeah, this happens. Kind of enjoy that sensation. Feels like the patch is bonding itself to you…

That’s how you know it will provide lasting satisfaction!

I’ve dealt with a lot of the side effects in the top paragraph, but all were very minor and not very noticeable. Except irritability. My base level was already so high I wouldn’t notice a change. Either way, nothing affected me enough to do anything more drastic than going to bed a little earlier, because I was more tired than usual. None of the more severe side effects, listed below that have shown up. Which is good because I know how the patch works, and really don’t want to have to use something different.

Speaking of something completely different…

Laura went England in November, 2024. She brought several packs of cigarettes back to sample. The pack of Blindness was actually our old buddy Carlton, in their road uniform. I didn’t like the flavor, but the Clockwork Orange inspired packaging is something to behold…

The next England Cigarette was a pack of Harming Unborn Babies, or what Americans call L & B. This may come as a surprise, but the taste of Harming Unborn Babies is slightly better than the taste of Blindness.

Last of the England Cigarettes that Laura brought back was your standard pack of Emphysema. These are actually Sterling Cigars, mint flavor. 

Of the three, Emphysema tasted the worst.

Harming Unborn Babies tasted the best.

You are a horrible person!

Years back, Laura ordered a pair of gloves off the internet. I’m assuming they were made in China, as each glove had a hand shaped die-cut Ligun Cigarette box inside, to keep the gloves shape. It would appear to be cut from a stack of extra printed packaging. Others it would look more like a box of cigarettes. Instead of a hand cosplaying a box of cigarettes. Ligun is the top cigarette brand in China, so it’s interesting they’d used some of their packaging for glove innards.

And we wrap up the international portion of this story with our friends to the north, in Canada. 

Who rightfully hate us now…

Trav brought me an empty pack of Canadian Classics Cigarettes, about 15 years ago. I like the message compared to the image. They used a basic photo of a woman (and I highly doubt that is her hand holding the cigarette). Then covered up her distinguishing features with boxes of early zombie effects. And a weird cyborg eye. Her eyes are on a very uneven plane, and her fingertips are in another room, compared to her hand. 

Low effort and comical execution from the country I’d much rather live in…

I’d even give up smoking…

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 21-23

Part IV: Weight Control Guide

A concern…

I’m tubby enough…

But I understand that what you don’t want to do is establish a habit of replacing food with smoking. Years ago, I worked with a woman who was trying to quit smoking by replacing cigarettes with individually wrapped hard candies. She carried them around with her in a gallon sized ziplock bag. Which would be refilled several times a week. She was a loud and boisterous woman, who already liked to push her ample weight around while eating her own foot. One day she was loudly bragging to someone about how long she’d gone without a cigarette, and someone asked her how many pounds of sugar she’d eaten in replacement. She continued with the candy, and put on a decent amount of weight, but she did quit smoking.

She is my role model for what to not do.

The idea of eating a candy bar or something in the car because I can’t smoke, makes no sense to me. The first two deal with the need to fight the triggers and urges that Fat Ass (the office-wide nickname her personality and appearance demanded) replaced with food. Satisfying the holding something and bringing it to your mouth behavior that doesn’t really exist to me. The rest of these are just good advice to follow for every day living. Something I’m not the greatest at. Perhaps after dealing with the whole cigarettes thing.

One at a time.

One’s hard enough…

Like I said, one’s hard enough.

Stop getting pushy, Walgreens… 

Well, I already know those things, so it’s not go to do more than I think. 

Doesn’t mean it’s not good advice.

I need a calming musical interlude…

Perhaps some exercise wouldn’t be terrible.

Perhaps I could take up basketball?

Karen yelled at me for drawing on the Marlboro banner… 

In April 2004, I went back to work at the 99 Spillihp, for about a year until I moved back to Colorado. My second tour of duty at the gas station was even lower effort than before. That job filled a need, but was hardly where I should have been.

Karen and the 99 Spillihp wall of smokes, in September 2002. 

You couldn’t smoke inside the station anymore, which was a tolerated behavior that Karen and others took full advantage of in the mid 1990’s. Now the employees had to step outside to smoke. Which I often did when I worked there. No longer owned by corporate 99 Spillihp, in the 2000’s, it was locally owned by someone else. They were more relaxed on some of the rules, including the overboard store security policies. They also sold this station less than a year after I moved. The new owner fired everybody and ran it into the ground in under 2 years. 

99 Spillihp was demolished in 2010.

The 99 Spillihp back room cigarette carton inventory, also in September 2002. There’s a carton of Winston Lights 100’s BOX! on the shelf. Wonder if I bought it before driving back to Denver?

Part V: You are on your way!

Cool.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 24-31

Thanks to these little guys, I’m officially on the path to being an ex-cigarette smoker. 

And I’ll never again have to struggle to light it, outdoors, with one of these cheap ass shitty lighters it seems everyone else who smokes always has. The kind of lighters you can still buy for around a dollar. Or even cheaper. You get what you pay for… That’s what you have to resort to borrowing when you forget your lighter at home.

Part VI: Your Daily Success Calendar - Week 1

The Walgreens book had the final 8 pages designated for a weekly calendar. Each day having a little message in relation to where you are on your daily quitting path. So you can track your progress as you go. Printed with reminders and resources one each page. That has actual value.

How does Up & Up Equate handle the same concept?

Cut these circles out and stick them to your own calendar!

I’d say they couldn’t have done less, but they did include a dashed line, so you know where to cut the circles out.

Very low effort in comparison to the first page of the Walgreens weekly calendar…

I’ve already completed this week, so let’s see how I did… I remembered to start every day with a patch. If you mark the start of each day at getting out of the shower. I’m becoming better at switching my focus when cigarettes pop into my head. Never once have I thought about how much healthier I’ll be… Also using that there Three Second Breathing Exercise, which is good advice. And I reviewed my triggers.

Yup… They’re still there…

Let’s go back to the subject of lighters. Unless you have matches (which are nice to light a smoke with and smell great) to light your cigarettes, you need some sort of lighter. Likely thousands of lighters have passed through my hands since 1997, but there are a few of significance that have lasted in the Archives throughout the years. 

Lighters - Camel Pack

The single lighter I’ve owned the longest. Which used to have a similar accompanying Winston lighter of the same style. I din not know what happened to the Winston one, which I haven’t seen in at least 25 years. This lighter came into my possession back in the summer of 1991. I was bussing tables at the old Crapids Perkins, and this was left behind on a table after Bar Rush one night. You push down on the cigarette and fire pops out of the top. Was such a cool lighter, of course I kept it. I was at least six years away from smoking at that point, so it just stayed stashed in with stuff that I kept hidden. 

By the time I started smoking, the fluid inside was dry. So I never got to light a cigarette with it.

Still have it though.

Behavior Support Program - Week 2

As I write this, I’m finishing up week 2 of the program. Meaning that I did make it through the first week unscathed. I remembered to change my patch every day, and I remembered to buy another 2 weeks worth. Which I will have to do again, next week. I didn’t reach out for support, but I told a few more people that I’d quit smoking cigarettes. Tomorrow makes two whole weeks, so don’t “Way To Go” me yet…

Lighters - Don’t Tread On Me

I hate this lighter and it embarrassed me when I bought it.

I’ll explain…

Usually, I buy a multi-pack of Bic lighters when I’m running low. But every once in a while, I’ll be out and my lighter dies and I’m inexplicably without backup. That means I have to pick up a new lighter at my earliest convenience. This happened a few years ago, so I stopped and bought a couple packs of smokes and a new lighter. When I’ve needed a new lighter, I’ll just ask the cashier for a Bic lighter. I never specify color or flavor, because I want the cashier to choose. If they ask if I have a preference, I’ll always say: “You pick.” Because I find it interesting to see what color that cashier chooses for me, if they do something other than grab the closest one from the display.

Female cashiers typically give me blacks and blues for lighters, while dude cashiers typically give me pink ones. Or the guy at the Speedway on my drive home a few years back who chose the “Don’t Tread On Me” macho patriotic bullshit lighter. I try to not look at all Trumpy, as that’s the antithesis of my everyday personality… I’m a balding, tubby, middle aged white guy with a long gross beard. Guess that strikes some as MAGA? I get the women selling me black and blue lighters. Taking from visual clues of my outside appearance/clothing, black just makes sense. As far as the dudes overwhelmingly selling me pink lighters, I have no explanation for that…

Not like I sashayed my way into the convenience store on a cloud of feathers and glitter…

This little sociology experiment dates back to my own days as a gas station worker. I liked it when a customer didn’t care about the lighter and asked me to pick. Because then I could choose the color/style that I feel best represented that person. Could be guilty of giving a few guys pink lighters, and a few of them protested, just because I thought it would be ironic. Perhaps that’s what they were thinking?

Flirting… Definitely flirting…

Behavior Support Program - Week 3

As of this writing, I’m starting week 3 tomorrow morning, before going to work. Not movies or the park, just my desk in the office. Where I’ll spend a good portion of the next 8 hours switching my focus when the urges hit. I’ll reflect on the triggers and feel somewhat proud that I haven’t yet caved to smoke again, and I’ll buy more patches, so I don’t run out. Not planning on doing any meaningful exercise, and I’m definitely not encouraging anyone else to stop smoking. As a smoker, we don’t want to hear it.

We already know!

Lighters - 1950’s Style Jukebox

Vendors would often surprise the gas station with merchandise to see that we didn’t order. For a while in the early 2000’s, Butane lighters were becoming popular, so they’d send over a case to each store, and we’d have to try and sell them as impulse items. Sure, everybody is interested in them. It’s a shiny toy that everybody has to pick up and play with while I ring up their stuff. No one buys them because the price is ridiculous. A few people steal them (like me!), so they’re moved away from prying hands. But no one knows about them to inquire about buying them. So they sit here forever, taking up counter space and counting against our inventory…

Behavior Support Program - Week 4

I haven’t hit Day 23 yet, but this morning I made my standard Great Value frozen sausage patty on a toasted bagel with cheese, for breakfast. My first bite led me to wonder if this sausage patty was any spicier than the rest of the bag, or if it’s just me. Well, it’s most likely just me. 

Lighters - Space Taco / ET T-rex. Typically bought Bic lighters in multi-pack form, because they were the best value. Rarely went with the decorated ones over the solid colors. Again, value… But every once in a while, I’d see a design I liked. This particular 2 pack had a pretty tasty looking Space Taco, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, recreating the iconic E.T. movie poster, on a mobility scooter.

I’ll award that level of creativity with a purchase.

Behavior Support Program - Week 5

Now I’m super pumped to make it to my fifth week so I can believe it! Though my plan is to wait for Week 6, before stepping down to the 14 mg patches.

Even at Day 14, I have to admit, I’m feeling a little bit healthier. For whatever that’s worth.. I was hoping to hack up some heftier lung cookies, but that hasn’t yet happened on a grand scale. I’m saving money, but I haven’t really paid attention to that. Having to come up with an extra $2000 in February to buy a car, set me back big time. So my savings account needs to recover before I think of spending money. Hopefully I’m in a better place by Summer. I owe Laura a weekend vacation somewhere that isn’t in the Twin Cities or Rochester.

Lighters - Bic Lighter Case

An added premium to a multi-pack of Bic Lighters from 2014. Used it for my apartment lighter. Sitting on the fireplace mantle, until I went out on the patio for a cigarette. While back, I mentioned how some smokers have their own little traditions and rules they follow what it comes to smoking and smoking related materials. For example, I’m very specific about lighters. I never mix the usage of my lighter for cigarettes and the lighter for my pipe. Those are two separate things, they require two separate lighters. This case added a third lighter to the equation. I would now keep one at the apartment, and not carry it in my shirt pocket. I’d have a different lighter for shirt use and storage.

Only lasted until we moved back to Minnesota, I’m really not sure what happened to the lighter case during the move. But I haven’t seen it since Englewood. Which is fine, my lighter can hang out in my jacket and tag along wherever I go. Even if it was just to stand outside on the front porch. Still keep the cigarette and pipe lighters separate today. Just as I did in the late 1990’s. 

Behavior Support Program - Week 6

Anticipating Week 6 as being full of high-pressure days, because they all are. And I’m not going to take up a new hobby. I don’t have enough time in my week for the hobbies I already have. Quitting smoking should give me a little more time for them, so I’m still waiting for that to happen. Quick glance at Day 38 caused me to misread it. “Don’t forget your Tacos!” 

Maybe I’ll reward myself with some Tacos!

Lighters - WWF Kurt Angle / Chris Jericho

25 years later, cigarette lighters are something today’s more family friendly WWE isn’t going to let their licensing department (run by Fanatics) anywhere near. But in 2001, smokers patronizing 7Elevens got their choice of four of WWF’s biggest names. Angle and Jericho, plus The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Which I didn’t buy.

Perhaps I could quit smoking easier, if I’d just follow Kurt Angle’s Three I’s.

Behavior Support Program - Week 7

Week 7 won’t see the downgrade to 7 mg patched. Those will wait for Week 8, meaning I’ll have to invent my own Week 9. That’s off in the distance, I’m not going to concern myself with the future. That far from now, who knows what state the world will be in? With the demented pedophile doing whatever his greedy ego desires, nothing is off limits, everything is in play. Pretty certain 9 weeks won’t be far enough in the future to where he’ll see ANY pushback from the House or Senate. Actually wouldn’t be shocked to beginning of May to fall right in the middle of nuclear winter, the way things are going.

And if the bombs start dropping, I’m already on my way to Kwik Trip for cigarettes.

Absolutely guarantee that.

Lighters - Colorado Avalanche Zippo 

X-mess gift from former roommate and brother in pizza, Dwayne, from 1998. You would only know there was a Colorado Avalanche logo on the side, if I told you. Which I just did. Carried this lighter around for several years, before placing into semi-retirement. I was worried about losing it. Did enjoy playing with it though. Zippos are a lot of fun! And they add a delicious little flavor boost to a cigarette. Which is absolutely healthy to smoke!

Behavior Support Program - Week 8

No, this is not my last week on the patch. I’m adding a bonus week since my first box of patches was short. From my own causes. Not a hero for quitting smoking. That’s just stupid. I get that I’m supposed to psyche myself up for what is a significant achievement, which is what the end of this book is trying to do. But as I said when I started this, I’m embarrassed by this being attempt number four. Which is why I’m not really telling anybody. Other than Laura, no one in my family knows. I’ve only told a couple of people at work…

Uhhh… Super A’s Fan (and fellow smoker) Rob knows.

Any words of encouragement, Rob?

Right on.

******

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Page 32

When I donated the Blueberry Honksicle to the evil jingle, in 2018, I left the Broken Colorado Avalanche Mug/Ashtray inside the car. Thinking I wouldn’t need it because I was a non-smoker. Oh how I underestimated Minnesota…

Without a standard ashtray in my car, I started using empty plastic bottles, with some water inside them. Just drop your butt inside, water beats fire, put the cap back on and continue down the road. I day I bought a Coke Zero bottle (why did they ditch the classy black label, in favor of red with black text?) with the name “Travis” on the label. You have to think the bottle name gimmick adds a significant amount of impulse buys to convenience store sales. People want something with their name printed on it, even something they hadn’t planned on buying. 

A few days later, I sent this picture to Trav…

He wrote back: “Metaphor for my life.”

Sigh…

Notable Places for Smoking - Bank of the Mississippi River

I did.

Cigarettes too. 

Jen and Trav’s house was blocks from this spot on the Mississippi River. On occasion in the early 2000’s, you could walk down the bank to where a bunch of broken cement pieces were placed to prevent erosion from the flowing water. Local ruffians would hide down there to smoke. I’m talking about other kids. Not me…

Notable Places for Smoking - My Parent’s House - Parking Spot by Garage

When I lived at my parent’s house, I parked my car on a cleared out space next to the garage. It was far enough back that between the fence, garage and trees. You couldn’t be seen very easily from anywhere. I wasn’t around much for that three and a half months in 2018, but my 2003-2005, 19 month stretch saw me out there quite a bit. Sitting in the car in the middle of the night, usually smoke a bowl and several cigarettes, while listening to Air America Radio or Camper Van Beethoven.

Thought I was being pretty clever until one night my dad stopped at the 99 Spillihp and said: “When you get home, take a look around where you park and tell me if that’s what I think it is…”

It was.

Already taller than me and I didn’t notice it growing there. 

Pulled a leaf off and taped it inside the back cover of my notebook. 

My mom found out about it, and cut it down the next day.

Their house was destroyed by fire in May of 2020. For a couple weeks, I was helping them dig through the ashes, salvaging what we wanted before the interior of the house would be demolished and rebuilt. One day, I arrived about 20 minutes before my parents were going to show up. Because there was no way they would ever be able to tell, I smoked a cigarette in the burned up kitchen and living room. Just felt like I needed to smoke one cigarette inside my parent’s house, since I never did before.

As predicted, they didn’t smell any tobacco smoke. 

Plenty of other smoke.

Part VII: Behavior Support Program is Committed to Your Success

Unable to close out their epic novel with a brilliant ending, Walgreens wrapped the book up with phone numbers and online support. And they all lived happily ever after.

I did wander around www.lung.org, and found a bunch of interesting stuff to read. Nothing that wasn’t really common sense, or expanded explanations of what’s presented in this book. Did I learn anything specifically new? Probably not. When it’s all said and done, I’ve already had all of the information that I would ever need. I can’t, and I never have, blamed my failures on a lack of information. I failed in the past and if I fail again, it will be because of me.

Because of a choice I made.

Because of a choice I made nearly 28 years ago. 

Don’t get me wrong. I have never regretted a single cigarette in my life. Up to and including the last one on March 10, 2026. I’ve enjoyed every cigarette and wouldn’t take any of them back if I could. Which makes quitting all the more difficult. If I hated smoking it would be easier to quit. The fact that I still love smoking worries me that I will fail at quitting again.

You got any final thoughts that actually help, Up & Up Equate?

Yeah… They’re trying to help…. But it just seems condescending.

Reading those last two sentences does offer a sliver of knowledge: “Remember that temptation may not be gone forever.” 

May not be gone? 

They ain’t going anywhere. They’re only going to get stronger. “However, the hard part is behind you so look forward with a positive attitude…” You lost me. If there’s anything that would be more difficult than quitting cigarettes, it would be having a positive attitude. All my life I’ve been told than I’m too negative.

And I am.

But I don’t think it’s a flaw.

Up & Up Equate provided a clip-out wallet card. You’re supposed to cut this out and keep it in your wallet. Problem being, it’s not printed on card stock. Just the flimsiest of Newsprint. So in any wallet, it will quickly disintegrate unless you laminate it or something. But what is it offering for info? Phone numbers are great, but more space is given to the most basic of starter information. Nothing motivational or supportive or even what to follow. 

That’s not going near my wallet.

Walgreens Nicotine Transdermal System - Inside Back Cover

Another copy of the “10 Steps to Success”.

Putting anything in my wallet pretty much guarantees the next time I see it will be a a few years from now. Some afternoon when I’m bored and decide to look through what all I’ve put in there. Couldn’t tell you what’s in my wallet beyond the drivers license, credit and debit card. I almost never use cash anymore, so I don’t even know what I have for cash on me at any given moment. Doubt it’s more than $10.

No matter what, stuff is always going to remind me of smoking cigarettes. Over time, that should affect me less and less. But over the first few weeks, all of the reminders hit me non-stop. And my head keeps telling me to go buy a pack… Because you need that calm refreshing break, from a reality that grows more ominous and dumber…

Every…

Single…

Day. 

But you can’t do it!

Writing and assembling this story was done by listening to music I’ve associated with smoking. Watching things I’ve associated with smoking. Looking back all sorts of positive stories that involved smoking. All of this was designed to kind of torture myself as I go through the most difficult phase of quitting, the first two weeks.

I want to fully confront the smoking habit of the past 28 or so years. Not ignore it because it doesn’t fit the new narrative I’m trying to create (one without cigarettes). Most important, I had to force myself to write my way through this. Because writing and smoking have long been a strong pair for me, for a change in one, to not affect the other. I need for writing and these other things to continue being what they’ve always been (or better), without smoking cigarettes. By doing everything I’ve always done and sticking to that routine, without creating new alternatives, I can convince my head that I no longer need cigarettes without all of the other stuff being negatively affected.

Because that nagging reminder will not go away without a long fight.

Just need to keep fighting those triggers…

Even you, baseball cards?

******

As of this story’s posting online, I’m on Day 19 of not smoking a cigarette.

I have saved roughly $256.50.

That’s insanity.

******