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Marc Clark Shares His Story
Thursday, June 28 – Day 1
The idea of keeping a journal to reflect on my progress with quitting tobacco is interesting. I suppose I'll be able to look back on my smoking days when I become Marc, the non-smoker. There really is something about becoming somebody new, adopting a new identity, when you give up a habit that is 34 years old!!
Okay, so with the press conference and all the excitement about announcing my role in the quit smoking campaign, it was pretty easy to avoid smoking today. I cut down on the number I have in the morning, reducing from about four (cigarettes) between showering and leaving the house, to two. I aborted smoking from about 9 a.m. until I got home at about 4 pm. Typically, I would smoke about four or five cigarettes in that same time period on a weekday.
It was interesting doing the on-air interviews to begin the PSA's, and I enjoyed a few nervous moments in the “spotlight” during a press conference. I'm such a ham!! Checking in with the quit line and talking with my wife, the boys, and siblings will also be a continuing reminder of my pledge to quit smoking.
Friday, June 29 – Day 2
Today was a little more of a challenge. I still only had two in the a.m. before leaving home. I was relieved that it is not a cold turkey day. I still was able to cut down from my regular number of cigarettes. The a.m. cigarettes are the ones I seem to crave the most.
I used the lozenges a little and refrained from buying cigarettes until the end of the workday. I was a little relieved to have the lozenges but they taste a little chalky after being in my mouth a while. I still have cut down a lot. Instead of 20 I only smoked 12 all day….not bad. With Quit Day on July 13, and my goal to be down to ten a day by then, I feel like I am making good progress.
Saturday, June 30 – Day 3
I had too much time on my hands so I probably was smoking a little more, but I postponed the a.m. cigarette for at least 90 minutes after waking. I read the book sent in the mail by the Quitline (It came today). I will go back and do the checklists later. One way I did not smoke was napping in the midday. I was up late last night.
Sunday, July 1 – Day 4
Today I had my first smoke at about 12:30 p.m. I woke up at 10 a.m., so I went a good while without the am smoke. I have been avoiding my a.m. coffee each day since Thursday. I am not sure if that is related to postponing the a.m. smoke. I also have cut out a few other automatic smokes:
- The ones during each hour of prime time TV during commercial when I run out to the front porch,
- The automatic one getting in the car.
I did not buy a pack until about 5 p.m. today. I have 16 left right now (10 p.m.) I’m really smoking more than I was on Thursday or Friday. Maybe I should do lozenges more in evening! I’m going to re-read book one and clock how long I last tomorrow a.m. I may actually drink coffee!
Tuesday, July 3 – Day 6
Doing pretty good today…still coasting on a pack I bought Sunday!! Not bad for a former pack-a-day man.
I am still avoiding the a.m. “smoke fest”. I only had two during the work day. (Okay I am NOT counting the one I smoked on the way to the subway, but C’MON, give a guy a break!!) Last night I talked to a friend…the last remaining smoking sibling (we had always said we should quit together. He has actually quit once for several months – or is it years – and started again. I can’t quite remember why he re-addicted himself, but we all comment on how he hacks while talking on the phone long distance…he used to have an office he smoked in constantly. Even I used to say, ’Damn, man…don’t your clients like need oxygen?!” His wife (who used to make him smoke in their attached garage) bought him smokeless ashtrays and I remember them overflowing with butts. He used to seem to purposefully let them burn out rather than stub them out (ain’t it funny how some other smokers’ ways get on your nerves?
Mom once said, “Empty your ashtray, boy. This ashtray looks like cancer would just JUMP off of it!”
Wow, I remember my Mom once telling me how her dad (Grandpa) would act like he didn’t notice her smoking (because she never smoked in front of him—neither did we—out of respect)…but once in a blue moon he would say gently—to her so no one else heard,
“Daut (short for daughter), do you think you’re smoking too much?”
Grandpa lived to be 82 yrs old---Mom died at 63…when I was 31 yrs old. Dad died in 1982 when I was 26. I remember several months after he was gone finding a Benson and Hedges (just a silly millimeter longer) that he had hidden above some nook in the basement...way after he quit smoking (well, in front of us, at least), after he had a first surgery…followed by radiation. When he died the doctors said, “He put up a good fight.”
In those days and afterwards I feel Dad went through the treatments more for us…just like he did so much for us. I really treasured our last afternoons when I took him for his appointments and I had been laid off so I had all day to spend with him. Dad fought hard. Tobacco hooks you and fights harder….and I know this.
An old college roommate of mine talked about me and Jerome, another good college buddy who smoked. He regaled us with stories of seeing patients at some cancer institute in Buffalo (his hometown was Buffalo and we actually nicknamed him, “Buffalo”) who smoked through a hole in their throats following their fatal lung cancer diagnoses!!
Why am I not angry at cigarette makers? It has killed people I still miss!!
Thursday, July 5 – Day 8
Still trying to monitor which cigarettes are easiest to eliminate…also trying to come up with strategies I will use. What was it, the 4D’s? Delay, distract...?
I’m still trying to keep cutting down. For the most part I am now having a pack last 1.5 to 2 days. I am going to try and jump the gun and beat “Q” Day, July 13, by going cold turkey for as long as possible to get ready for Q Day. I re-read book one and did a whole lot of Internet stuff. Many sites on cancer and smoking…some nice downloads. I’m reading my way to nonsmoker-hood.”
Saturday, July 14 – Day 17
WOW!
Q-DAY CAME AND WENT! I think it helped to kind of take the sting out of waiting to quit and just not buying any when the pack was gone the Wednesday before my Friday the 13th Quit day…so Thursday was smokefree.
By Saturday I really began to notice the difference in breathing. NO phlegm – throat clearing each morning. I used to always just have one nostril working every morning without fail (When did I get used to that? 1980 something?!). I would have to pick a side to sleep on based on which nostril was working.
Told the 1-800 quit now counselor that talking about quitting in some ways made me want to smoke….but I did not.
Three days into quitting, the wife says take $15 and go treat myself. (A pack a day times three days, get it??)
Monday, July 16 – Day 19
Had a few bad moments, but I guess it is surprising how little I miss them. The biggest thing is not having a smoke to kind of punctuate the day’s transitions. I used to smoke to say “Okay, finished a memo, take a break (puff). Okay, dinner is over, (puff). Not smoking still makes it feel like I haven’t quite finished stuff. It doesn’t make sense, but I actually am not tempted to sneak. The craving goes away pretty quick.
Wednesday, July 25 – Day 28
14 days smokefree…I told Tawana that every Wednesday will be a new anniversary…she says I don’t “stink” anymore, and that I should be proud of myself (I guess I agree with her, being the self-congratulatory ham that I am.)
I was telling a friend that two weeks without cigarettes is the longest ever since I started smoking…34 years…wow.
Felt a little weird during training workshop at Gallaudet today…I thought I would crave smoke more, since I remember smoke breaks at the conference center, but no really bad craves. Maybe places aren’t a powerful trigger for me. I actually ate peaches (something I rarely do) and drank more juice…I think the wife says I am losing weight. My pants a little more loose that usual. I think I am really conscious of eating less so I don’t gain, but a little disappointed at one thing: I am not feeling some kind of taste bud explosion as so many folks predicted…maybe food will taste better---but I always enjoyed MY food (HAH)….how I got to be overweight is in my next journal!!!
Tuesday, July 31 – Day 34
I said to Tawana yesterday, “How long before I stop saying “Day 19” to mark days since quitting?”
Wednesday will be day 21…so I guess I can start saying “Week 3 – Tobacco-free me!” I had a conference call with brothers and sisters this weekend…I really felt support, but more important spent time talking about other relatives’ needs. It reminded me of feeling the desire to take steps to be healthy. One relative about ten years older than me seems to have given up on any quality of life…and I was saying, “Damn, 64 really isn’t that old to be feeling like “I give up!” Easy for me to say that now that I am 51.
Then I thought about the quit now PSAs and DC Black males dying at 57…57? I am 51. I remember lecturing on Men’s Health at Howard University one of my lectures on male longevity would go like this:
Males of African descent in Barbados in 1993 had average life spans of 77 and American males of African descent were averaging 64.7 years….since we US Black men share many things in common with them, a key question is asking what are they doing to live so long compared to us, even while we have higher per capita incomes in a richer nation?
Okay so when you are 27 making it to 77 seems far away, but when you are 57…what would you do for twenty more HEALTHY years?
I was saying to someone how I do not really feel like I am craving or missing smoking. I mentioned what the booklet called “negative smoker thoughts”. I so quickly dismiss them, almost like I won’t allow myself to even think about a craving or missing smokes. I also said I don’t even really do the lozenges. I just don’t want them anymore. She said “Well then you weren’t really addicted…” I said “Well then I must've faked it for 34 year….a pack a day since I was 17!”
I did say that, for me, reading and thinking in advance about how I would face a craving helped at first and having three telephone counseling sessions really did make me think about ways to address cravings and not just “go through the motions” by reading. Sometimes like now (late at night), I remember smoking on the front porch, but I do not miss it, ya know? This morning right with coffee and waiting for wife, I would have had 2 in the old days, but I really do not get all twisted about it…
I guess being a smoker, thinking about doing without is different from actually doing without: anticipating missing something that you really don’t miss once it is missing. Hmmm…sounds like a song lyric or something!!
Sunday, August 26 – Day 60
A lot has happened this week. I was telling my brothers and sisters about the national news segment. I appeared on NBC this morning during our conference call. Also, I did a PSA campaign with the DC Tobacco Free Families that is going to start soon. As of August 13, I was officially at one month. So now it's one month plus 2 weeks...1 1/2 months!
I was joking with my brothers and sisters about being an obnoxious ex-smoker. Then I told a friend of mine about 1-800-QUIT NOW. We agreed to talk later. I think I'm going to send him this journal. First, because I am a ham and I like people to read what I write, second. I really think he can quit smoking, just like I have, once he puts his mind to it. After all, he had quit once before and I had never even tried. With the counseling sessions, the lozenges, the booklets, all these “cues” to behavior change (as we health educators say!), I really feel like I will never go back to smoking.
When I read my earlier reflections on losing mom and dad and sit here, waiting for my grandson to arrive, I am more and more convinced that choosing to think about my health for me meant to stop putting off trying to quit!!!
Okay, as I stop counting down and settle into being a non-smoker, will I keep journaling?
Saturday, September 8 – Day 73
Had my last counseling call from the Quitline today. On July 11th I smoke my last so that on 9/11 it will be officially two months.
Tuesday, September 11 – Day 76
Wow, I should have some profound statement to make but, I suppose it is just a mundane reality for many. Heck I might be among tens of thousands of people struggling to ”stay quit,” but it is okay to make it feel like an accomplishment…even to break my own arm patting myself on the back.
The counselor asked me how I would handle stressful moments that might come up…
I said I just don’t think of needing to smoke…but I also don’t make a conscious choice of substituting something for smoking. I mentioned actually going to the Internet to look at the Bible as something I did at that stressful moment. I am more conscious of ways to cope since quitting.
Thursday, October 25 – Day 120
Okay 7-11 to 9-11…three months. Now at 10/25, am I out of the woods? I had my sister Jan ask if I thought I could go back to smoking and I honestly reflected and said It is hard for me to imagine what would make that happen. She mentioned an old friend of ours who graduated high school with me: Carla. After she had heart surgery she still mentioned craving and missing them…this habit is powerful…I guess it is easier to remember that you are getting old(er) when you hear about friends with heart disease.
I really am glad I stopped. Even if you can’t live forever, you can try to make whatever time you have better…maybe even longer.
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