Posted on 08/09/2005 8:37:14 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Are you a secret smoker?
By JOSEPH P. KAHN / THE BOSTON GLOBE, The Virginian-Pilot © August 8, 2005
THE PENULTIMATE episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” outed one of the series’ recurrent characters – Pat MacDougall, played by actress Georgia Engel – as a secret cigarette smoker. Family members were stunned, if not amused, to discover Pat had been puffing away for years, concealing her habit with the aid of breath mints and air freshener.
One viewer who found herself laughing on the outside while cringing on the inside was Mary, a Massachusetts bank employee. For Mary, Pat’s dirty little secret was more than an uproarious sitcom subplot. It was an awkward slice of life. Her life.
At home, Mary (like others interviewed for this article, she requested that her full name not be used) leans out her bathroom window, blowing smoke into the sky so her boyfriend won’t smell it. When smoking in her car, she rolls down the windows, no matter how cold or rainy it is outside. On visits to her parents’ house, she’ll duck behind a backyard tree to grab a quick cigarette, praying she doesn’t get caught. Forty-five years old, not breaking any laws, Mary acts like a teenager sneaking her first Camel behind the school gym.
Oh, what some people will apparently do for a date with Mr. Butts.
“I don’t want to hear the grief, mostly from family and friends,” Mary explains when asked why she’s reluctant to light up in front of people who know her. “They’re very judgmental.”
Mary is hardly alone in preferring to smoke in secrecy rather than run afoul of societal attitudes toward cigarette smoking, which are negative enough by now to drive Joe Camel into the witness protection program.
Health issues notwithstanding, 46 million Americans continue to smoke, openly or not. According to one study, 70 percent have a desire to quit, and nearly half make an attempt to, yet only 10 percent enjoy much success.
While no study has quantified how many are “secret” smokers, the number may be higher than most suspect. Following the revelation that ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, a former smoker, is being treated for lung cancer, New York magazine polled 100 smokers about how often they smoke, where they smoke and other aspects of their habit. One-third confessed to hiding their smoking from parents, bosses, children or spouses. In at least one state, Georgia, teachers and other public employees risk losing their health insurance for a year if they’re caught lying about their smoking habit.
“I understand the health part,” says Donna, a receptionist for a home-supplies company. “It’s feeling like a criminal that’s disturbing.” Secret smoking isn’t just sitcom fodder. No less a public figure than Laura Bush was pegged as a secret smoker (her press secretary would neither confirm nor deny press reports) as recently as last year, long after she supposedly gave up cigarettes in the early 1990s. According to an October 2002 Washington Post article, the first lady has been known to reach for a cigarette in times of stress, provided no photographers are there to catch her in the act.
The White House Weekly published a February 2004 article suggesting Bush was still struggling with the habit. According to the report, a White House waiter admitted scrambling to find the first lady a cigarette during a fund-raiser at the presidential residence.
And yet the Republic somehow still stands.
Donna can relate. She loved that “Raymond” episode, too, for much the same guilty-pleasure reason. Having tried to stop dozens of times, she can’t quite seem to quit her Kools for keeps. Yet Donna never smokes around the office. She only does it on her lunch breaks when she’s far from the workplace, where nobody she knows might catch her in the act.
“I feel like the office drug addict,” Donna confesses. “They all think it’s nasty. They’d look down on me if they knew I smoked.”
A few close friends share her secret habit, says Donna. Fortunately she’s single and doesn’t have a husband who’s antismoking, as many of them do. Or she’d be bathing with Listerine and chain-chewing Altoids.
“How do you hide it completely?” she wonders. “If you can’t smoke in the car, do you pull over and light up? Come on. If you can hide something like that from your husband, you can hide anything, I guess.”
Anecdotal evidence suggests not all closet smokers fit into one neat carton. Some resumed smoking recently, after going years without cigarettes, and seem unsure of what to do about their situation. The enjoyment they get from smoking is frequently undercut by guilt about compromising their health, they say, not to mention the health of their most intimate relationships.
Mark, an Orlando, Fla., dietitian, doesn’t smoke at home or at work but still manages to go through 10 to 15 Marlboro Lights daily. Friends call him a closet smoker, he says, because he’s so discreet about it they’re amazed to see him smoke at all.
“I don’t really hide it, but I certainly don’t brag about it, either,” Mark says. “I have a daughter who knows I smoke and doesn’t like it, though, so I don’t do it around her. My intentions are to quit.”
Still others say they’ve lied outright about their smoking and are prepared to do so again if it means avoiding an ugly or embarrassing confrontation.
Joan, a Boston-area college administrator, started smoking again recently after quitting a two-pack-a-day habit years ago. Her boyfriend, who’s never seen her smoke, stopped by her apartment unexpectedly one day and smelled smoke. He asked suspiciously who’d been smoking.
“I had no one else to blame, so I told him I enjoyed one every once in a while,” says Joan. “It was totally untrue. Actually, I smoke about half a pack a day.”
Then there was the couple’s vacation weekend together, Joan says, when she didn’t touch a cigarette for three days. As soon as her boyfriend dropped her off at home, however, she lit one up. “I’m struggling with this,” she admits.
What drives some smokers to cloak their habit in such secrecy?
One point on which most agree is that the social stigma around smoking makes it a hard habit to manage, and thus more tempting to disguise. Smoke-free office buildings, hotel rooms, bars, and restaurants have driven smokers into quasi-legal exile. Relatives and co-workers don’t just frown at the habit, they recite scary statistics about secondhand smoke. Public-education campaigns and rising taxes on cigarettes have also helped make smoking both riskier and more costly than ever. While most smokers recognize that cigarettes are bad for them, says clinical psychologist Maryann Troiani, they may be less than truthful with themselves when it comes to measuring the harmful effects of secrecy.
“Psychologically, it’s as bad as cheating on your spouse and hiding it,” says Troiani, coauthor of “Spontaneous Optimism: Proven Strategies for Health, Prosperity & Happiness.” “When you’re not truthful, it’s a big wedge in the relationship.”
Whether it’s having an extramarital affair or habitually visiting strip clubs or overeating in secret, it’s “all the same can of worms,” according to Troiani. “Some people view it as risk-taking behavior, as living their lives on the edge,” she says. “However, most feel uneasy and uncertain about keeping secrets.”
Even Joan, when pressed, acknowledges that if she’s forced to choose between smoking and her relationship, it would be a tough call. That’s one reason her next vacation won’t be with her boyfriend. Instead, Joan plans to meet a girlfriend in Europe, where smoking is a more accepted – even cherished – custom.
“When I get home,” Joan says, “we’ll see what happens.”
I'm a closet heterosmoker. Oh, God. Help me!
I smoke. I like to smoke. I don't care who knows it. I don't care what anyone thinks about it. The folks in this article need to grow up and grow a pair.
I agree. My boss smokes and we all know it, but he constantly tries to hide it. "I'm going to the corner store, be right back" translates to "I'm going to secretly smoke, be right back". There are quite a few of us who smoke, and we just cannot figure out why the secrecy.
Folks, if you think it's a great idea to roll up dried leaves in paper, stick them in your mouth, set them on fire, suck the smoke into your lungs, and spew it out for the enjoyment of others, then do so proudly!
I'm not a closet smoker. Hard to do that when puffing away of a fine, premium, hand rolled, Upman 160th Anniversary #1 Corona. which I just finished doing a mere few moments ago. Ahhhhhhh....smells great, tastes great...less filling...and a great item to keep kids, wives, and misquitos at bay for a little while. Nothing like peace and quiet to enjoy such a delightful smoke.
I think all smokers, secret or otherwise, should understand something from we nonsmokers (which would include this ex-smoker):
We know you're smoking. Breath mints and sprays don't hide it.
The only way a smoker, secret or otherwise, can appreciate how powerful cigarette smoke is in a person's clothes, hair, or even the air around him is...to quit smoking, really quit, then have to smell someone who still smokes. The invariable reaction is, I can't believe I smelled that bad--I can't believe people put up with me!
Note to reactionaries: I am not passing judgement on smoking. Talking about its lingering residue.
When I was a smoker (two weeks ago) I was like Dennis Leary with it..."YEAH I'M SMOKIN' KISS MY A**"
I went cold turkey two weeks ago just to see if I could. It is possible but I still want a cigarette. I can tell you that in another two weeks if I STILL want to smoke, I will because I will be damned if I am going to spend the rest of my life feeling like this.
Our daughter claimed that after we kept her Golden for a week, his fur smelled like an ashtray.
That doesn't mean they won't bring him back when they go on vacation again. (ha)
I just found out that a friend of 30 years--a woman I thought quit smoking 10 years ago--never quit.
She just doesn't tell anybody, but she knows I don't care.
I don't smoke, but I love smokers. Their sins are right there in the air and so innocent and sweet.
I agree. Its amazing what one can smell once one quits smoking.
I used to visit my local roach coach outside my workplace. For the
first year of visiting that truck I smoked, as I had done for 18+ years
prior. One day 6 yrs ago I quit and then a few weeks later I noticed that
the guy who ran the truck cooked far more than I knew before. I could
finally smell that he cooked brownies, cookies, and several other things.
Had to come to the conclusion that I was too weak to 'have just one.'
I cannot do it, so I must never have 'just one.'
Of what?
Yep. Me too. Quit a 39 year habit some 16 years ago and have not regretted a single moment of that. I really don't miss it.
However, like you That doesn't stop me from enjoying a fine
hand rolled (Did I say Cuban ?) Montecristo #2 from time to time. Special occaisions don't cha know,
My sister, married and with a family of her own, hid the fact that she smoked from our Mother, until she finally quit smoking about 5 years ago, when she was 50 years old.
What's that? Is it on network TV?
I think the thing to worry about is the fact that "lying" has become such an accepted thing!! Lying is a terrible character flaw, worse than smoking(since its one of the big ten!) I am an adult, I enjoy smoking, I am honest enough with myself to admit that I don't WANT to quit, so I won't. When my kids say "you should stop mom", because this is what they were told to do in school, I tell them that I am an adult, I am doing nothing illegal and I don't let children make my decisions for me, as for secondhand smoke I pointed out that if it were as dangerous as the "experts" say then no one from the "babyboom" would still be alive. in the 1950's with 75 percent of the population smoking and pregnant women smoking packs a day, the babyboomer generation should have been born retarded and died in their twenties and even the ones that escaped the afore mentioned landmines shouldn't have had the health or intelligence to actually go to college, invent computers, all modern technology, etc...
If you want to smoke, smoke, if you don't , don't....there are many many more critical issues to spend our time, attention and money on!
I, on the other hand, do not smoke.
Hah, drug addict!
Smokers can hide but fat people can't. Fat people tell their friends "I never eat anything and I can't lose wait". Obesity can't be hidden. I'm tired of the smokers who are full of shame and smoke in secret , fat people don't. Here in Louisville, Ky they want to ban smoking in all public places yet they just passed liquer sells on Sunday!!
Exactly. When I was a teenager I tried to hide my smoking from my parents by dousing myself with cologne after I smoked. They weren't fooled. I smelled like cologne and cigarettes.
Eau du tobacco? LOL
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