They accepted you as just a smoker? Now that’s an avenue I’ve never thought of.
The Cigarette Smoking Man can tell you countless packs of cigarettes add up to a lot of tough decisions.
A few yrs later I had a little farmhouse recording studio in OR and a gtr buddy I'd met in recovery mtgs came over to ck it out. He started to pull one out and light up, and I had to stop him ... asking not to smoke around my equip... but I'd go stand on the porch with him.
As we stood outside, I asked him why he was still smoking those things. I knew from mtgs how he had come through the '60's becoming addicted to pretty much everything in the process.
He held up that cigarette and told me, "I've been through heroin, methadone, coke, alcohol, pills, pot and managed to get out from under all of them. But nicotine ... this is the absolute hardest drug I've ever had to face !"
That statement just blew me away !! I'd always considered myself waaay too smart to ever get wrapped up with that mean stuff... so I couldn't be qualified as an addict... hmmm, but then I did smoke pot every day of my life for 10 straight yrs, and cigarettes for far far longer than that.
I then began to understand how and why my struggle over so many yrs had been so intense & tough. Those things were/are absolutely insidious. Culturally accepted back then. Pot was nothing to quit compared to nicotine.