Smoke Screens

Reducing the Cost of My Addictions

“Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.” —Nicholas Kristof

When I woke up, Marty was still in bed. He wasn’t asleep but was staring into space when I walked into his room. I asked what was wrong, and he told me. I was overcome with guilt and shame and frustration.

Marty knows how to do one thing on the internet that I wish I’d never taught him: He looks at the bank account. He told me how much I’d spent on cigarettes (my kid and I share the habit, but I buy most of the packs) in the last ten days. He’s right; a person without a job doesn’t get to spend $300 every month on cigarettes.

I have quit smoking several times in my life. The first time, I worked at the Baltimore Jewish Council as one of three secretaries. I was suffering from blinding stress headaches that turned out to be a new thing called TMJ. It was so new that I was my doctor’s first patient with it. I got a night guard and a TEMS machine, which seemed to help—but not as much as taking up the habit again.

The second time I quit, I was the creative director for my friend Molly’s design firm and developed stress-related GERD. I was standing in my grandmother’s kitchen while she put a lining in a Kaffe Fassett coat I’d knitted in my first smoke-free week. Molly called to tell me about a mistake I made on an ad (I put my own phone number instead of the restaurant’s), and I got a terrible pain in my chest. My grandmother diagnosed it as the family esophagus. My doctor agreed.

The Kaffe Fassett coat I made in a week while I didn’t smoke.

The third time, I got a stress rash. I think my doctor told me I ought to stop quitting smoking because my health had taken three big hits.

It was years before I’d quit again. I was pregnant, and I quit cold turkey the moment I found out. Nothing bad happened during the entire pregnancy (unless you count the 50 pounds I gained). But once Utah was born, I went through a significant period of stress (three deaths, a new job, and my husband’s job loss within the course of six months), and I stopped sleeping.

The insomnia was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, and it was the focus of my life for five years. Every therapist I saw for sleep told me I should probably start smoking again. With the lack of dopamine, smoking would improve my mental state. But I didn’t.

Later, when I suffered severe depression after back surgery, two of the therapists I saw recommended, again, that I smoke. No lie.

I had kicked the habit for 24 years, with an occasional cigarette after year 21. But a pair of girls’ weekends at the beach saw me buy my first packs, and I was smoking three to five cigarettes a day by summer’s end.

The only legitimate use for AI.

It’s okay if you can do it, and some people can. I could for several years. My current doctor, who’s a very good doctor, told me not to worry about it. (I’d just lost my job and was very depressed.)

Over the last year, I increased my smoking to half a pack. And now that it’s costing so much money, I am ashamed of myself. I shouldn’t smoke at all and could probably quit again, if I weren’t so traumatized by what will happen the next time I quit!

So I started bargaining. I know I have a lot of streaming apps, and they cost a fortune every month, so I decided to sit with Marty and go through everything we have to see what we can sacrifice. First on the list, basic cable. It’s ten channels for $65, and I only watch “Jeopardy!” I called today, and the guy reduced my bill by $35 just for calling. And he told me to call every month, because the plans change regularly. That’s advice you can use, too.

I also get free Peacock with my Xfinity account, though it has commercials. But that’s another $17 a month I can save. I canceled Paramount and PBS, another $21. I would have canceled my BritBox, but I bought the one-year plan. And I took my kid off my Netflix account and changed it to the lower quality HD, saving $15.

If you’re keeping track, I saved $95 per month.

I’ll be putting that toward my cigarettes.