Smokers are people too...

I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. I have absolutely no desire to smoke a cigarette at any point in my life...ever. But if you walked into my room right now, you would find an almost full carton of Marlboro Light cigarettes.

Before coming to Europe I used judge (negatively) any person I saw smoking a cigarette. The first thought into my head was always "Really? Your smoking?" whether I knew the person or not. And while this may have been an unfair judgment of character and personality based on one bad addiction/habit, it was the reaction I had. I couldnt understand why anyone could smoke knowing how bad it was for their health....I mean there is rat poison in cigarettes! What kind of person would knowingly subject themselves to such blatant poisoning? And the answer is, lots of good people. Since coming to Europe, and being exposed to a culture of smoking that is very different than that of the United States, I have come to realize that smokers are people too. This sounds childish and obvious, but it wasnt before. Its not that before, I thought smokers werent real people, I simply judged them prematurely as people that I would not associate with and could not relate to...because of the culture and societal taboo that surrounds smoking in America today, I never saw smoking from the other side....which is exactly what I have had the opportunity to do since coming to Oslo.

The first person that I met here at the university, my good buddy of mine, smokes. Now he doesnt smoke often, and has "quit" in the past, but as he would tell you and as every other smoker would tell you, it is an addiction. It is not easy to simply drop it cold-turkey and leave the nicotine behind. After initially meeting him, he introduced me to some of the other people he had met (roommates, friends, etc) which now forms the close circle of friends that we have. Of those friends, a few smoke....again, the amount that they smoke differs between them, but they smoke nonetheless. At first I was unsure about it...the questions of "Why? Do they know they are smoking rat poison? Have they tried to quit?" all resurfaced as my societal bred insticts about smoking resurfaced. But as I have gotten to know them (and we are talking about some of my closest friends now), and talk about smoking with each, one thing is clear...they all want to quit. Most of them have tried before but for one reason or another fallen back into the habit. I have learned that its not only the addiction to nicotine thats hard to push, but the habititual action of actually smoking a cigarette. It is an action that becomes a part of you life if you smoke, and its not easy to drop.

Over the semester I have kidded a bit with my smoking friends about how they should quit for real....I lovingly remind them once in awhile that "smoking kills", "that there is rat poison in that cigarette", and of course "that smoking is bad for you". These reminders are all given in a non-threatening, non-agressive way all with their health and well-being in mind. They have all taken it in good humor and jokingly tell me "after the next pack I will quit"....riiight. Until one day, when a buddy of mine decided it was time to quit, for real. He told me that while he would like to quit cold-turkey, he knows that if he did that it would not last....this quiting attempt, if it is to be for real, needs to be a planned, gradual process. So we made a plan of a daily ration that would decrease with time. It started out with something like 6 cigarettes a day for the first two weeks, and then decreased by one cigarette per day each of the following two weeks until it got to zero a day, when theoretically he would not need or want one. In order to truthfully stick to the plan, he decided (I repeat, he decided) that I should hold the cigarettes and give them to him...as sort of a reminder to stick with it. We made a deal that the carton of cigarettes he purchased at the start of the plan would be the last cigarettes he bought in his life...hence the nearly full carton of Marlboro Lights in my room.

So far the plan is working fairly well, he is down to 4 cigarettes a day for the rest of this week and next, and has agreed that he is already feeling better because he's smoking less. And while he is moving towards dropping a bad habit, I have had a first hand view of the quitting process. He has shown me the difficulties of an addiction, and while I cannot relate from personal experience, I can and do appreciate the effort he is exerting to kick it...and it is the least that I can do to help him out along the way. I am humbled and honored to be a part of such a significant change to my good friends life. And I think that throughout this process of quitting and exposure to the culture of smoking, I have been able to really see, that smokers are people too...