Happy Smokers

I’m a smoker. I started, like many others, as a teenager. Contrary to what many of the anti-smoking ads would have you believe, it was not cartoon animals, duplicitous tobacco executives or the influence of peer pressure which got me started. I started smoking for the same reason I’ve started anything that ultimately will kill me – pussy. When you’re at a party and all the girls are outside smoking, well shit, who’s got a light? There was not a lot of science behind it other than the biological drive to hump somebody. I knew they were bad for me. Anybody born after 1970 would know it. I just didn’t give a shit. Any ill effects would be dealt with in the future. When you’re a teenager, the one thing you think you have a limitless supply of is time. So here I sit, fifteen years later and thousands of dollars poorer, addicted to cigarettes and yet I still don’t give a shit. Believe me I try. I really do. I watch those commercials with the black lungs and the shriveled up cancer patients breathing through tubes and I say to myself, “This should bother you. These people spend thousands of dollars on research to find the most disturbing images to show with the sole purpose of instilling fear in you.” Then I go have a smoke.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a death wish; quite the contrary. You know how they say that you don’t die in your dreams? Well that is bullshit, I’ve died; several times. I’ve hit the ground, been shot, blown up, stabbed, drowned and run over and I don’t wake up; at least not right away. So I think I have a unique perspective on death and let me tell you, I don’t think it is going to be a picnic.

But it is going to happen. The day will come when the grim reaper comes a knockin’ and I’m told time and time again that when he comes for me, he’ll be holding a cigarette in his hand. People don’t even give you a chance anymore if you’re a smoker. Nobody ever says, “There’s a chance that smoking may give you lung cancer.” No, it’s more like, “I’m looking at a dead man right now. A fucking dead man smokin’.” Like I’m playing some kind of inhalable Russian Roulette where every sixth cigarette contains C4 explosive. Mind you, most of the people who are telling me this are ex-smokers who used to smoke three packs a day back. Not one of these do-gooders has dropped yet but I’m going to die. Me, the contemporary smoker.

I have to be honest when I say that, for a while, it started to get to me. I don’t care who you are, if you keep hearing the same criticism long enough, it will start to get to you. Just ask all my anorexic ex-girlfriends. I even went to the Dr. about it. I had to know. Fifteen years of smoking had to have wrecked havoc on my fragile little lungs by now, right? I did a lung test. The Dr. had me blow in and out of a tube for as long and as hard as I could…then he gave me the lung test. ZING!! Do you want to know my score? Do you want to know the lung age of a thirty-four year old smoker? The age of my lungs is….thirty-five. That’s it. I’ll be thirty-five in one month. After fifteen years of smoking, my lungs have aged one month faster. Statistically, I have a two percent chance of developing lung disease at this point in my life. I had to ask the Dr. what the percentage would be of developing lung disease if I didn’t smoke. He dropped his head and said, “one percent.” Then he had the audacity to look up and say, “That means you have twice the chance of developing lung disease.” That’s around the time I punched him in the face.

In my imagination.

Which brings me to the thought I had when I started this piece. It’s no secret that Americans are really shitty with numbers. If there is one thing that George W. Bush’s, No Child Left Behind, aptitude tests have demonstrated it is that, when it comes to math, well, Americans are really good at sports. And any blood sucking parasite in marketing and advertising will tell you that if you want to sell a product or idea, deception is key. So what do we hear from the anti-smoking lobby? Numbers! Lots and lots of numbers and percentages and statistics. Things like, “every 8 seconds someone dies from smoking.” And, “87 percent of all lung cancer cases involve tobacco.” (The other 13 percent must be the Mesothelioma scourge all the ambulance chasers on day time TV keep warning us about) It’s enough to make you want to quit because if you don’t quit, “on average, each cigarette takes 5 minutes off your life expectancy!” Shit! Fuck! Son of a bitch! Do you know what that means?! It means if you smoke a pack a day for 35 years, statistically you’ll lose….a little over 2 years off your life. 2 Years? I don’t know about you but when I figured this out, I had the same anti-climactic feeling I had the first time I paid for sex. That’s it?! What the fuck?! I thought it was supposed to be longer!! What’s that bulge?!!

Look, I understand that there are people out there who strongly oppose smoking. For some reason they feel it is their life’s work to impose their Chicken Little will on the rest of us. I accept that I can’t change that fact. All I can do is add a little perspective to the whole discussion and here it goes. Yes, smoking greatly increases your chance of getting lung cancer but guess what? Statistically, every man on this planet, smoker or not, has a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer anyway. Every woman? 1 in 3. Yep, go ahead and look it up. Cancer is a motherfucker and it is going to get most of us whether you smoke or not. Lung, brain, stomach, prostate, testicular, breast, colon, kidney, mouth, you name the body part and there is a cancer that can eat it. In fact, when I think about it, between getting my nuts lopped off, having my asshole carved out or losing a lung, I think I pick lung. I wonder what the percentage is of people who would agree with me.