Finished for Good

Image Credit: Dim 7

I’m not sure if I believe in God, but when I recently found a black spot on my tongue, I promised whoever might be listening — God, the Universe, my ancestors — that I’d never smoke another cigarette if it went away and didn’t come back. It was gone the next day, and I’ve kept my promise; but it hasn’t always been easy.

I’ve had an on-again-off-again relationship with cigarettes since I was a teenager, when I took a drag of my crush’s cigarette and proceeded to cough uncontrollably. I came of age in a time when 18-year-olds could legally buy cigarettes, and even though I’d smoked before, buying a pack on my eighteenth birthday felt like a rite of passage. I’ve never been a chain smoker — a pack could last me anywhere from two weeks to two months, and I’ve gone long stretches without smoking at all. Still, some of my most vivid memories are tied to smoking cigarettes.

As a college freshman, I spent numerous study breaks smoking cigarettes and drinking hot chocolate under the stars. I smoked a cigarette on my stoop after receiving oral sex for the first time. When I quit smoking cigarettes in my junior year of college, I only did so because I was in love with someone who wanted me to.

For the bulk of my twenties, I traded cigarettes for joints. Weed was good for me until it wasn’t, and in 2023, I picked up tobacco again. That fall and winter saw the perfect storm of triggers: financial hardship, family drama, friendship breakups, and two devastating losses.

After suffering a stroke the week of Thanksgiving, my cat of nearly eight years died in my arms. A few days later, my cat of nearly 15 years died in my arms. The first thing I did after both of their burials was smoke a cigarette on my porch steps, weeping through every puff.

In the weeks following the deaths of my beloved cats — Maddie and Smuggz — I considered my workplace lucky to have me show up at all. I managed to arrive on time, and I maintained good hygiene and wore makeup; but I smelled like cigarettes most mornings, and I didn’t care.

Cigarettes held a spot in my imagination long before I took my first drag, however. As a kid, I sometimes daydreamed about my adult self holding a cigarette between manicured fingers, wearing business suits and red acrylics while barking instructions into a chunky cell phone. Cigarettes were professional, classy, adventurous. Hollywood starlets smoked cigarettes. Lovers smoked cigarettes. French people smoked cigarettes. Someday, I would smoke cigarettes too.

Research shows millennials are smoking more than Gen X and Gen Z, and I believe it. As a generation, we grew up with frequent, gnarly warnings of the dangers of cigarette smoking while simultaneously finding ourselves aggressively marketed to by Big Tobacco via the film industry. Cigarettes were practically a supporting character in numerous blockbusters of the 1990s, from Titanic to Jurassic Park to My Best Friend’s Wedding. When I recently watched Reality Bites for the first time, I could almost smell the smoke. There’s a scene in which Winona Ryder’s character spends hours chain smoking and watching TV; I could practically see the walls yellowing around her. Recently, I read that smoking is “back” in movies; but I don’t think it went anywhere. I’ve heard it said that smokers don’t quit, they take breaks. Perhaps the same sentiment applies to smoking in film.

I lost an aunt to tongue cancer when I was a kid. I’m not certain that cigarettes were the culprit, but I’ve been told she did smoke a little bit — I remember my mom describing her as a “closet smoker,” a description I took literally. I thought of my aunt the second I spotted the black dot on my tongue. I’ll always remember her as the aunt with the best snacks — ice cream sandwiches, Gushers, Doritos — but she couldn’t eat solid foods near the end. She didn’t die alone, and I’m thankful for that — but she did die young. She suffered, and she’s missed so much. I wouldn’t wish her fate on anyone, much less would I wish to share it.

Gen X and Millennials appear to be suffering from higher rates of certain cancers than previous generations, but despite our higher propensity for smoking, oral cancers aren't currently on the list. A quick Google search will tell you black spots on the tongue aren’t uncommon, and they’re usually not a cause for concern. They can be a sign of oral cancer, but they can also appear due to dehydration, coffee drinking, certain medications, and other mundane reasons. They’re usually harmless, typically disappearing within a few days. Even so, I never want to see a black spot on my tongue again.

When Trump won the presidential election in 2024, it took everything I had not to buy a pack of cigarettes. I reckon if I can resist smoking under those circumstances, I’m probably finished with cigarettes for good.