Ear Seeding
I am a smoker. I have been a smoker since I was 14 years old, which means I am a 16 year old idiot. I started when I was in middleschool, or at least, that is where I had my 1st cigarette. Some girl who I played blacktop basketball with had stolen them from her mother. It was a skinny Virginia Slims which is the lamest cigarette ever, at the time I still felt edgy puffing on that lollipop stick. I always thought smoking would be that exciting. Which is having 7 and 8 year olds stare up at you with big round eyes.
Freshman year of college, the moment my parents pulled out of the Graham-Greene dormitory parking lot I quickly hoofed it across the street to the Circle K. $3 dollars later, with a 40oz of Coca-Cola and a fresh pack of Camel Lights in hand I sat on a bench, across from my dorm, and smoked them all. It took over 4 hours and one mean headache. It was the most damaging thing I had ever done to myself up that point in my life. (I've done worse since then.) While puking up my guts in the ladies bathroom, I distinctly remember being overcome with awe. "I am in complete and total control." As that was true, it definitely does not mean I have always functioned with my best interests in hand.
College was where I probably became addicted. At my greatest carbon monoxide and ammonia inhalation I was smoking at least a pack and a half a day. That is 30 cigarettes a day, which is one and a third per hour a day for nearly 3 years. While everyone else was doing hard lines of cocaine and snorting crystal meth, I was silently drinking my iced coffees and smoking my life away. To be honest, it was fucking awesome. I loved smoking, every bit of the social interaction involved to the packing of the fresh pack in hand. The rituals I developed for the one lucky cigarette and the first burst of smoke in your lungs after a heavy meal. Man, I am already craving one like a mother fucker right now.
This shit kills, everyday!
The last 3 years tho' I have definitely slowed my roll. I started smoking less. I broke my morning coffee and cigarette habit, which is really just a jumping off point. The bars in Chicago became smoke free and the city decided to tax us hard, like $7-8 dollars hard per pack. My friends who had smoked with me were quitting, slowly, one by one. Suddenly there were less people to go share a cigarette with, less people to huddle together for warmth with, which was the only thing LESS about smoking any more in Chicago. Smoking began to lose it's luster. That essential BADASSED feeling gone, like 10 years ago and what was left was nothing but my own bitterness toward the city tax on cigarettes, the grumbling freezing smokers standing on sidewalks in negative 10 degree weather and the ever omnipresent fear of dying from cancer. It was time to quit.
But if only it was easy. Did I meantion how fucking awesome smoking feels? Like a smooth rush of warm water over your body and a loving blanket to wrap yourself in. It's comfort on the go. I have probably tried to quit at least 10 times in the last 2 years. The longest I have gone is a week and a half. Luckily I also only smoke one pack every week and a half. So I guess that makes it better? Pretty much I have just assumed that I would be a social smoker for the rest of my life. REST of my LIFE. But then I fell in love with this guy and now I want to settle down and have kids and the thought that I may have willingly signed onto the cancer bus just bums me the fuck out. I don't want to die from lung cancer and subject my family to my bullshit youth.
So what's a girl whose been smoking for 16 years supposed to do? Have a friend who works for a magazine who are doing a story on stress relievers and alternative medicines and have them do a story on your issue: quitting smoking. Then let them pay for your treatment to send you to a Acupuncturist. It's not the best way to get the ball rolling but it's a way. So, here I am on day 1 of my treatment: Ear Seeding.
It's bananas, for real. The Acupunturist asked me to stick my tongue out, read my pulse and checked the skin on my shins and basically laid out some major ailments. All 110% correct, chilling me to the bone. She gave me ginger tea for it. By the end of the treatment, after the photoshoot and the phone interview, I was signing up for 3 more treatments. I am converted. Here are a few things being treated: My lungs, my liver, my digestive track, the pain in my neck and my uterus. Shit is nuts!
N-U-T-S!
Freshman year of college, the moment my parents pulled out of the Graham-Greene dormitory parking lot I quickly hoofed it across the street to the Circle K. $3 dollars later, with a 40oz of Coca-Cola and a fresh pack of Camel Lights in hand I sat on a bench, across from my dorm, and smoked them all. It took over 4 hours and one mean headache. It was the most damaging thing I had ever done to myself up that point in my life. (I've done worse since then.) While puking up my guts in the ladies bathroom, I distinctly remember being overcome with awe. "I am in complete and total control." As that was true, it definitely does not mean I have always functioned with my best interests in hand.
College was where I probably became addicted. At my greatest carbon monoxide and ammonia inhalation I was smoking at least a pack and a half a day. That is 30 cigarettes a day, which is one and a third per hour a day for nearly 3 years. While everyone else was doing hard lines of cocaine and snorting crystal meth, I was silently drinking my iced coffees and smoking my life away. To be honest, it was fucking awesome. I loved smoking, every bit of the social interaction involved to the packing of the fresh pack in hand. The rituals I developed for the one lucky cigarette and the first burst of smoke in your lungs after a heavy meal. Man, I am already craving one like a mother fucker right now.
This shit kills, everyday!
The last 3 years tho' I have definitely slowed my roll. I started smoking less. I broke my morning coffee and cigarette habit, which is really just a jumping off point. The bars in Chicago became smoke free and the city decided to tax us hard, like $7-8 dollars hard per pack. My friends who had smoked with me were quitting, slowly, one by one. Suddenly there were less people to go share a cigarette with, less people to huddle together for warmth with, which was the only thing LESS about smoking any more in Chicago. Smoking began to lose it's luster. That essential BADASSED feeling gone, like 10 years ago and what was left was nothing but my own bitterness toward the city tax on cigarettes, the grumbling freezing smokers standing on sidewalks in negative 10 degree weather and the ever omnipresent fear of dying from cancer. It was time to quit.
But if only it was easy. Did I meantion how fucking awesome smoking feels? Like a smooth rush of warm water over your body and a loving blanket to wrap yourself in. It's comfort on the go. I have probably tried to quit at least 10 times in the last 2 years. The longest I have gone is a week and a half. Luckily I also only smoke one pack every week and a half. So I guess that makes it better? Pretty much I have just assumed that I would be a social smoker for the rest of my life. REST of my LIFE. But then I fell in love with this guy and now I want to settle down and have kids and the thought that I may have willingly signed onto the cancer bus just bums me the fuck out. I don't want to die from lung cancer and subject my family to my bullshit youth.
So what's a girl whose been smoking for 16 years supposed to do? Have a friend who works for a magazine who are doing a story on stress relievers and alternative medicines and have them do a story on your issue: quitting smoking. Then let them pay for your treatment to send you to a Acupuncturist. It's not the best way to get the ball rolling but it's a way. So, here I am on day 1 of my treatment: Ear Seeding.
It's bananas, for real. The Acupunturist asked me to stick my tongue out, read my pulse and checked the skin on my shins and basically laid out some major ailments. All 110% correct, chilling me to the bone. She gave me ginger tea for it. By the end of the treatment, after the photoshoot and the phone interview, I was signing up for 3 more treatments. I am converted. Here are a few things being treated: My lungs, my liver, my digestive track, the pain in my neck and my uterus. Shit is nuts!
N-U-T-S!
