2025-12-20

I come outside to the back patio and everything is untouched, still in its place. The fan hums at full against the still air. I sit on my recliner and let it lift my legs slowly. Next to me is a small foldable table where I keep my pocket notebook, pen, ash tray, lighter, and a carton of cheap menthol hundreds. I queue some music, pull out a cigarette, let the lighter flick a few times until it catches and puff out a cloud of smoke—a hug that doesn’t let go when I do. Each cigarette becomes an engine of my thoughts and dreams.

Nicotine isn’t a villain, but a reliable timekeeper. Every ceremony on the back patio flows with control and release. But this ritual bears a familiar disguise: dependency lies underneath the mask. I believe that the repetition creates peace. The lie becomes harder to tell myself. I develop a cough and spit up phlegm. My lungs tighten; a single flight of stairs leaves me winded. But I’m at an impasse—a habit that ticks at the top of every hour.

Every habit can be taught, but can still be forgotten.

A Habit’s Architecture

At the backbone of any habit is the environment. Environments create the stage for reinforcing behavior; they stand as a reflection of the actors that live in it. For me, my back patio is the culmination and consolidation of my habit. It allows me a sense of familiarity. The repetition of flicking the lighter and disposing butts in the ash tray doles out reassurance. Putting it all in one place becomes a foundation and refuge. As the habit progresses, leaving it all behind feels more like betrayal.

Vice thrives in comfort. Addiction rises out of a false sense of safety. A void emerges and the substance fills it, even if only for a short time. Soon enough, the substance becomes the answer to everything from minor inconveniences to major traumatic events. If anything stressful happens in my life, a cigarette takes care of it. Even though I know that’s false, I still feel the relief neurologically and psychologically. Nicotine primes the dopamine pump. It doesn’t just make the moment, but dictates it. It’s easy for me to feel in control—but more often than not, I forget that I’m not always in the driver’s seat.

For me, conquering the addiction is an attempt to attain independence from impulses that don’t have my best interests in mind. It’s a constant battle to deal with suggestion after suggestion. I begin to lose the ability to anticipate not just the world, but myself. Quitting nicotine then becomes a fight for personal agency and freedom. But for this freedom to appear, something needs to be deconstructed.

The Click: Gaining, not Losing

I realize something crucial: the phrasing of ‘quitting nicotine’ obfuscates the problem. If I’m quitting nicotine, that consciously tells me I am giving something up in my life. To quit nicotine is to destroy the habits that cultivate normalcy and comfort. There is a real fear in losing that. Instead, I need to have an attitude of addition, not subtraction.

To quit nicotine isn’t to destroy normalcy, but to rebuild an even stronger sense of freedom. It’s so easy for me to get caught up in rationalizations that make nicotine seem like a positive thing. I always tell myself that "it makes me think better" or "many great writers smoked." It’s dangerous to think this way because it becomes more and more embedded in my identity. Soon enough, life without it feels impossible. The loss would be unbearable.

Rebuilding this sense of freedom is crucially important. If I quit nicotine, I restore so much of my life. I don’t have to be bound to my back patio; there’s no need to escape when trying to relax; I don’t have to isolate myself in social situations; I can become more physically fit. Quitting gives me back everything nicotine made me forget I had. It’s figured out. I know what I have to do. Quitting feels like the most natural next step. I want to do what I can to get my life back right away.

Still though, there are quieter valleys ahead.

Withdrawals and Acceptance

I decide to quit and go cold turkey. I remove everything from the back patio and throw away the few packs of cigarettes I had left—straight in the trash, no regrets. I get rid of most of my lighters and my ash tray. I take my fan and put it in my bedroom. My end table becomes a prayer corner. The first few hours feel vindicating. I tell myself that it’s really going to happen this time and that I mean it. I go to the corner store and instead of buying more cigarettes, I buy several bags of hard candies. No oral fixations for me.

The first week is the hardest. After those first few vindicating hours, real cravings start to settle in. My psyche, however, is resolute. No matter what happens, not a single molecule of nicotine enters my body. I take several trips to the donut store to assuage the cravings. Eventually, though, the trips to the donut store become scant. I forget that I even ate hard candies in the first place. Then things begin to become clear.

My smoker’s cough goes away. I see immediate progress in my cardio; basic daily activities don’t leave me winded anymore. My breath becomes deeper, my throat clearer. My progress in the gym improves. Soon enough, the back patio becomes a distant memory. Despite gaining these things back in my life, I don’t feel a deep sense of victory. Relief would be more accurate to say. I feel as if there’s a return to equilibrium. It’s comforting to realize that I go about my day and don’t feel obligated to take these pauses anymore. My day just flows from beginning to end, no interruptions.

Returning to the Back Patio

I quit smoking on July 6th, 2025 after about 4 years of daily use. As of the release of this essay, I am over 5 months nicotine-free. About a month or two ago once the weather started getting colder, I decided to return to my back patio so I could sit on the recliner that remained out there and relax, perhaps even enjoy the day. As I sit on the recliner with my headphones on and my eyes close, there are not intrusive thoughts to light up a cigarette. The back patio is mine again.

I realize now that not just with nicotine—but any vice—that its removal is not a loss, but an invitation for something better to enter. For me when I sit at the back patio, I now enjoy true rest and relaxation. I don’t feel like I’m killing myself every time I go out there now, and to me that’s a blessing that I hope to cherish for many more days to come.

I can take a deep breath and finally let it all in.

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