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New Year, New You

Okay, so we don’t keep our New Year’s resolutions, either. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t forever contemplating going on a roadtrip, losing ten pounds, being financially smarter and, yes, helping poor people in Africa.

Photography by Nat Rea Illustration by Nick Dewar

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Stop Smoking

A sometime smoker’s clean air act.

I started smoking when I was twelve. I know, it’s so young, but I had my reasons. They seemed good at the time.

And over the years, frankly, they still seemed good. My mother quit; my brother quit. I gave up  when pregnant, but by the time my daughter was six months old I was sparking up again. Carefully, of course; I didn’t want the smoke getting near her. She was too precious. (Not me.)

Finally, at five years old, she told me she’d “always wanted to try one of those.” I couldn’t keep pretending that my long-time affair with cigarettes was innocent. So I turned to one of the foremost smoking cessation centers in the country at Providence’s Butler Hospital, where the addiction research department offers quit-smoking programs for free to study participants. Some involve medication, many don’t, but all offer counseling and the nicotine patch.

Success rates are considered good (brace yourself): 30 to 35 percent still nonsmoking after a year.

I’d asked doctors for meds before, but always heard the same answer: I didn’t smoke enough. I smoked a pack or two a week; most people, says Dr. Richard Brown, director of addictions research at Butler, smoke a pack a day. That’s the threshold the doctors I talked to set for prescribing Chantix and other drugs. This time, I didn’t let it stop me. I’d take the counseling, thank you very much, and be glad for it.
We set a quit date, several weeks away. Brown wanted me to examine my habit. He gave me little sheets to fill in each time I lit up, noting the time, situation and my feelings.

I had clear triggers. Alcohol, of course, and stress; uncomfortable social situations (“Excuse me while I step outside…”) and fun ones (“Hey, let’s sneak outside!”). Most intractably, I smoked to mark the end of the work day. At that moment, standing on my back porch with my daughter asleep upstairs, my duties were met. It was a moment just for me, tobacco my faithful witness.

I hated the sheets; they took away some of the carefree rebelliousness of smoking. Next, Brown asked me to think about my daughter when I smoked. That was an even bigger buzz kill; I mostly ignored it. 

Brown took this in stride — it’s pretty common for people he’s helping to show resentment, he says — and worked with me on the cravings. We did guided meditations, talked about letting my anxieties just exist, instead of trying to fix them. The whole thing was suspiciously Eastern. Yet I was learning to see my cravings as something that, while part of me, didn’t speak for me. If I simply allowed them to wash over me, they crested and were gone.

My quit date came. I smoked my last cigarette just before midnight, out the window of a friend’s apartment in New York City in the rain. Does that sound romantic? It was. And so I bid farewell to my most durable friendship.

Classic symptoms of physical withdrawal followed. I couldn’t concentrate, felt restless, had trouble sleeping. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to treat cigarettes like glasses of milk, and have a warm one before bed every night.

At times I quivered on the brink of giving in. Evenings three and four were almost, but not quite, the last straw.

A week later, I finally slept through the night. I was eating more dessert, true —  the urge for a days-end treat hadn’t gone away. But I wasn’t drinking (you need to be a black belt at resisting nic-fits before you undermine your willpower with booze). That bought me a few extra calories, and I tried not to beat myself up about the rest. In fact, Brown says, putting up with a little weight gain is a good predictor of success.

A month later, I’m still finding ways to fill the hole that stopping smoking has left. I strategize each glass of wine. Intense cravings flood me at unexpected moments. It’s a sneaky addiction, warns Brown.

But I’m proud. The habit I’m still breaking doesn’t just involve cigarettes. It’s about giving in. Those panicky waves of need were a paper tiger; unmet, their threats ne-ver materialized. Ignoring them leaves me more time for things I actually choose. That’s a lesson so good, it’s almost worth twenty-six years of smoking. —P.J.

Start Meditating

One woman stumbles across a path to peace and confidence.

Mike put me through the ringer. For months I listened to him groan about money. I was patient when he left me hanging to comfort his ex.

Then he disappeared on New Year’s Eve, leaving me feeling pitiful.

I had contorted myself for yet another boyfriend. I swore not to do it again.

My resolve was about as firm as the melting snow banks when days later I noticed a sign for Santosha Yoga Studio. I browsed the website and found a Yoga Nidra class that promised to help change behavior patterns, beat self-destructive habits, and reconnect me with my inner power — all with a big dose of relaxation.

I rolled out a mat in a back corner of the darkened room and my conversion began. Our instructor, Heather Eilering, led us through gentle yoga that emphasized stretches our bodies desired. The concept: no judgment of ourselves or others.

The last half of the ninety-minute class was dedicated to Yogic sleep, a guided meditation that leaves you deeply relaxed yet aware. For once, my mind cleared of all thought.

We envisioned ourselves floating on water. We felt our hearts beat. We listened to a single bird singing outside. Heather encouraged us to set an intention and take our newfound strength into the world. She told us we were divine.

I lay on my back with tears streaming, sad at how far I had drifted from my core. I set my intention: This would be the year I regained love for myself.

Gradually I grew more comfortable with yielding to relaxation and moving my body the way I saw fit without peeking at my neighbors. I consulted Heather when I went through a period in which I wasn’t settling in. It signaled, she said, that I was on the brink of embracing the practice.

And all the while, outside the candle-lit studio, my confidence grew.

It was a transformation I had needed for years, but couldn’t quite find my way to. Today, Meditation Mondays, as I call them, are the most important nights of my week — and I wouldn’t have found them without Mike. — Samantha Scott