How Nicotine Saved my Life
Why must we always work?
Listen to today’s new song in the player below:
Not that long ago, I worked with an artist who’d moved back to the Midwest to get away from the booze and drugs that had taken over his life on the East coast.
He decided to move home and go cold turkey— no more alcohol, no more cocaine or Ecstasy.
But he knew his body wanted/needed some kind of dopamine bump every day, so he started taking nicotine1 lozenges purchased at Walgreens, and that helped him kick his nasty habits. He’s been clean for several years now.
I’ve taken a few of those lozenges in my time…
But I started out life as an adamant non-smoker.
Both of my parents smoked when I was a child—most parents did.
If somebody’s parents didn’t smoke, it seemed kind of weird.
I was a sensitive child in many ways – put me in the way backseat of a station wagon and hit a couple clover leaf on-ramps on the freeway and I was carsick.
Throw cigarette smoke into the mix, and I would feel wretched.
There was a brief moment when I was attracted to the idea of smoking, maybe sixth grade.
I remember being over by the old University of Minnesota campus in Duluth trying to take a puff of a cigarette stolen from a friend’s parents, methinks.
I did not inhale and I did not like it. It tasted like an ashtray.2
The first time I actually ingested tobacco was when my parents had started rolling their own cigarettes, in the name of thrift.
There was a rolling station in a room that we called the butler’s pantry. On a cutting board was a cigarette rolling machine, a tin of tobacco and papers and filters.
I just grabbed a small pinch of tobacco, which was intended for smoking, and put it in my mouth.
Dang, that was disgusting and really just painful.
“Tobacco is not for me” was the takeaway.
My 10th grade math teacher, Mr. Amundson, would smoke a cigarette in the break room before class every day. He would also drink coffee.
I really loved the guy, he was a veteran and had tattoos all over his arms, which was very unusual in those days.
On the first day of class, he asked if anyone had a nickname. I said my name was Dude and he called me Dude for the entire year. This was 1985-6.
He was a good teacher.
But if you raised your hand and he came close to help you with your problem, at least, for me, I would have to stop breathing when he was near, because the smell of coffee and tobacco was so strong as to make my tender olfactory tremble and gag.
I remember the scene in Desperately Seeking Susan where Madonna is sitting near the water and just as she exhales a huge cloud of cigarette smoke, her boyfriend surprises her and gives her a big kiss— I remember thinking “Oh my God, how disgusting she must taste!?”
The restaurant where I worked in high school, all of the waitresses smoked, except maybe Ruby Soderberg. It was a round building with a revolving restaurant on top— the kitchen was in the middle with a small little break area next to it.
All of the waitresses would keep a cigarette burning in that break area and occasionally they’d go out, help their tables, and then pass through that little break area on their way to the kitchen, take a puff, and go back out on the floor.
It was a revolving restaurant with a smoking section that was as large as the non-smoking section so basically the whole place was a smoking section. That’s just the way it was.
I remained an adamant non-smoker.
At Duluth East high school, a good number of the kids smoked and would have to go out to the red line to do so.
The red line was a physical line painted red on the ground near the cafeteria exit. After lunch every day, there’d be 50+ kids out there burning one before fifth hour.
I used to have to go to driver’s ed out there, cut through the crowd, holding my breath. These weren’t just burnouts, there were cheerleaders out there. Stone cold dance-line foxes, if you will.
Poor, sensitive, Faux Jean.
Whether it was my incessant whining or a realization that smoking might eventually kill them sooner than seemed desirable, my parents decided to quit smoking.
Watching them struggle with quitting made clear just how powerful this addiction was.
On the upside, there was always a drawer full of chewing gum at home available to anyone who wanted it.
I went off to college an adamant non-smoker. I remember asking people not to smoke in the Memorial Union at the University of Wisconsin, which had just established non-smoking areas, and people thinking I was a real pain in the ass.
My next-door neighbor in the dorms dealt weed. For two years, I declined frequent offers of getting high for free, though I would hang out in his room while people sneaked cigarettes and bong hits.
Mothers milk by the chili peppers played on repeat.
It was not my scene, nice as all these folks were.
Junior year of college, I got to go study abroad in Germany at the Albert-Ludwigs Universität in the Black Forest.
My Bavarian next-door neighbor did not deal weed, but he grew it in his closet with the help of a grow light.
He was a scientist and a philosopher.
He didn’t bring that stoner bong hit mentality to the situation.
I quizzed him about his usage, and he explained that a little tobacco and a little cannabis smoked together expanded his mind a bit at night.
One night, I partook of this concoction and felt a little something. I mainly giggled a lot.
But I did not become addicted and stayed away from such things for a long time.
Fast-forward to 1996 and I am full bore, chain-smokin’ schmuck.
Up until that time, I had generally avoided dating girls who smoked, but I fell hard for this one.
It started with Clove cigarettes—Djarums—which this damsel bought for me to alleviate her own guilt around smoking in my presence.
I first smelled clove cigarettes at a Hüsker Dü show at the Orpheum Café in Duluth, Minnesota— what year was it, 1985 or 1986?
I hated the smell of cigarette smoke, but I loved the smell of clove cigarette smoke. And it reminded me of my first punk show.
Initially, I did not inhale the Djarums she gave me. The clove cigarette smoke was too harsh, and I was mainly doing it to make the damsel feel less guilty about smoking around me.
But then I slowly started to enjoy moderate cannabis consumption and realized that after a puff of somthing green, I could inhale clove cigarette smoke, and not only enjoy the smell, but also the sensation that my blood was being spiked by some secret pleasure agent.
Soon, I was going to the Electric Fetus and buying cartons of clove cigarettes wholesale.
Years later, when I got the opportunity to play a show with Grant Hart from Hüsker Dü, Grant remarked “Oh, you’re smoking those college cigarettes.”
I thought of them as punk show cigs, but did not want to split hairs with Grant.
I kept going to the Fetus for cartons, but frequently got bad product that made me question the quality control at the “Bali Hi” factory in Indonesia.
I began to occasionally bum a regular smoke from the damsel if I got a bad carton.
Thus began a long slide into mainstream cigarettes and serious nicotine addiction, and what was at least a pack a day habit for a long time.
Big tobacco was more than willing to oblige when I showed up at the cash register.
I recently found one of my wallets from this era. In this wallet, I found an old receipt from January 24, 1998, which showed that I was able to buy three packs of cigarettes for $6.25.
It seemed that Parliament and Camel were at war. Generally it was buy two packs—get one free. There was always a deal and I was not a terribly brand-loyal smoker, having inherited a sense of thrift from my parents, perhaps ; ).
Eventually, my generally expensive tastes caught up with me, and I realized that American Spirit blues were my favorite.
Before i knew it, a single pack was getting close to six bucks!
Fast forward to 2007. The Faux Jean band has broken up, I’m living alone in a two bedroom apartment that I cannot afford and I have two car payments. (long story.)
I sat in the apartment’s claw-foot tub chain smoking and reading Boswell’s “Life of Dr Johnson,” fretting over how I was going to pay for this lifestyle.
I realized that I needed to quit smoking cigarettes. I’d lost a decade to this habit that was costing me my health and a lot of money
So I went out and bought some nicotine patches.
Soon I learned that if you fell asleep while wearing a nicotine patch, bizarre lucid dreams were the norm.
I started writing down my dreams in my journal.
One dream in particular was about this young lady I worked with, who I referred to in my journal as Fraülein W—.
These are the words I wrote about that dream:
“Even in the dream
things seemed timid at first,
your hand on my back
was gone so soon,
but not before I knew
I liked it there.
On an aimless trail for the
sake of itself
with wonderfully surreal scenery
we talked about music and poetry and food that we loved
Anything but love itself.”
More words came the next day, which can be heard in today’s song addition to the “Mixed Up Files.”
I thought this Fraülein W— was way too young for me and tried to shake off the notion, but something about that nicotine dream made me think twice and then a third time about her.
944 days later, we were married.
1,505 days later, our son was born.
2,315 days later, our daughter was born.
I am now a non-smoking family man.
It was nicotine that saved my life.
If it hadn’t been for that nicotine dream, I might still be sitting in that claw foot tub, resolved to a life of solitude.
I remain your humble servant,
OX&C,
FAUX JEAN
Listen to “Nicotine Dreams Pt. 1” below or in the player at the top of this letter:
Nicotine is named for Jean Nicot, a Frenchman, who introduced tobacco to Europe.
I think I was hanging out with my friend Perry, whose dad smoked filterless, if memory serves.