In 1997 I graduated high school and got a job changing oil on cars. It was hard, messy work, but I enjoyed it through and through. After a few short months I knew my job well enough to not have to think about it one hundred percent of the time. That meant that I had time to think, and by now, thinking led to trouble of some sort. I waited until I was through with high school before I began experimenting with drugs and as they say, marijuana is not addictive, it’s just habit forming. Well, that’s a small line to walk for someone with an addictive personality. There was supposed to be a urinalysis when I was hired, but they congratulated me on passing mine before I’d had a chance to take one.
Where was that going? Ah yes, the time I had at work for my mind to wander. I was thinking about what I was going to be doing after work while I was at work, and I had nothing there to distract me but more work. Then it happened. I noticed a few of the guys gathered together all tapping their cans and then filling their cheeks with tobacco. Now I had smoked a few cigarettes when I was very young, and not all the way anyways, but this was a new and interesting idea. Soon the fellows were spitting in different containers, some the trash cans, some the pit, where I spent my time and some even kept their own personal can to spit in. I was most definitely intrigued.
That night I went to the gas station and started asking about chewing tobacco. I still couldn’t get my mind around putting loose leaf tobacco into my mouth, but fortunately for me the companies had thought of me and had made little pouches in a can. This way I could still fit in by having a can, and I could try it without the mess of the loose leaf nonsense. My choice was mint flavored Bandits and my brand was Skoal.
The next day I was asked to mow my mother’s lawn, so I did so. It was a warm day in Eagle River and I was in decent shape, so I had my shirt off and just as I stopped to refresh my tobacco pouch my mother walked outside and confronted me. She asked what it was that I was doing and explained the terrible things that it could do. I wanted it to stop, so I handed her a half full can of tobacco pouches and she stormed off to throw them away.
Now I am not sure if Jason started chewing independently of me or if I influenced him, but my weak resolve that my mother had just given me was shattered when I went over to his place later that day. His brand was Copenhagen and his was the real deal. I tried it and for the first time I felt a nicotine buzz. The flavor gave me a headache, so I knew the brand was not right for me, but this was definitely something I was going to pursue. We made a run to the store in his dad’s Bronco and I bought some mint Skoal, the real kind, not the pouches, and he got some more Copenhagen.
Over the next few months, Jason encouraged me to play the drums while he jammed out on his bass guitar. We had a few visitors ramble through the basement, but mostly we had it to ourselves. Eventually I moved in to a small room in the basement. My price was to clean it out first; this room had been the graveyard for anything and everything that made its way through the house and needed a place to retire with the dignity of a lightless coffin. I changed all that and made quite a nice place for myself. We lasted well together down there in the basement. After just speaking with him on the phone I have discovered the true name of the den of darkness. It was called The Pit. Its lightless construction made it very easy to forget about the day and the rest of the world. It took less effort to wake up than it did to go to sleep, if that makes any sense. There were a few illicit drug experiences down there, but I’ll get into that later.
For now, off to college again, or for the first time, who can say for sure? Okay, probably my mom, but she’s not here to tell the story, so I’ll have to leave you guessing. I went off to the magnificent University of Alaska Anchorage, somewhere between 1997 and 1998 and left in the year 2000. I lived in the dorms for my entire stay, and I am pretty certain that I attended summer school for each year as well. I kept my tobacco habit, as well as my caffeine habit. The nice thing about chewing tobacco, probably its only perk, is that it is a smokeless tobacco so the only thing you have to worry about is grossing out other people. I tried to be discrete, but there were definitely times when I simply didn’t care.
I remember when a can of tobacco cost three bucks. Last time I checked the price is up to eight or nine dollars. I had a roommate who chewed one semester. We had an original Playstation and he and I were at war to see who could get the highest score on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (the original). I believe we topped out at 800,000 points for one level, which is pretty impressive all things considered. I guess it goes to show you that your likelihood of getting really good at something is proportional to the time and attention you devote to doing it. That was what I had, time and attention and I devoted it unerringly to the study of art. There were many late nights for me over my schooling career, but this semester that I had a roommate, who also chewed, I had a friend… I had company. I spent my nights working on drawings for my instructor and he spent his trying to beat my score on Tony Hawk. Every so often I would take a break and slap my forefinger onto the top of my tobacco can to pack it, producing a unique sound that quickly flowed down the hallways of the dorm room to the living room. Sure enough, like an echo, my call was responded to as we reminded each other that yes, we were still awake, and yes, we needed a new chew.
That was really the only place in my life that my tobacco habit had been accepted or welcomed. I chewed throughout my undergraduate degree and things got even worse when I went to grad school. After grad school, I left the US to go live with my girlfriend in Canada. Out of courtesy to her I decided to refrain from chewing while we were together. By now the prices of tobacco were upwards of eight dollars a can, so it was a good time for me to be done anyways.
I lasted a while, but had to come back to the states because I didn’t have a visa. While I was home, guess what, yup, I started chewing again. I was only going to be back for a little while to reset my time limit in Canada, so this was probably a bad time to pick it back up. Well, time to go back and what do I do? You guessed it, I went to the gas stations and bought as many two packs of Skoal straight as I could find and afford. Okay, so not that many, I had to keep within a reasonable limit or else be accused of smuggling.
Back in Canada, I was all love-y with my girlfriend; little did she know that I had about thirty cans of tobacco in my pack that I was going to have to figure out how to hide from her as soon as she went to class. She went, and I chose my desk drawer. The cans were stacked neatly two or three high and almost to the front of the drawer. There at the front I put my passport, my checkbook, some D&D minis and slid a piece of paper over top of the whole pile.
So what do we know about hiding things from our significant others? Well, it breaks the trust boundary just a little because it is lying. If this were alcohol that I had been hiding from her, I would probably have been labeled an alcoholic. Not far off, really. She caught on eventually because I had been careless with the old plugs from my mouth. While I was painting I used to just discard them in the garbage, in contrast to the rest of the time that I had been so careful. The smell built up and it was unmistakable and she noticed right away. She lashed out at me and I am a little unclear on what happened next. I want to say that I promised to give up and gave her the remaining can or two that I had for her to throw away. That sounds about right, but I have no way to double check that detail.
Time went on and I got the craving. Latte’s and gaming wasn’t cutting it for me at this point. I needed to fill a void and knew that here in Canada it was going to be expensive. I had learned her class schedule and for some reason we were going to bed at different times. Mostly because she had classes in the morning and I was working under the pretense of being a working artist who needed the night hours to get his work done. That settled I went down the street to the tobacco shop and inquired about my particular brand and breed. I found it and asked to purchase one; it was the same price as back home. I paid and it suddenly donned on me as I reached out to pick it up from the counter: the can was half as thick as the ones from America. Not only that, but there was an amazing dome cut out of the bottom of the can so all told there was probably a third of what I was used to in this can that I just paid $7.99 for. I felt like a cheap addict who was being taken advantage of. Hrm, I wonder why?
As expensive as it was, I kept doing it. I was more careful than ever, but she was more on watch than ever so she spent her time stalking me (her prey) and I spent my time paranoid beyond reason trying to keep from being caught. All in all, I believe that if I had just discussed the situation with her, we would have been able to come to some other understanding. But as it was, things were getting tense…
Then one night I had some horrible hallucination of my own death. When I called my mother to talk to her about it, she helped me calm down and got me to a place where I could go to bed for the night. I went and climbed into bed with my girlfriend for the last time that night. I still remember her warmth and comfort. In the morning I got a call and an email. They came at the same time really. The email was from the travel agent and the call was from my mother. My travel arrangements home had been made and I was to follow them without question.
As I explained in the prologue, I was quickly admitted to the hospital when I got back to the states. Providence Hospital prides itself on being a tobacco free campus, and I applaud their efforts. But I had needs that had to be met now of all times. I went for 24 hours on suicide watch, so no visitors, but they did provide me with the occasional 2mg nicotine gum fix. I started saving them in a drawer in my room so that late at night before bed, I could open up five or six and chew them all at once. Then my checks were over and I was allowed visitors and other rights. I made some phone calls and quickly had some tobacco smuggled in. Sorry, Providence, but it had to be done. Remember now, I had a lot of practice hiding it from my girlfriend, so I was on the ball with the staff at the hospital.
So I am skipping ahead here to the lead in to my next hospital visit, the one in January. Along with all that caffeine I was chewing one to two cans of tobacco a day. You’d think that would be enough, right? No, it wasn’t. In addition to that, I was chewing nicorette gum. Here’s the kicker though, the gum comes in two doses, 2mg and 4mg. I went for the big stuff, but decided to double up, so that’s 8mg of nicotine per chew…
Now it’s difficult to determine, but it seems that a single can of Skoal straight has about 30mg of nicotine. Nicorette sells their gum in strips of eight pieces, so that’s 32mg of nicotine per strip. If I averaged at my peak of consumption two strips of gum and one to two cans a day, that’s 94mg to 124mg of nicotine per day.
No comments:
Post a Comment