Older men with large bellies that threaten the buttons of their vests congregate in dim, walnut-paneled rooms. The air is full of high-stakes deals and the smoke of cigars.

That’s my vision of the back rooms of the Capitol Building. But it’s now a dated view because smoke in the back rooms of the Capitol is wafting in the same direction as the Republican majority. (And I don’t think anyone wears vests these days.)

Today, Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Speaker of the House of Representatives, banned smoking in the lobby of the Capitol Building just outside the House floor–effective immediately.

“The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over,” Pelosi said. “Medical science has unquestionably established the dangerous effects of secondhand smoke, including an increased risk of cancer and respiratory diseases. I am a firm believer that Congress should lead by example.”

What really tickles me is that House Minority Leader, John Boehner, R-Ohio, is a die-hard chain smoker.

Yes, I’m still smoking that one daily cigarette.

After my quit date last July, I told you that just setting the date is the hardest part of quitting. At that time, I never imagined I’d be hung up on one smoke a day.

The current issue of the British Medical Journal has a story on an Australian primary care organization that just announced its intention to deny surgery to smokers.

Consider the story of 47-year-old Brit, Harry Elphick, who suffered a heart attack in 1993. Physicians told him he needed bypass surgery–but refused to perform the surgery until Harry quit smoking.

Harry, indeed, kicked the habit. Unfortunately he also kicked the bucket before the surgery could be done.

It seems this practice isn’t limited to far-off Australia. It has happened in Britain, Canada, France and, yes, here in the U.S.

Dilemma

The rationale for denying surgery to those who indulge? Well, smokers are more prone to cardiac and respiratory complications. They don’t heal as quickly and their infection rate is six times that of a nonsmoker. Above all, treating them is more costly.

So, I’m thinking…

• Is it wrong to deny someone surgery just because he or she smokes?
• Is it wrong to deny elective surgery to a smoker?
• Is it wrong to refuse surgery to a smoker, when resources are limited and nonsmokers are waiting for surgery too?
• What if three patients could be treated for the cost of treating one smoker?

It’s an ugly issue. When do we deny treatment to people who are obese? Old? Depressed? A different color?

Or, perhaps, surgery should be denied to Madison’s infamous suicide bicyclists who ignore rules of the road and hurl themselves under the tires of moving cars like mine.

Although I felt wobbly as a hula doll in a rear window of a aging Chevy, I was absolutely committed to trying my hardest to kick the smoking habit on my original quit date, July 11. I was not at all sure I could do it.

But I succeeded for two whole months. Then I smoked on our vacation in Europe. Coming home, I didn’t smoke for two weeks. Since then, with scattered totally cigarette-free days, I’ve had one a day. And I just can’t seem to get past that single cigarette. I know I don’t feel the steel that motivated me in July. How do I get that back?

There’s Hope

Psychology Today’s online magazine recently re-ran an article titled, “The Six Principles of Change,” that offers some encouragement. Briefly, the six principles are:

1. Believing you can change is the key to success.
2. The way you change isn’t as important as your commitment to change.
3. Even brief treatments can help you change a long, major habit like my 35 years of smoking.
4. Life skills can be crucial to quitting. According to the article, this applies more to people who are debilitated by alcohol or drug addiction.
5. It usually takes multiple efforts to eventually find success.
6. “Improvement, without abstinence, counts.”

You can read the short article in its entirety by clicking on the link above the list.

I know not all people agree with this approach. Some of them send not-very-friendly notes. But, even though I’m smoking a cigarette a day, I will give myself credit for not going back to 15 or 20 a day. Nor have I been tempted to do so.

But how do I kick the single smoke?

American tall tales appeal to my sense of fun. I love children’s books and read to my kids every evening, with great dramatic flair. (You can’t beat tall tales for emotive oration.)

I grew up hearing about Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue ox, Casey Jones, Calamity Jane–and my favorite, that cyclone-roping, panther-ridin’ son-of-a-gun from Texas, Pecos Bill.

In 1948, Disney made “Melody Time,” an animated film short that features Roy Rogers and The Sons of Pioneers singin’ ’round the campfire tellin’ a hole heap o’ stories. Pecos Bill’s included–rollin’ his own cigarette and lightnin’ it with a lightnin’ bolt!

The cigarette was deleted in later versions of the movie, but people of a certain age will never forget Bill a grabbin’ that lightnin’ bolt.

The American Folklore web site offers stories about Pecos Bill and other tall tale heroes and heroines. Following is a tale from the site.

Pecos Bill finds a Hard Outfit
retold by
S. E. Schlosser

Well now, Texas jest became too tame for Pecos Bill once he killed off all the bad men, so he struck out for New Mexico, looking for a hard outfit. He asked an old trapper he met on the way where he could find a hard outfit, and the trapper directed Bill to a place where the fellers bit nails in half for fun. It sounded like a promisin’ place to Bill, so he set off. But his durned fool hoss got its neck broke on the way, and Bill found himself afoot.

Bill went a walkin’ with his saddle on his back. Suddenly, he come face to face with a rattlesnake ’round about fifteen feet long and lookin’ fer trouble. Now Bill wanted to be fair to the rattler, so he let it get in a few jabs before he beat the stuffin’ out of it. Being a kind man, when the snake was beat, he picked it up, wrapped it around his neck and carried it along with him.

They was a headin’ through a narrow canyon when a cougar thought he’d have a bit of fun and jumped them. Bill never turned a hair. He jest put down his saddle and then whipped the tarnation out of the cougar. Hair flew everywhere, blocking the light sose the jackrabbits thought it was night and went to bed. Finally that cat were so beat he cried like a lost kitten and jest licked Bill’s hand.

So Bill saddles him up and they tear off across them hills like forked lightening. Whenever Bill wanted to calm that cougar down, he’d just give him a tap with the rattlesnake. They set such a pace that they soon rolled into the hard outfit the trapper’d told Bill about. Quick as a wink, Bill jumps off the cougar, helps himself to some beans and coffee, wipes his mouth with a prickly pear and turns to look at the toughs sittin’ around the fire.

“Who’s the boss around here, anyhow?” he asks.

“I was,” said a big mountain of a feller about seven foot tall and wide, “but you are now, stranger!”

My delightful friend, Kathleen, has been a stalwart supporter in my effort to kick the evil cigarette habit. She’s a former smoker who shared the following story.

Neither a Lender, Borrower, Smoker
“I played all kinds of games with myself. For a whole year, I made the deal with myself that I would smoke only with my one dear friend who lived two miles away. So, when I had a serious jones, I would walk over there no matter what the weather or what time of day.

“We’d have a great, conspiratorial visit; I’d have my fix of three or four cigs and walk home. I’d buy her a pack every other time so I wouldn’t feel too guilty about it.

“Then once I saw a friend at a party and asked if I could bum a cigarette. She said, ‘Kathleen, do you realize that’s always the first thing you say to me?’ I didn’t realize it but after that I bummed fewer cigarettes from people and eventually I quit.”

I first met Kathleen about a year and a half ago and felt instant kinship–definitely not something I do often. At first, she reminded me a little of my good friend in high school, Lorre Crimi. (Yes, I can remember that far back.)
When I got to know her a little better she reminded me less of the days of yore and I just felt so fortunate to have met her because she’s truly an awesome, interesting person.

And she’s kind to me when I slip up.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

At a trade show a few years ago I was chatting with the Dutch representative of the chocolate conglomerate that was my client. We were commiserating about smoking when he announced, vehemently, “I will continue to smoke because getting fat is far more unhealthy.” (And this from a guy who markets chocolate!)

It’s amazing–the excuses we use to continue smoking; following are a few just for fun:

• “What would I do after making love? Talk?”
• “I thought I couldn’t afford to take her out and smoke as well. So I gave up cigarettes. Then I took her out and one day I looked at her and thought: ‘Oh well,’ and I went back to smoking again, and that was better.” Benny Hill
• “Food is now available in such unpleasant forms that one frequently finds smoking an aid to digestion.” Fran Lebowitz

It’s in the Stars

If you’re through making excuses and looking for fresh motivation, take a trip to a web site that tailors quitting rationale to your sign in the horoscope. No kidding!

What’s my sign? Cancer.

Whew…the holidays are over for another year. Our celebrations were relatively low-key. A good time was had by all at the family gathering and nearly everyone was happy with their gifts.

I’m still not quite smoke-free. What is my problem??!!

Jeff spoiled me this Christmas. The last few years he’s given me an extravagant scarf from the Metropolitan Museum. The one he presented to me last week was designed to be like the fabric on the dress of Madame X in the wonderful Sargent painting. (How sweet…and observant. I’d enjoyed a book about the painting last summer.)

Jeff also got the family the Rosetta Stone French language course! Could we possibly dare to dream of retiring to the south of France?!

World War I

I’m an avid reader and find it an excellent way to lose myself from thoughts of smoking. I tend to get a little obsessed with books on a single topic or writer. Since last spring, I’ve been binging on books about World War I. (A blundering disaster that cost 15 million lives and set the stage for the war to follow.)

It so happens that the popularity of smoking exploded during WWI, when cigarettes were seen as stress relievers. American soldiers even received cigarettes with their rations.

General John Pershing said, “You ask me what we need to win this war. I answer tobacco as much as bullets.”

The number of smokers in the U.S. continued its upward growth until 1964, when the Surgeon General finally acknowledged that smoking had a deadly impact on health.

Lung cancer was rare before 1900; in a 1889 German study, it accounted for only 1 percent of malignant tumors. By the 1930s, the medical community recognized a sharp increase in the disease. Today, lung cancer is the leading type of cancer that causes death.

And smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer.

Why can’t I kick that final daily cigarette?