text: Patrick tried to stop smoking five times in his life. None worked, of course, because all sad people love some ciggies and, obviously, they are addictive, and also delicious and comforting as fuck, so Patrick couldn’t help but smoke two packs a day. Today, he said to himself, he would stop it once and for all. His antidepressant was working and his constant sadness was under control, even though he could not cum anymore and was being described as looking like an “emotional zombie”, a situation which made him coin an iconic phrase: “I had more fun in hell”. Noneless, he was sure this time he would not put a single cigarette in his mouth. The first method he tried was going out with his folks to smoke some weed instead. George and Mark, his best friends, were huge stoners and knew a guy in the neighbourhood who sold the best weed in the American continent, as a whole. On a side note, Patrick had never tried weed - and never wanted to, since he had an anxiety disorder which made him feel scared of everything and everyone. George and Mark were his best and only friends, the ones who he felt he could trust and who also understood what he was going through, you know, with mental illness and stuff. So George and Mark took Patrick to a penthouse in a random guy’s house, and there they were, rolling fat joints of marijuana. Turns out Patrick knew nothing about weed culture and how those gatherings worked, so he just waited while George, Mark and the random guy passed the joint. When the joint finally lied in Patrick’s hands, he kinda had an anxiety attack. His stomach was cold, full of butterflies, and his chest was achy as fuck. But then he thought to himself: What’s the worst thing that could happen? And nothing came to his mind. So he just put the thing in his mouth and inhaled it the way weed newbies do, and it didn’t take long until he had the worst panic attack of his life. It was a rough night. Patrick hallucinated, because even though few people are aware of this, weed is a hallocinogen. He had visions of demons and remembered things about his childhood he never knew happened. He shit his pants. He dehydrated and had cotton mouth. He thought he would die. But, therefore, he didn’t, but the next thing he knew was that he had Depersonalization Disorder from that traumatic bad, bad trip. So one day, at home, he grabbed a cigarette and thought about smoking it, but, afraid that it would worse that dream-like state he was living in, he did not. So he went to the doctor and was prescribed more antidepressants to try to snap out of the derealization and also asked if he could take some magic pill to stop the withdrawn symptoms. And, for Patrick’s delight, he was prescribed Bupropion, an antidepressant with the power of being able to quit smoking without suffering. “I already suffered enough”, he thought to himself. The first night Patrick layed in his bed after taking Bupropion, he took a long time to fall asleep, and when he finally did, he had the worst nightmare he could have had: He dreamed he was being chased by gigantic cigarette-shaped humanoids who were trying to eat his brain. When he woke up, he couldn’t move and couldn’t scream - Which would be useless, since Patrick lived alone. This condition, as he would learn, was known as Sleep Paralysis and was a side effect of Bupropion. So Patrick stopped the Bupropion and decided the only way he could quit smoking without it being too risky for his fragile mental health was an online chat. He grabbed his laptop and browsed to the website where he would find his cure. A lady called Beth was designated to support him, and she was very, very kind. He started typing words about his withdrawal symptoms, but before he could predict, there he was, playing the role of the lonely guy with almost no friends and still a virgin at twenty-one. Beth tried to warn him that his personal problems were not to be discussed on online “quit-smoking” chats, but that did not stop Patrick from trying to form a bond with her, whom he already considered a “friendaphist” - An adjective he liked to use to describe friends who are very comprehensive and sweet. The days went by, and Patrick couldn’t help but imagine what Beth looked like. Maybe he was in love with her, who knows. He kept browsing the online chat in the hope that Beth would be the one to assist him, but the shuffle mode that designated the person who would chat with him was definitely not on his side. One day, he stopped trying to communicate with Beth. It was an impossible romance, just like the movies - But that didn’t mean that he stopped thinking about her. He even found a therapist, an old man who was the opposite of Beth, to try to deal with his obsession with the online chat lady. Three months of therapy went by and Patrick was dissociated, having Bupropion withdrawal and biting his nails over a platonic love - And still wanted to smoke ciggies. Of course by now the nicotine withdrawal symptoms were gone, but that also meant an immense, painful hole on his heart that could only be solved by a piece of burning tobacco. So there he was. His depression worse than ever, his loneliness hurting his feelings. There must be a way to replace the nicotine missing in my psyche, he kept thinking. So he called George and asked for help. “Why didn’t you try the chewing gum?”, asked George. Of course. How dumb he was. There is always nicotine replacement therapy to save the day. Patrick went to the drug store on a Sunday morning, and ordered two boxes of nicotine gum. He went home and chewed two of those at the same time, both containing four miligrams of nicotine - He was chewing eight miligrams. Soon enough, Patrick discovered he had regressed: He was addicted to nicotine once again, and the gum only made him miss the taste of a cigarette even more. Also, the more gum he chewed, the more nauseous he got, plus a terrible headache due to nicotine superdosing. Turns out Patrick was one of those people who simply were not made to stop smoking. When he realized that, he bought three packs of king size ciggies and smoked all of them in one afternoon. Yeah. Sometimes we need to stick to what makes us feel good, because what else is gonna save our lives, even if it also kills you.