Over 20 some years ago, I smoked around two to three packs of cigarettes a day. I enjoyed it. After breaking into the poker business, I smoked even more when I sat at the table for long periods of time. After a few years of watching some of our over 50 poker players that could barely breathe without gagging when they walked a few steps to get coffee or hit the head, I knew I couldn’t do that to myself. To watch them gag and cough up whatever it was that rumbled around in their chest, and know that if I continued in the same vein, I would be paying monetarily to completely ruin my quality of life as I aged. Thinking ahead to my 50s or 60s, and seeing the shape that they were in (some of them had their voice boxes removed also) and knowing that I had done it myself left me resolute to quit smoking.

I was also living with a guy that did not smoke and he hated the thought that I did. I’m sure that may have helped to a degree although I resented him telling me I had to quit. I think that reverts back to hating any form of control, I didn’t want someone telling me I couldn’t do it even though I knew it was horrible for me. I had actually attempted to quit smoking long before then, but watching the older patrons of the poker game was the icing on the cake.

I quit six different times before it finally worked; for six months once, for a year two different times, for two years at one point, and for eight months at one point. Each time I quit, I was fine for the first few months – and don’t go anywhere thinking that we had the patch, or Nicorette, or anything to ease the urge in those days, everyone that quit back then quit COLD TURKEY.

Each time I quit, about two to three months after I quit, I started dreaming that I smoked. I would wake up in the morning feeling as if I’d smoked a carton the night before. The dream and waking state was so intense that I had to literally shake myself out of the aching throat and raspy feeling and convince myself it was only a dream. That by itself was part of the reason that I started again each time, I just couldn’t shake it and it was as if I hadn’t quit. I finally made it…the sixth time is a charm. I believe the reason that I finally made it is because I managed to remove the image of me smoking from my thoughts. Believe me, I had tried everything including visualization, drinking gallons of water with lemon, taking a walk when I thought I wanted one, making myself stop and wait for a half a minute if I had the horrible urge (it usually goes away within a few seconds once you get past it), chewing gum, etc., etc. But even now, some 20 years later, I still have a dream where I smoked. It doesn’t affect me the same way and I have no desire to smoke anymore. The thought of pulling smoke into my lungs makes me want to go puke.

Enter giving up coffee in the first week of May. The first few months of no caffeine were fine. I really didn’t think about it too much. Then BOOM! It pops into my thoughts out of nowhere…wonderfully divine, aromatically tantalizing, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and I WANT A CUP OF COFFEE SO BACK I COULD SPIT! Then the dreams started. Sure, I dream I’m drinking coffee. Most certainly I could have a cup of coffee, that’s not the most horrible thing in the world I could do to myself, but now I’m into almost three months without it so why start?

But here’s the sickest part, I’ve had two intense dealing dreams in the last few days. They are strange, not related to anything and why am I having them? I may be a psychologist’s nightmare (or dream).

One of the dreams still has me laughing. I was taking a seat in a game – as a player – and Sam Grizzle was in it. Sam being in a game I would play in really isn’t far fetched because he can’t always find someone to fund his buy-in into a bigger limit game. In the last six months I’ve seen him in $5-10NLH, and in $15-30H and the $40-80 Mixed. As I started to take my seat, Sam was explaining to another player in the game that he had signed a petition to stop tipping dealers and he stopped to look at me, gesturing that it was my fault. The other player left the game, telling me that he couldn’t play in a game with me and I told him to have a nice day. Too damn funny!

The other dream was too bizarre, almost too distorted and strange to even explain. I was at the Excalibur and hired as a temporary dealer and when I sat down in the box, it had shelves that popped out into the dealing area and they had to be pulled back in and hooked out of the way, and the chips were rocks. I know…rocks? The only hand I dealt was a split pot. Some of the rocks were huge and three were laying on top of the smaller rocks and I gave two big rocks to one player and one to the other player and explained to everyone that I had found two smaller rocks that looked like they equaled the size of the big rock so the pot was right so far…it all made sense and everyone went for it.

Then as dreams go, I was trying to deal another hand and the shelves kept popping out in the way and one of the players was complaining at me that they had only looked at one hand. I know, I know, but these damn rocks and shelves are screwing everything up.

The next thing I knew I was on my way to the shift supervisor, telling him that I was done. He said to take a break and check back and I told him that I was DONE, as in quit, leaving, didn’t want to be there.

So much for dreams…