Writing a new chapter without smoking - Joe Dimino, ep3

Hi, welcome to the You Can Quit Smoking podcast where we go over stories of success with overcoming smoking addiction. Many people have moved through this radical transformation and used smoking as an opportunity for inner growth, with deeper self-awareness and a greater capacity for compassion. So many have done it, and you can quit smoking too. I'm your host, Jessi Hartnett, founder of Honor Your Heart.



Jessi:

Hi there everyone! Welcome to the You Can Quit Smoking podcast. I'm joined here today by Joe. Can you introduce yourself Joe?



Joe:

My name's Joe Dimino. We interviewed before. I have a couple podcasts: I have a weekly jazz radio show called Neon Jazz and then I have Famous Interviews with Joe Dimino. I'm a busybody; I write and paint and it's one of my paintings back there. So I stay busy.



Jessi:

Yeah, Joe's definitely got a lot of interesting projects going on.



Joe:

Yeah, there's always something going on, for sure.


Jessi:

So do you want to talk to us about your experience with smoking?



Joe:
Yeah. So I guess I should go back to the beginning. My dad was a smoker. He was a car salesman and just came from that era. The pictures that I saw growing up of him in the military… So for context, he was born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island, joined the military to see the world and got stationed at Richards-Gebaur in Kansas City, fell in love and here we are, I'm in Kansas City. So all the pictures I ever saw of him was smoking, and of course when you're growing up all you ever see is smoking being glamorized, especially being a kid of the ‘80s. I didn't fly, but I remember there used to be ashtrays on flights. There was smoking everywhere. It was in media, all the musicians were doing it. I love Van Halen and all that. And they were sticking cigarettes on their little guitar strings and people were smoking– it was just everywhere. You know, it's vastly different from what we're experiencing today.


So I was pretty healthy in high school. I was a runner, athlete, into baseball. I just wasn't into it. Just wasn't my thing. And in my twenties–I started in my early twenties– I wanted to get into sports broadcasting. And my journey to that was to get into journalism. So I started writing for a newspaper called the University News at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. And they used to have this area downstairs that was smoking. And I remember I went down there and had

a few cigarettes. And my best friend at the time–still one of my best friends now–told me, “You know, you better be careful because if you keep doing that, you're going to go from a half pack to a pack, and it's going to be a habit.” I was like, "No, I'm fine. It's fine." Well of course it turned into a habit. I loved it. I smoked consistently–that was probably early '90s– '93, '94. And I didn't stop smoking until right before my son was born. So it was probably about ten years of heavy smoking.


I remember my dad being heartbroken when he realized that I was smoking, because he had three kids and all of us smoked. It was just a big deal. He just couldn't believe that everybody smoked. But it's that whole adage of, “Do as I say, not as I do”, kind of a thing. You know, if you see it and it permeates your world, you're just going to do it. I think as I started doing it, as I kept doing it, I knew that it just didn't feel good. I'd get to the end of being out all night and drinking or whatever, and I would just be coughing and hacking, and I just couldn't function. I didn't do a lot of exercising then. It was a dormant time of my life. So I inherently knew it was something I had to get rid of. It was not going to be okay.



And then the big catalyst was when I knew I was going to bring a child into this world. I wasn't going to make the mistake of telling them not to do it and me not doing it. It was just time. There were just so many factors, but especially for my son Miles, who's now twenty. I was like, “I got to quit.” And I did. And I thought it would be really difficult to stay away from in the beginning, but it ended up being one of the easier things to stay away from. My dad smoked until he was, I think, forty-five years old, when he had his first angioplasty. He had a clogged artery.


And I remember: he always tells the story of driving to the airport, and he had a pack of Marlboro Reds, and he rolled down the window and he threw the pack and it like… he explained that it looked like it was in slow motion. The pack flew and all the cigarettes were coming out of the pack and he was like, "That's it! I'm not going to smoke again.” And I think maybe he did just a little bit after that but not like a regular smoker. So, he used to tell me all the time that every night he would have a dream that he was smoking, and how much he missed it, how much he loved it. So every single night since he quit he would have a cigarette. And of course in my mind I'm thinking, “Well, maybe it's so woven into our DNA and our lineage that I'm going to have these feelings. But I just didn't. I mean, I had some dreams in the beginning, but it's not even one of those things that has been a residual. I smell the smoke and I don't even want to be around it now.


So anyway, yeah, I always feel like the ultimate takeaway from me quitting was I really did it for my son, but I will tell you the process of quitting was hardcore for me, because I did quit before. There was one other time I quit, and then I picked it back up. But this time I was like, “I have to get serious about it.” And I remember I had a journal, and I wrote in it. So anytime I would feel like I would want to possibly have the urge, I would write in the journal–statistics, and they were gruesome. Like: all of the Marlboro men, the Camel guys, the Winston guys, all of them died early. Anneurisms, heart attacks, bad things happened. I mean they all look like they were perfect specimens in the ads, but behind the veiled velvet curtain, there was a lot of really bad health things that were going on. But I just went through all the stats: how many chemicals were in it, cyanide, prune juice, and all of these crazy things that were floating around in there. I was taping pictures up in my apartment, so I would see lungs and all these things. I mean, I just went for it. In my journal I was taping gruesome pictures, and I just really got to the point where I repulsed myself with it. I just made it as gruesome as possible for that period that I quit. It was like a horror movie. And I remember too: when I quit, my lungs completely had to release all of the impurities and it was bad.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Joe:

Like, I was coughing up and all of that. And the other thing that got me, that's still a residual from that time that I remember, is that there's those little hairs that are on your lungs that get burnt down and out and back.



Jessi:

Yeah, the cilia.



Joe:

Yes, but everything else grows back. Everything–I think after ten years–gets back to–other than those–gets back to a place where you're in a good place. You've regenerated your body.



Jessi:

So when did you start feeling like you had gotten through some of the worst of it with all that stuff coming up from your lungs, and kind of like your body reawakening? Like, did it last days, weeks, months, do you remember?


Joe:

It was weeks. It was. It was for sure weeks. And I knew that the way my brain worked, I did not want to do gum or patches or anything. I wanted to do it naturally, because I just didn't subscribe to that idea of weaning off with something for something else. Because then psychologically you weave in this idea that if it's going to take an aid to get me out of it, maybe other things that would be crutches after the fact could be a part of it, like more drinking or more eating–which, you know, your appetite comes back. You are going to eat more, but I just wanted to temper it with healthy things that were natural.


Jessi:

So you started feeling better physically pretty soon after then?


Joe:

I think it was about two weeks.



Jessi:

Yeah. Did you have a lot of cravings after that initial few weeks? How long did your cravings last?



Joe:

I think it lasted a little longer than I thought. Just everything opened up: my taste buds came back, my sense of smell, like all of those things that, physically, you were kind of tamping down all those years, start coming alive. So everything seems to be more magnanimous. I remember food was more spectacular and flavorful, drinks, all of that stuff. And I think that there was just little things like certain meals or going out and having drinks or having a cup of coffee with a friend. That was difficult, but I was one of the few people in the group that actually did it and everybody else, and I just, I held fast. But at that point I got married, my son was born, I was a family guy, so I was preoccupied with other things. So it wasn’t like…



Jessi:

Busy.



Joe:

Yeah, it wasn't like I was in my single days, running around, just kind of immersed in that world, not knowing anything other than that. So it made it a lot easier to do that for my son; it was ultimately me doing it for a different life that I was going to live.



Jessi:

Yeah. That's a really interesting process with, like you said, repulsing yourself.


Joe:

Yeah.


Jessi:

That's easy to do, because there's lots of material out there, but somehow we managed to convince ourselves that, or justify…



Joe:

Yeah.



Jessi:

…that it's an okay thing to do, or it's in our benefit. So did you feel like there were certain things that you were looking for to smoking? Like, a common thing I hear is stress relief. That's something I had struggled with myself. So whenever I was stressed, that's when I would have the cravings and kind of think that somehow smoking would help things be less stressful. Did you have common emotions or feelings where you're just like, "Oh man, I wish I had smoking", and were able to kind of look at things differently with that?


Joe:

I think it was social, a lot of it, like going out and having roommates. My roommates always smoked. I love to write. Writing. I did a lot more writing and even when–I'm a painter too–I would paint it would be a part of my process and I just… but I think a lot of it was kind of augmented by just feeling creativity or the socialization aspect of it, but of course you know all of it too is just such a part of your life. Like, you look forward to it after a meal. The minute you have the cup of coffee in front of you, you light up. I mean, there was things that drew me in for sure.


Jessi:

So how were you able to keep writing in the beginning? Was it hard to have that creative process without smoking or did you find that you didn't need smoking? I mean, obviously you kept writing, you kept creating, so you were able to reconcile that. But was it difficult in the beginning?


Joe:

Probably so, but I think what I did was I took the mentality of while I was quitting and applied it to my creativity and just wrote about it. So there would be poems or there would be or even… I remember there was one painting I had–I can't remember when I did it–but I had a whole bunch of crushed cigarettes in it. So I kind of incorporated those themes into it. I think all of my creativity, as with most creators, it's all autobiographical. So you're delving into a process that's been a therapeutic activity for you, but you just hone in on what you're going through. So I would hone in harder on writing a poem about how I had an unbelievable burrito because I could finally taste it correctly, or you know, hot sauce was finally hot…



Jessi:

(Laughs.)



Joe:

…or lemon juice finally really was tangy because I wasn't dulling my senses. Little things like that. So I think it just kind of deterred me from all of those things, and I probably just abated it with a lot more gum. Like, I chew a lot of gum now and a lot of that I think was a part of that process of having something, because it's an oral fixation at the end of the day. And if you have sugar-free gum, it's totally fine. It's safe. It's not hazardous. It's like you're just transferring a bad habit for a healthy habit.



Jessi:

I think that's absolutely beautiful that you were able to use the things that you were passionate about, that you had joy for, and were able to transfer all that energy, discomfort and put it into art. That's absolutely amazing. What do you think the biggest change was in your identity, in your relationship with yourself–before smoking, after smoking–did it change the way you saw yourself or felt about yourself?



Joe:

I think it was one of those monumental moments where I knew I could do something really difficult, or if I decided I needed to go in and do something really difficult, that I could do it. It wasn't something that was preventing me from doing something else. I think it just gave me more confidence. And then of course, during that time when I was doing it–it was like ‘03, ‘04–that was really the beginning of all of these gums and patches and commercialization over it. So there was a lot of emphasis, because I believe it was around, a little before that time period, that the Surgeon General… there had been that Senate hearing where they admitted they lied about smoking.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Joe:

I always found that odd, because it's like if you even remotely have some kind of a grasp on reality, you know it's terrible for you. You don't feel good. It's never anything where you get done and you're energized.



But it is interesting the way Americans approach it versus Europeans, because I've heard many stories about how Europeans smoke and they still run marathons and do things. It's like they process it differently. It seems like in this country, it's more about dormancy and not doing anything. It's kind of a habit of people that just… it'll be a domino effect of things that can go awry and… like obesity and all of those things. It's just kind of this doom cycle. But for Europeans and other people around the world, especially Europe, I would say maybe it's just that culture that they drank earlier they got a handle on it, and maybe they didn't smoke as much as we did. But it just seems like when Americans go in, we just go all in. It just turns into a big thing.



Jessi:

Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about that before but yeah, in the countries where people smoke a lot, it seems like they still have better statistics in terms of heart disease and things like that. So that's kind of bizarre. It's interesting that you said that though because I've always wondered that myself, being someone that's come up in the culture that's well aware of the risks with smoking, how people didn't know. And I'm kind of wondering if you had seen that with your dad suffering at all because of the smoking. Because, like you said, you wake up— well at least in my experience–you wake up in the morning, you're coughing, you're not feeling your best. It's pretty apparent that it's slowing you down. But if you had that awareness when you went into smoking? Obviously, your dad was telling you, “Don't do it.”



Joe:

Right.



Jessi:

So if you kind of just were like, “Oh it's not going to happen to me.” Like, what kind of thought process you had for it being okay, or just if it was just curiosity–you had to see for yourself?



Joe:

I think it's about invincibility at that age. But I knew that that was really a part of a lot of health problems that he had. He was pretty overweight and didn't really eat well. He didn't exercise. There was a lot of things, but smoking was definitely a cornerstone of what he did. Yeah. And I know it didn't make him feel good. So when I even entertained the notion, or told him that I was, it was just like, he was just baffled, because he wanted me to do everything opposite. Like, I was a runner. I was very health conscious, and he was so happy that I wasn't doing it. Out of all of his kids, I was the only one at that point, when I was a teenager, that didn't smoke. So I think he was happy about that. But yeah, you want better for your kids, which is I think the reason why I carried on that generational impulse to prevent my son from seeing me do it. Yeah, I just wanted to end the cycle.


But yeah, I remember when I went to work with my dad when I was a teenager–he was a car salesman–and I remember one time I was in there. He was always dressed to the nines, always sold well. He was like a different creature when he was at work. And I remember one of the guys came up one time and said, "Hey, do you want to be like your dad one day?" And my dad interrupted before I could even answer, and he was like, "No, he's not going to be a dummy like me. He's going to go to college." And that always hurt my feelings, his way of wanting me to do different. And I think that the smoking, by extension, was something where he knew it was just not going to be okay. It was going to lead to a lot of issues. Because he really passed relatively early; he was sixty-four…



Jessi:

Yeah…



Joe:

…when he passed, so you know that was a precursor, that was a part of him having multiple heart surgeries and he was diabetic and there was all kinds of things that were going on, especially towards the end. So I think I knew that things had to change. Probably not exactly when the smoking happened. It may have all dawned on me a little later but I knew on a visceral level that I didn't want my son to see it and that it wasn't doing me any good, so I should get out before… Because you get to that age in your life where you look back and you’re like, “Man, why didn't I do that?” And with your health, you can't do that. You can't just say, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." There's other things that you can rectify and forgive that are emotional, but when it comes to your actual, physical body and your temple, you just can't do that. You can't hit reverse. You can't change the course. It's unfortunately woven into what you're going to deal with for the rest of your life.



Jessi:

Yeah. So do you think that you've had any lasting impact from the time you smoked, or do you feel like you have recovered? That it was in time? That you made the right choice at the right time?



Joe:

I think so. I think it was opportune and I've started exercising. I used to be a runner, but I can't do it because of my shins. I have bad shins. So I bike now, and I love being able to go out and really pull the air in, because I used to love that when I was a runner. I didn't think about it then because I wasn't a smoker, but it was just always so good to feel everything circulate, feel your body go through it, and I do that now. When I really get into a heavy bike ride, it's so good to just kind of let it flow like it did when I was younger. Yeah I think for the most part, a lot of that stuff, other than the little hairs, I think it's all really kind of regenerated. And it's kind of fun to talk about it right now in a podcast, because I just haven't thought about it that much for so long. So when we talked about it some months back and I'd kind of elongated on it, without you even prompting, or any real prompt other than I was walking down memory lane. It's very interesting to think about it, because it's so far out of my realm.



But I do find it interesting when I think about it. I work as an IT technician in a school district, Grand View here in the Kansas City metro, and they're installing vape detectors in the high school because kids are going to the bathroom to vape. And vaping is getting to a point where it's almost more lethal than smoking. And I find that an interesting psychological revolution now, that there's this notion that if it's vapor, it's not smoke, that somehow you're immune to it but you're actually more susceptible in a lot of ways.



Jessi:

Yeah, that is definitely rising up and I think it's part of that whole replacement idea that you were talking about where it's like, “Oh, do the patches, do the gum, that kind of thing.” Because that was really popular, I don't even know now, maybe fifteen years ago. It was like the e-cigarette was going to be the savior for all smokers. And I don't know, I tried it maybe once, I was like, "No."


Joe:

Yeah.



Jessi:

So I actually feel grateful, because I know so many people that got hooked on vaping and in some ways it can be more difficult, because it's easier to do. I think it's interesting they have new alarms.


Joe:

Yeah, yeah. From what I understand, the liquid nature of it getting incubated in your lungs is actually more destructive.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Joe:

But it is amazing to me how many chemicals they would put in cigarettes.



Jessi:

Oh yeah, it's horrific.



Joe:

Over the top. The thing that got me going, too, is I remember thinking, “Of all of the animals–because, at the end of the day, we're just like more evolved animals–but the whole planet's full of animals. We're the only animal that does this. No other animal.” It's not because we're bipedal or opposable thumbs or any of that. There's other animals that are like that. But like, “What animal in their right mind would pull that level of carcinogens into your orifice and let it just float through you and do that?” I just can't imagine.


It was so weird because it's expensive, too. And I find myself now going into the store–because I kind of lapsed on it–I knew there was that big judgment with the government and prices were going to go up to pay for all the damages that tobacco companies would have to do. But I was looking recently, and I'm in Kansas City, and things are relatively cheaper here than other places. But cigarettes are still nine dollars a pack, which means if you get a carton, that's almost a hundred dollars. I mean, when I was smoking, it was like, a dollar or something. I was just a single guy trying to make rent, and it might be ten dollars a carton. Now, if you smoked a carton a week, that's like five hundred dollars. Like, rent, mortgage, that's like serious stuff.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Joe:

And you’re killing yourself.



Jessi:

Right. It's all about the benefits you think that you're getting. So if you think you need it to make friends, to be in your creative process, you're willing to do anything. I think it's telling a lot that even when you raise the price, even when you have all the knowledge, all the science, people still choose it. So, it's definitely not that people aren't intelligent. It's emotional. It's spiritual. We think we need it and it's just an attachment. I can see why growing up with somebody doing it, you look up to that and it becomes something that you think is cool, or you at least want to try, so I think that's great that you were able to break that cycle with your son.


Joe:

Yeah.



Jessi:

It's really important.


Joe:

It is. It's huge. And you know, the other thing I was thinking about that was a part of that time period was that they had Camel Cash and they had Marlboro Miles…



Jessi:

Oh, wow.



Joe:

…and we would collect those and send them in and get backpacks…



Jessi:

M’hmm.



Joe:

…and we got all kinds of crazy stuff. I mean, we were getting shirts and sunglasses.



Jessi:

Yeah, I definitely had some of that merch around my place, too.



Joe:

Oh okay, yeah, we all collected it and it was a big deal and we smoked so much that we got all kinds of stuff out of it.

Jessi:

Yeah.



Joe:

It was weird. I guess I'm saying that because of the way that they used to market it. I remember at baseball fields they used to have the Marlboro Man, would be a big feature…



Jessi:

Oh, wow.



Joe:

…all the magazines, it would be on TV, it was everywhere. I remember when I used to look through old newspapers, when I was working at the U news. I used to look through old archive newspapers from the ‘50s and ‘60s and they literally had ads for Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes where there would be a surgeon with the cigarette out of his mouth and it would say, “Four out of five physicians say this is healthy for you.” What an inane, insane thing to do to people!



Jessi:

Yeah, yeah. I've seen it marketed as like a weight loss thing like, “Be healthy and smoke.” So it's crazy how much it's turned around.



Joe:

For sure.


Jessi:

So, do you have any last takeaways about smoking that you just want to share?



Joe:
The one thing I think coming from Missouri, with the legalization of marijuana, I think that's the big lure for the youth to get into that level of smoking. Even when I go to baseball games or events where they're smoking, I just don't see as many people as I used to. I think the numbers have gone down. But I think the only way that a lot of the younger generations are going to get into it is because of the legalization of marijuana. And you know, part of that is living in this insane world that keeps getting more insane.


Jessi:

Yeah.



Joe:

It's like that's almost becoming medicinal for a lot of the younger generations. But I think the thing is that it's going away. And I know that at the end of the day you can't just talk somebody out of it. Like my father-in-law, my wife's father, he's been smoking his whole life and he's never quit, and he's in his seventies. And it was just a part of the generation. He never quit. He doesn't really have a desire to quit. And that's totally fine. I mean that's like, when you get to that point, it is what it is. And there are some people from that generation that just aren't going to quit. They're going to keep going. I have some friends that quit, and now they've picked it back up. They went through that phase where they were done, but they still do it. I was with some friends the other night that celebrated a birthday and they went out on the porch and had a few. And I'm at a point now where I don't even want to have cigars. I literally don't want to pull anything into my lungs. I'm at a point where it's like, “I'm out.”



But I guess my final point of what I'm saying here is this: I never–even if there are people, if I'm at an event, out smoking–I just talk about how much fun I had when I did it.


Jessi:

M’hmm.



Joe:

I don't really get on them. I don't say, "Oh, you know, whatever." And I try not to even talk about it, because sometimes when you talk about it, it's almost kind of a passive-aggressive way of you saying, "I don't do it anymore, but I used to." But I guess the good news is that I think that there's going to be way less people each successive generation. I think this whole mistake of marketing and doing what they've done to cigarettes is going to go away. Not completely, tobacco industries are huge and they will keep this machine going. There's still a lot of money to be made. I think it's dwindling.



Jessi:

Yeah, I hope so. But I don't know, I don't want to take off on your last point here, but just like you said with marijuana, there will always be something that people turn to when they're not feeling well emotionally, when they feel like they're not enough, and they need something. So it'll be vaping, it'll be pot.


Joe:

Yeah.



Jessi:

But I think it is time for us to move on from tobacco, hopefully. We’ll see.



Joe:

Yeah, I hope so. I just don't see the youth doing it as much. Like, I have a stepdaughter. My son's twenty. He's on the spectrum. So I mean it's like, it's always been gross. It's not something that I see that he would even… he just can't be around it. But even with my stepdaughter and her friends, it was just not something that they did. Now, my friends and generations before, it was like, there was always people that were smoking. It was always something. There was almost a rebellious kind of thing, like, “I'm away from the parents; I'm doing my own thing.” But I just don't think that's happening now. So like you said, I think it's more of a pot thing. But at any rate…



Jessi:

Well, I think your story is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing, and I was wondering if you wanted to share any of the projects that you're working on and how people can get access to you and your art and your podcast?



Joe:

Yeah. So if you want to listen to my–if you have any interest in jazz–radio interviews it's Neon Jazz. You can google it. Famous Interviews is all on major platforms: it's on YouTube, it's on Spotify, it's on Apple Podcasts. And then my name: JoeDimino.com. I have a website with all my artwork out there. And there's links to everything on my socials and all of that. So all of that is out there if you want to dive into any more.



Jessi:

Yeah, I think you should really check it out guys, because Joe is interesting and his podcast is awesome to listen to. So, thanks again for coming, and I'll see you guys all next week on Tuesday. Thank you.



Joe:

Thank you. I appreciate it.


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