Cool Cats Quit Cold Turkey: A Comic Zine on Quitting Nicotine

And a reflection on how this comic made me realize I don't hate myself anymore

This is a zine I wrote and drew last spring (2024), while I was in the throes of nicotine withdrawal. I hoped that documenting my misery and making a tangible reminder of why I wanted to quit would give me strength if I felt the familiar cravings returning—after all, this was far from my first time quitting. The result was a reflection on the reasons that I began smoking in the first place.

I started smoking in my junior year of college. In the week before the first day of classes (and my first time being back in a classroom after over a year of Zoom University) my dad was hospitalized after a premature stroke, our family had to re-home our dog as a result, and I entered into a confusing, abusive relationship that began with extremely dubious consent immediately following the former two events (he was aware).

I had always lived cautiously, being a naturally risk-averse person who feared unknown consequences whether they be good or bad, but after that I felt so hopeless and angry that I decided to stop caring. Why bother? I had spent my life mentally and physically preparing myself for Something Bad to happen, but when it did I still didn’t know how to cope with it in a healthy way.

I knew I liked cigarettes. I had smoked eleven in one weekend as a college freshman in a very uncharacteristic display of reckless behavior before throwing out the rest. Even then I knew I liked them too much. When you’re as paranoid and anxious as I am, you start living with a physical bodily tension that never goes away. You can see it in my posture, feel it in the knots that roll and catch painfully in every major muscle group in my body. To someone like me, that first nicotine head rush—a sweeping heady buzz that settled over my brain like a blanket, diffused down to the soles of my feet—was the first time I had felt myself relax in a long time.

Flash forward two years and I was starved for comfort. I felt the exhaustion and defeat of knowing that there was no way I could have prepared myself for the Something Bad, and yet I had wasted years of time and energy thinking I could somehow protect myself from a grief I had only ever read about in books, and knew nothing about in actuality. The caution that had stopped me the first time dropped away, and I bought a pack of cigarettes.

When I think about that time in my life as I write this now, more than three years later, I cry for myself. But the difference is that instead of shame and self-hatred, I feel forgiveness, compassion, and love. I did the best I could. I made some bad choices from confusion, trauma, and self-hatred. I wanted to feel in control, so I pretended I was okay with everything. Choosing to accept harm and to harm myself was still a choice, and I needed to feel like I was making choices.

But my circumstances had changed. I had made friends that I loved dearly, who not only met me when I was at rock bottom, but stuck around, loving and caring for me when I was messy and raw. Friends who supported me, who pulled me out of that abusive relationship, who cooked me meals when I didn’t care to eat, who listened to me, who shared music with me, and who held me when I cried. I fell in love with someone kind, patient, and good. I learned that I am someone who wants to love and trust people more than I am afraid of being hurt. I learned that I want to be happy, and that I am okay with the risks that come with wanting happiness.

I chose to quit nicotine to prove to myself that I cared about my life. I didn’t want to be someone who ran away from her problems. Who thought blowing smoke at the shitshow would turn her into someone cool, reckless, and untouchable. Who grasped and then clung to a small comfort that I knew was hurting me because the alternative was confronting my grief, sober and vulnerable. I owed it to the people in my life who carried me through the pit to become someone who could return that care and love to the best of my abilities. I owed it to myself.

I hope that this comic helps you or someone in your life, the way that drawing it helped me.

- Cat