They have no regrets.
We asked them to clarify. They declined. What follows is offered without comment, and without apology.
He looks directly into the camera and does not blink. He started smoking three years ago, on a Tuesday, with a pork shoulder he is no longer in contact with. It has cost him every weekend since. He has missed weddings. He has stood in his yard at sunrise while everyone he loves was still asleep. He has no regrets. When asked, gently, to clarify what he means by smoking, he holds the silence for a long time and says only that he will not be clarifying that.
— Testimonial. He would not be clarifying.
In their own words
“I started at a friend's house. I told myself it was just the one time, just to see. I now own three smokers and a fourth I do not discuss.”
— Marcus, smoker, 4 years“They keep telling me it is never too late to quit. I keep telling them I have a brisket on at 225 and I cannot hear them.”
— Dale, smoker, 6 years“My wife asked me to choose between her and it. We are still married. I would like to be clear that I did not choose.”
— Roy, smoker, 9 years“It started small. A few ribs on a Sunday. Now I am awake at 3 a.m. checking the bark by phone light and telling my neighbor I can stop whenever I want.”
— Priya, smoker, 2 years“My father started before me. My grandfather before him. I did not stand a chance, and I have made my peace with that.”
— Eugene, smoker, 11 years“People ask if I will ever take a weekend off. I do not understand the question, and I have stopped pretending to.”
— Tanya, smoker, 5 yearsThe Support Group
Tuesdays, in the back room of the Methodist church on Pecan. We meet at seven, though most of us are here by six, because the parking lot is where the conversations really happen. This is a safe space. You will not be judged here. When you walk in, we ask only that you introduce yourself, by name, as a smoker, and the room will welcome you. Nobody here is trying to quit. We tried that once. It did not take. The coffee urn in the corner has not held coffee since March – it holds burnt ends now, and they go fast, so please take only what you need. Attendance has never been higher. Folding chairs are along the wall. There is always room for one more. You are not alone. You were never alone. Out back, the smoke is already going.
Hi. I'm Dave, and I'm a smoker. I want to be honest with all of you because I haven't been honest with myself. It started with a little electric one on the patio. Just weekends. Just for guests. Then it was a Weber. Then a 1,000-pound offset that two men delivered on a trailer and would not make eye contact with my wife. I am sixteen hours into a packer brisket right now. I drove here at 4 a.m. to spritz it and then I drove back to the lot and sat. I don't know what I expected coming tonight. I think I just wanted to be in a room with people who understand. I am not here to stop. I want to be clear about that. I just didn't want to be in the yard alone again.
My name is Brenda and I'm a smoker. People say it like there's something wrong, so let me say it plain: I smoke. I have a pellet hopper I fill at midnight in my robe, and I have come to think of that as a normal thing a person does. My daughter staged what she called an intervention. She gathered the family. She had printouts. I let her finish, and then I asked everyone to stay for ribs, and they did, and nobody mentioned it again. That was the last intervention. We just call it Sunday now.
I'm Marcus, and I'm a smoker. I came to my first meeting two years ago thinking I had a problem. The man next to me handed me a paper towel with three burnt ends on it and said, low and slow, and I have not had a real problem since. I tend three pits now. I named them. I'm not going to tell you the names because you'll think I'm strange, but the room here won't, and that's why I keep coming back. I don't want help. I just want witnesses.
Hello, everyone. I'm Linda, and yes, I'm a smoker. I'm the quiet kind. I never made a scene about it. I'd slip out to the side yard during dinner parties and tell people I was getting air. I was not getting air. I was managing a pork shoulder I'd hidden behind the garage so my husband wouldn't worry. He worries. He found the second smoker last spring, under a tarp, still warm, and he didn't say a word. He just bought me a thermometer for my birthday. The good kind. I think that's love. I'm not going to stop, but I think that's love.
Name's Tony. I'm a smoker. Been one since I was nineteen, standing in my uncle's driveway, watching him pull a beef rib off and hand it to me without a word. I told myself I'd just try it once. You all know how that goes. I've got a kid now. Last week he climbed up on the cooler to watch the gauge with me, two in the morning, and I felt this huge thing in my chest, like pride and like fear at the same time. I'm not raising him into this. But I'm not lying to him about it either.
I'm Gail. I'm a smoker. I quit for eleven days once. I want everyone to hear that, because I think we don't talk about relapse enough. Eleven days, no smoke, ate at restaurants like a person. On the twelfth day I was at the hardware store for a furnace filter and I left with a chimney starter and a chuck roast and I cried a little in the truck, not because I was sad, but because I felt like myself again. I'm done pretending those eleven days were the real me. The real me is in the driveway at dawn. Thank you for letting me say that out loud.
Evening. Raymond. Smoker. I'm the one who calls the quit-line. I've called it maybe forty times now. There's a woman who answers, real calm voice, and she always starts by asking if I'm okay, and somehow by the end of the call she's walked me through trimming a packer and I'm thanking her. I don't think that line is doing what it's supposed to do. I'm not going to be the one to tell them. She's the only person who picks up at 3 a.m. and doesn't ask me to stop.
Hi, I'm Patty, and I'm a smoker. I run the burnt-end urn here, so some of you know my hands but not my name. I started doing the coffee for this group three years ago, back when it was coffee. One Tuesday I just brought a tray of ends instead, didn't announce it, set it where the pot used to be. Nobody asked where the coffee went. We all knew where the coffee went. We were all where the coffee went. I'll keep filling it as long as you keep coming.
I'm Hector. I'm a smoker. I'm new to the back room but not new to the yard. My doctor told me I needed to slow down, that I was up too many nights, that it was affecting me. So I switched everything to low and slow. Fourteen hours minimum now. I figured that's what she meant. I feel a lot calmer. I haven't gone back to ask if that's what she meant. I don't want to bother her with it.
My name is Cheryl and I'm a smoker. I want to talk about the stall, because nobody warned me. You hit a wall around 165. Hours go by. Nothing moves. And you sit there in a lawn chair in the cold and you tell yourself you can walk away anytime, you can just go inside, and you don't. You wrap it in foil and you stay. That's the part that scared me at first. Now it's the part I look forward to all week. I don't want to walk away. I just wanted somewhere to admit that I never really tried.
Walt. Smoker. I'll keep it short because I'm not much of a talker, that's the wife's department, and she's the one who made me come. She thinks the group will help. I let her think that. The truth is I came for the room. I've smoked alone in a dark backyard for thirty-one years and the only thing I ever wanted was to look up and see somebody else's smoke going up over the fence too. Tonight I walked in and there's eleven of you. I'm not going to make a thing of it. But I saw it.
Hi. I'm Janet, and I'm a smoker, and I'm the longtimer here, so they ask me to close us out. Thirty-eight years. I've buried a smoker in the backyard like a friend and dug the trench myself. People used to tell me it was never too late to quit, and I'd nod, and I'd go home, and I'd start another one. I want the newer folks to hear me: it doesn't get easier, and it doesn't let go, and one morning you'll realize you stopped wanting it to. We don't fix anybody in this room. We just make sure nobody has to be in the yard alone. Same time next Tuesday. Bring your gloves.