The pen hovered over the line. A fraction of an inch above the crisp white paper, maybe 1 millimeter, but in that gap resided five years of effort, doubt, and silent, grinding war. The question, standard fare on the yearly benefits enrollment form, was ruthlessly concise: “Have you ever smoked?”

It’s a brutal demand, this linguistic tether. Why must my current identity-the person who runs 10K races and smells faintly of espresso and clean air-be perpetually footnoted by a mistake made in 1991? We don’t ask a surgeon if they are a ‘former medical student who struggled with anatomy.’ We don’t label a successful novelist as a ‘person recovering from a bad first manuscript.’ Yet, the language of recovery, of cessation, of quitting, insists on keeping the past wound slightly ajar.

My initial impulse, the one drilled into me by every self-help book and support group, was to check ‘Yes’ and write the date of last use. Be honest. Acknowledge the struggle. But the sheer mechanical movement required to check that box felt like a betrayal of the present. It felt like volunteering for a costume I hadn’t worn in half a decade, a sudden, cold wave of recognition that I was perpetually a tourist in the land of non-smokers.

I remember talking to David A., a pediatric phlebotomist I met randomly at a hardware store while trying to figure out which stain shade matched my newly installed pergola. He has the steadiest hands I’ve ever seen, necessary when dealing with small, squirming patients. I asked him once-completely out of context-how he handled the emotional toll when a child screams or a parent looks at him with visible suspicion. He shrugged. He told me the real trick wasn’t the technique; he had the technique down since the first 231 successful draws. The struggle was convincing the adults he wasn’t defined by the one time he’d missed a vein and had to try again.

“If I walk in thinking, ‘I am the guy who missed before,’ I will miss again,” he told me, leaning on a stack of tongue-and-groove cedar. “I have to walk in thinking, ‘I am the guy who gets the blood.'”

This distinction is vital, especially in the early stages where the mental gymnastics are exhausting. When the ritual is broken, the mind scrambles for replacement comfort. The sheer effort required to transition from the daily, ingrained routine-the 41 predetermined moments a day when the hand reaches automatically-to nothing is immense. Managing that immediate, visceral withdrawal often requires a structured approach, maybe even a substitute behavior that helps transition the mind without replacing the dependence entirely. Sometimes, finding that regulated step-down, that point of control, is the key to dissolving the old identity, rather than perpetually fighting it. We strive for freedom, but often we need a disciplined path to get there, something that helps manage the edge-a process similar to what companies like Calm Puffs try to provide: structure for the transition.

I once made a specific mistake about five months in. I started using the past tense for myself: “I used to smoke.” I thought that was enough separation. But even then, I was still giving the habit headspace. I was defining myself relative to it. The realization only hit me later: using the past tense is still acknowledgment. True freedom arrived the day I forgot the habit existed, not the day I beat it.

David A. talked about the cumulative effect of small successes. He said he learned more from the 171 patients who barely noticed the prick than from the few who screamed the hospital down. It’s the unremarkable wins, the days that pass without incident, that erode the old identity.

It’s the perfect parallel park on a busy street-not because you fought the steering wheel, but because the knowledge of alignment and dimension has become instinctual and effortless.

The challenge is that the cultural narrative focuses intensely on the struggle. We are obsessed with the journey, the battle, the heroism of refusal. We praise resilience. But in doing so, we sometimes inadvertently reinforce the idea that the old habit is a powerful adversary we must constantly monitor, rather than a ghost we should allow to fade.

There is a tremendous amount of fear woven into the identity of the ‘former something.’ Fear of relapse, fear of losing credibility, fear that the true self is still lurking underneath, waiting for a moment of weakness. And because of this fear, we intentionally keep the label on-a painful reminder, a self-imposed restraint intended to protect us, but which ultimately limits our evolution.

We criticize our past failure by constantly announcing our status as ‘former.’ We should instead just do what the non-smoker does: not smoke, and not talk about not smoking. We should do what the competent phlebotomist does: get the job done without preamble or apology.

I finally put the pen down on the paper. I checked the box next to ‘No.’