Dirty Bitch

Were you ever obsessed with a dirty bitch?

In French, la sale copine means “dirty girlfriend.” But in slang, it lands closer to dirty bitch.

Maybe you’ve had one too.

I sucked on one of those bitches for 43 years.

She was sexy. She made me feel sexy. She was fun—loved to party, loved a good Haitian rum. She calmed me when I was anxious. She pulled me out of crowds when I needed air. She understood my anxiety—she was the only one who could soothe it.

Honestly? She was more reliable than most people I’ve dated.

She was always there.

Maybe you’ve had something like that.

Something that felt like a friend. A lover. A lifeline.

And still…

I hated her some days. I would tell her to fuck off, but she rarely did. I was my total codependent self with her.

Cigarettes—the dirty bitches—were my addiction for 43 years.

Have you ever had an addiction? Nicotine, alcohol, heroin, love, sex, video games—pick your poison.

I wasn’t a casual smoker. I was a chain smoker. People knew me with a cigarette in my hand. It wasn’t just a habit—it was part of my identity.

And maybe you know that feeling too—when the thing you rely on starts to feel like the thing that’s quietly killing you.

In my midlife reckoning, I started asking myself not just how I wanted to live the second half of my life… but how I wanted to die.

One of the worst ways? Lung cancer.

In France, every cigarette pack shows you exactly where this ends. The photos are brutal. There’s one with a tube in a man’s throat—I couldn’t shake it. (But there was also a funny/not so funny one of a toddler smoking a cigarette who looked exactly like my nephew.)

But more than that, I didn’t want to burden my son. I didn’t want him taking care of me, watching me fade, watching me suffer.

Maybe you’ve had that moment—the one where it’s no longer abstract. Where you can suddenly see the ending. That’s what happens when we walk through midlife. We ask the hard questions.

Like many of you who are or were addicted to nicotine, I tried everything to quit. Patches, gum, hypnotism, ear seeds, lasers, acupuncture, medication.

Nothing worked.

The only times I quit in 43 years?

Nine months when I was pregnant.

Three weeks for surgery.

That’s it.

My best friend, Lolo, had the same addiction for 40 years. We smoked everywhere—especially roaming around Haiti. In our 40s, we felt untouchable. We couldn’t imagine life without cigarettes. We actually said it out loud:

We’ll die as smokers.

That was the plan. A terrible plan. But still… a plan.

So it shocked us—and everyone around us—when we quit on November 25, 2025.

We went on a medication from a doctor in Spain called Todacitan. A 25-day course. No nicotine.

From the first pill, the urge to smoke disappeared. Gone. I followed the first-week protocol—one pill every two hours—and the craving stayed away. Lolo didn’t feel it either.

But something else showed up for me.

What came instead was an emotional storm I hadn’t felt for years.

I’ve heard grief and rage live in the lungs.

If that’s true, mine were in pain.

For three days, I barely ate or slept. I lay in bed trying to meditate and instead found myself screaming into a pillow—for hours. At one point, I woke Lolo just to hold me so I could come back down.

I reached out to friends. Some showed up. Some didn’t have the capacity.

At one point, I thought I might jump off my balcony. That’s how loud it got when the numbing disappeared.

And then… five days in, it passed.

The nicotine left my system.

And I had cried it out.

Since then, I haven’t had a single urge to smoke. I can be around smokers and still don’t want to smoke. Lolo hasn’t smoked either.

I’m so proud of us. Totally shocked. But mostly proud.

But here’s what I learned:

There is no way out of addiction except through it.

I didn’t just quit the nicotine—I had to face everything it had been protecting me from.

And when it was gone, what was left felt like a wide, empty space. What the fuck was I supposed to do with all of that space that had opened up?

I had to answer that.

Boardgames and gyms were never my thing. Knitting had become popular but I don’t have the patience. What else could I do?

Eventually, I found my rhythm and found some replacements for that now empty space.

I filled mine with writing.

With walking.

With reading.

With art.

With learning French. (I’m still bad but committed.)

With adulting.

So if you’re standing at the edge of addiction—wondering if you can let it go, wondering who you are without it…

You’re not alone.

It’s not just about the quitting.

It’s about what gets to come in after.

So now? Looking back at that dirty bitch? Where is she now?

She’s finally where she belongs.

In the gutter.

Probably flirting with someone else.

Listen to this week’s episode on Spotify and Apple Podcast!