Smoking ban about to kick in for Navy submarines

Starting Jan. 1, one of the liveliest spots aboard most submarines will wither away into the history books.

RIP, Smoke Pit.

Its death was scripted in April, when Navy officials announced smoking would no longer be allowed on submarines at sea. The reason: Testing showed that despite air filtering, there were "unacceptable levels" of secondhand smoke on submerged submarines.

Chief Petty Officer Robert Mueller Jr. used to head to the smoke pit before and after his shifts as assistant navigator aboard the Albany.

It was always a popular spot. Los Angeles-class attack submarines like the Albany allowed smoking in the engine room at the very back and very bottom of the boat, a spot that typically was the nerve center of the boat. It was where gossip - "gouge," in Navy lingo - was traded. Only three men were allowed to light up at a time, so lines formed quickly.

"That's where you really find out what's going on," Mueller said. "The most common denominator is it's like the only escape that you have, the only place you can go that's not work-related. It's like, 'I'm going to take five and I'm going to go smoke.' "

Creature comforts are few aboard a 360-foot-long metal tube crammed with 140 men unable to access sunlight or fresh air. A crew's indulgences typically boil down to three things: food, coffee and cigarettes.

For many members of the Navy's "silent service," the idea of a cruise without cigarettes was akin to a deployment without another staple of submarine life: copious amounts of coffee.

The Norfolk-based Albany was on deployment this spring when the smoking ban was announced. Fireman Randall Fogle, a two-pack-a-day smoker, remembers his reaction: "I thought they were damned crazy," he said.

He wasn't alone. About 45 percent of the Albany's crew members were tobacco users.

The job of helping crew members who wanted to quit smoking fell to Chief Petty Officer Allen Truhn, the Albany's independent duty corpsman, or "doc."

While the sub was deployed, he led smoking cessation classes for interested sailors and supplied nicotine patches and nicotine gum to those who wanted to quit as soon as possible.

Although many sailors rely on prescription medication to help them quit - Zyban and Chantix are popular options - they aren't available for submariners, because psychotropic drugs are forbidden for the 11,600 sailors assigned to subs.

Mueller was one of Truhn's "patients." After 26 years of smoking, he decided it was time. His previous attempts at quitting had lasted a couple of weeks or a month at most.

Many of his comrades doubted he could do it.

"Doc and I have had a lot of nice talks," Mueller said in late November, when he had been smoke-free for two months. He chewed nicotine gum for three days, he said, then went cold turkey, assuring himself that physical addictions can be broken in seven days. After that, he insisted, it's a mental issue.

Instead of chewing gum, Mueller deals with cravings by drinking more coffee - he pulls out a Starbucks gift card to indicate his favorite brew. "Twenty-four years on subs, I drink coffee like it's water," he said.

Truhn said some of the sailors who quit have put on weight, compensating for cigarettes with food.

Fogle, the fireman, acknowledges putting on about 10 pounds since he quit. Now, he said, he has no desire to light up. His new habit? He points to his mouth, and the chewing gum he relies on as a substitute. His selection this frigid day: Wrigley's 5 Solstice gum. The 15-piece pack was full this morning, Fogle said. Now, late morning, it's more than halfway gone.

Fogle remembers the last time he smoked aboard the Albany. He'd waited in line for 45 minutes. The fact that he had to wait so long to do something he knew wasn't good for him finally put him over the edge. He quit cold turkey.

A submarine's close-knit community is an asset when sailors want to make a change for the better, Fogle said.

"If you do something, somebody knows about it," he said.

Weeks after kicking the habit, he bummed a cigarette off a crewmate. Fogle had it in his hand when the sailor asked, "Didn't you quit? Give that back to me!"

"It's not really worth it to continue smoking," Fogle said. "When I run now, I feel so much better." Financially, he's better off, too, spending $15 a week on gum, instead of $65 or more on butts.

Not all sailors have been as successful.

"There are a few that have struggled," Truhn said. "You're going to slip up. The idea is that you get back on the horse."

There are lots of upsides, such as a lot more storage space aboard. According to Truhn, some smokers used about a third of their allotted locker space to stash smokes that would last them through the deployment.

Was the crew grumpier as it dealt with tobacco withdrawal? Fogle thinks the opposite is true: People seem nicer, he said. They seem less stressed out. "People I know who've quit just seem happier," he said.

Mueller thinks the submarine force was wise to end smoking across the fleet instead of leaving it up to individual boats. Because it came from the highest levels of the submarine community, crew members knew it was useless to blame the captain or try to reverse the ban.

The boat's leadership also made a few key decisions to help the crew quit, including reducing the hours when smokers could indulge. It went from almost anytime to just a couple of times during the day.

"It was a progressive thing," he said. "First, it was just on either side of the watch stations. That forced you to cut back."

The Albany beat the Navy's deadline. It went smoke-free after returning from deployment in August.

Truhn said about 30 sailors attended his smoking cessation classes over a five-week period while the sub was under way. About 15 used nicotine patches and 20 chewed the gum, part of a 12-week program. Only one of the gum-chewers came back for an additional supply after the 50 pieces were gone, he said.

The chief petty officers on the Albany have embraced the policy change, Truhn said. Of the boat's 17 chiefs, only two or three still smoke, he said, and they're all in the process of quitting.

Though the ban on smoking while under way only applies to submarines for now, Albany sailors have no doubt their brothers and sisters on surface ships will soon be following in their footsteps. Big Navy isn't going to allow smoking on ships forever, they predict.

"It's coming," Fogle said.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com