My last cig was on july 3, so I count July 4 (independence day--pretty clever, eh?) as my no-smoking anniversary, which means it's two weeks today officially.
I didn't quit on independence day on purpose. The doc made me do it.
Still, feels pretty good except when it feels really bad.
Thank you all for your encouragement. Frank Paynter says I'm over the worst of it now. I remember how easy it was to "have just one" after quitting for 4 years, so I'm not sure I'll ever be over the worst of it. It's amazing the stories an addict tells themselves.
I once explained the thinking process in quitting to a friend who never smoked. It is true addict thinking that takes over the want-to-be quitter. Logic doesn't really work. In those moments when the craving hits, every single valid, rational, well-rehearsed reason for quitting you've given yourself---even if you just recited them two minutes prior---vanish. Gone. Into thin air. You remember nothing, nada, can't think of a single reason in the world why having a cigarette at that given moment would be a bad idea. It's like amnesia. Until you're in the middle of an inhale, you really have no conscience because you're really not conscious.
As soon as the wave passes, all those reasons come back into your mind--OH RIGHT! I can't smoke, OH I'm so glad I didn't light one up, oh MAN I would have blown two weeks straight, OH JEEEZE and there's Jenna, and OH CRAP THAT'S RIGHT, I'm on that medicine where I could die of I keep it up, and RIGHT I remember now!!! Duh! How did I forget all that?!?!
Then the next wave comes, and it's la-la-land can't think of a single reason, can't summon one good reason why having a cigarette would be a bad idea, just can't think--trying to think, but can't--of a reason why I shouldn't enjoy just one..... hmmm... seems like there was some reason I'm not supposed to, but no, nope, can't think of what that might be.
I wish I weren't an addict. I had a cousin, Louise, who, for as long as I knew her (decades), had one cigarette each day, just after dinner. Never more. She enjoyed that one cigarette in its oneness in a way I never could.
No sooner would I light it than wonder what I'll be up to next. Not Louise though. She'd sit back and relax, smoke her cigarette, make it last longer than mine ever did, and then she was finished. Just like that. On to other things without wondering when she'd have another. Without worrying that she might not have another.
What is that gene I'm missing? I don't have the "enough is enough" gene. I have the "if one is good, than 160 must be g-r-e-a-t!" gene.
Oh, wait a minute. I just remembered Louise married into the family.
Figures.
