Stonecipher brought something to my attention this morning (thanks, stone!!) It's worth mentioning, I think.
I gave up my 23-year Quit on the last Inauguration Day back in 2008. No, that's not a typo. Yes, I said TWENTY-THREE year Quit.
It had nothing to do with the fact that it was Inauguration Day. That was just peripheral. My sister came down to DC to go to the Inauguration and stayed with me for a week. She smoked back then. We went to the Inauguration and when we got home that night, we opened a bottle of wine. We bundled up and went out on the patio so she could smoke.
I said, "Lemme have one of those". She said, "Are you sure?". I said, "Of course! I quit 23 years ago. I hardly remember what it's like to smoke. I just want to try one again."
Yeeeeah. That was all it took. The next day, I bummed three cigarettes from her. The day after that, I bummed seven cigarettes. The day after THAT, she said, "Go buy your own!" So I did. And I smoked a pack a day, every day, until I quit again on Sept 27, 2012.
And THAT, my friends, is a cautionary tale if there ever was one. The Nico-Demon in your brain is a sleeping giant. Just one cigarette, or even just one puff, can wake him up and turn him into a raging monster again.
The GOOD news is that here we are, on another Inauguration Day four years later. And I don't smoke. And I never will be so naive again to think that "one won't hurt...".
