Though I've known for a little while now that I wanted to quit, I've been slow to tell people. I think I'm afraid that they'll judge me if I fail or they won't want to hang out with me anymore. I met two of my closest friends in training for our job. We all smoke. That's really what got us to know each other. One of those friends has been a fairly constant companion throughout the pandemic. We started doing Friday Night Brews back in April where we would just sit on the porch at my apartment and have a couple beers and chat and essentially chain smoke for several hours. When we were comfortable enough to re-enter society when things started opening back up, we would just drive around and go on random errands (some necessary and some not). And we smoke the whole time we are in the car. She and my husband and I went to Washington DC in August for my 30th birthday. We were there for other things, it just happened to fall on my birthday, but it was a phenomenal weekend. And except for when we were in areas where we couldn't smoke, we smoked an awful lot. My husband is a smoker too. Now that we are in a new house, Brews Night has been changed to Saturday and when the weather is decent, we spend the evening sitting on the deck and chain smoking. Luckily, the weather has been terrible for quite a while and we have had hockey to watch, so we haven't smoked quite as much as before. She introduced me to hockey. She offered me her tickets so I could take my husband to a game for his birthday back in 2016 only a couple weeks after we met. I fell in love with the game. I'm not sure how other arenas are, but PNC as 2 outdoor smoking areas. She and I, or my husband and I, or all of us when we all go, have a routine for the games. Get there when the doors open. Grab a beer. Go smoke a couple. Grab some food (BBQ nachos FTW, only in NC 
). Head down to our seats and try to finish eating before the teams come out and they play the anthem. Then each intermission rush out to the smoking area and get in a couple before the next period starts.
I was pretty worried about telling her that I plan to quit. I was really concerned that all of our routines and rituals would be messed up because I am choosing not to be a smoker. In fact, I set my quit date when I did because this friend and I are going camping mid March, so I was hoping that if I quit March first then that would give me enough time to get these new routines established and make sure I have my craving busters ready so that when we do go camping she could still smoke and maybe I would feel less inclined to participate. But this past Friday, despite my nerves, I told her that I am quitting. She asked me when and about my plan and to my surprise she said she would quit with me. I was shocked. I was not expecting that response at all. I'm really excited that I'm going to have a quit buddy and that I'll have someone to go through this with, especially since my husband is not ready to quit, but that's a story for another time. I feel like I have in person support now and I feel like if she is going to support me in this that others will too. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with this decision to quit.
Quit date 1 week from today. I'm ready.
