Here I am again. Trying to become a non-smoker. I can't tell you how many times I thought I had this licked. How many times I thought I was really a non-smoker. 5 years, 2 years, 3 months, and I lost count. I'm sick - got a cold. I didn't plan for the cold to coincide with my quit date, but it sure does help. As I was smoking yesterday, I was coughing, couldn't breathe and hacking stuff up. I thought to myself, "This is lightweight. In 20-30 years, I'll be feeling this way all the time whether I'm sick or not." Breathing will be an exercise in endurance and my deep chest coughs will be the norm. People will look at me as if I lost my mind as I continue to choke myself with cigarettes.
The more folks look at my smoking with judgment, the more I want to smoke. Whether 50, 60, 70 or 80, I'll always want to be a rebel. I still have that teenage side of me that likes to look people in the face and say, "Yeah, I'm a smoker. What are you gonna do about it?" I'm killing myself in the process.
Quitting smoking is boring and a pain in the ass. The last time I relapsed at the end of May, a friend who is a part-time smoker, said to me, "You're not still doing that not-smoking thing, right? I have cigarettes." As soon as I smoked one of her cigarettes, which was not even good because it was not my brand, I knew I was back at it. The first few I had of hers were awful...the way first cigarettes are. A terrible taste. But I knew it would get better, and I've have that pleasure from smoking that I'm always seeking. Sure enough, I stopped at the store that night, got my brand of cigs and I was smoking again. I let myself enjoy it, but I knew that I had to quit again. I also sensed that the sooner I went on the quit ride, the easier it might be. Although, now I don't trust myself that it will ever last.
