It's been a rough couple of weeks. My first recent quit lasted three months. Since February, I've been cheating on and off, until "just one" became "I need to buy another pack."
I tried to get back on track a couple of weeks ago, but was not well prepared. We went to visit my family -- brother and sister-in-law, and my dad, who has lived with them since my mom died four years ago from lung cancer. When we arrived, I was shocked at how my dad had declined since I saw him at Christmas -- he's lost a lot of weight, has had two recent falls, and sleeps a lot. I freaked out and bought a pack of smokes the first chance I got. I'm very close with my dad and can't stand the thought of losing him. Mom got sick and when they found the cancer, it had already spread to a tumor in her brain. She was diagnosed in mid-March of 2018 and died in early May. It was so unexpected that I didn't have much chance to do my "preparatory grieving." But I guess that's what I'm doing now with dad.
We've been home from our visit a week, and I'm still smoking. I've smoked enough and regularly that I'm back to square one, and I'm imagining that this quit -- starting tomorrow -- will be as crappy as the first. I want to kick myself and call myself all sorts of names, but I know I need to be gentle and accepting of myself. Beating myself up will just make me more miserable. Crap, this is hard.
This time, though, I have the memory of how good it felt to be an ex smoker. It really did feel good and I was really proud of myself. Then the snake got me. The snake conveniently didn't remind me of the chronic dry cough and gunky throat I had as a smoker, but they're both back. I'm also a lot clearer about how emotional, anxious family stress effects me.
I want to quit.
