Okay, so my quit date is coming up (4/16) and I wouldn't exactly say I'm panicking... I know I'm struggling with other things in my life, but the last few years have been getting over one hill after another, so what can you do? Definitely not quit (unless it's something bad for you, right?) so you have to look at it like riding a bicycle: You gotta peddle like [insert colorful metaphor here] to get up the hill, then you can cruise down and let the momentum get you through the valley.
But the problem is, in the past, when I've quit, something absolutely earth-shaking seems to come along and I relapse. Well, it's been too long since I started this addiction, broke free of it, then started back at square one. The longer I do this, the more chances I have that its affected my health permanently. It's not like you can know just how many coffin nails you can get away with before you're buried.
My mom was a smoker all of my life, until maybe the last 5 - 10 years. She died from a "surprise" massive heart attack in December 2010. The bad thing is that she smoke A LOT. She was, toward the end of her addiction, smoking a carton every 2 - 3 days, but it doesn't matter. Before that, she was probably a 1-2 pack a day-er. Either way, when was that one-- that final cigarette that did irreparable damage that led to the end of her life way too soon. The matriarchs in her family lived into their mid-eighties. She would have been 70 in April 2011, but she didn't make it. One day, she thought she had a respiratory or flu bug, and the next thing you know, she was gone *snap* like that.
I guess it was better than slow and painful, if you want to look at it that way, but it was still too soon, and I STILL think it was tobacco that did it. Born in '41, she was from the "era" where women smoking was an accomplishment, because they weren't allowed in public. If my mom was anything then like I knew her, then that would have been a big catalyst to help get her started: you didn't tell her what she couldn't do because she was a woman. And with 164 IQ, she could definitely give you a "why" that would make your head spin. What could have been?
I don't want that legacy. I don't want this addiction to "beat me" and I want to try and kick it before it's too late, so I pray that it's not. Because you never know if you've already smoked that one that was one-too-many.
*steps off of the soapbox*
