I'm terrified and desperate.
I've tried quitting before. I'm grateful to the anti-tobacco people who aired an ad that let me know most people try to quit an average of SEVEN times before they succeed. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't be trying again.
But I'm terrified I won't be able to do it again and desperate for whatever advice anyone has to hand to me.
I started smoking at the age of 14. At first, I didn't inhale, and just put on the airs of being a sophisticated adult. My peers caught on to me and swore I'd get no more cigarettes from them unless I inhaled. So I went into the basement bathroom, stood in front of the mirror and got as high as a kite practicing my inhalation techniques and styles.
That's one of the weaknesses in the quitting smoking process. I love, adore, smooch and pet heavily for a cigarette high. You only get one when you haven't had a cigarette in a while. So quitting smoking offers the opportunity to get a nicotine high, and I just love a nicotine high.
And then, there's the absolutely ludicrous, unbelievable, silly, illogical and stupid thing: I love being a juvenile delinquent. Nothing makes me want to smoke more than to get dirty looks from self-righteous anti-smokers. I really want to blow it in their judgmental faces....so bad! And aren't I giving up a truly righteous fight against self-righteousness when I give up smoking? This is a true sadness for me, and at least partially because I don't have a lot of my juvenile delinquency symbology remaining once I quit. Will I stop boycotting non-smoking restaurants? Heaven forbid, I advocate tolerance and non-judgmental stuff! Oh, I'm gonna have to keep my rebel or I'm really, just dead.
I make up for this, however, because I have found in my previous experiments with quitting smoking that home-grown leaf is a fine substitute for the fiddlesome aspect of smoking that is so hard to cope with. I mean, I don't just smoke - I roll my own cigarettes. Not because I'm poor or cheap, but because, quite honestly, the roll-yer-own tobacco is less adulterated that the filtered kind (unless you pay a fortune for Sherman's or something). Trust me, I know this. I have ripped filters off every brand out there, and they all suck like the effluent from a nuclear cone.
Plus, I can roll tiny cigarettes which I somehow think is better for me, though I make up for it with volume like you wouldn't believe. I'm almost always fiddling around rolling or smoking a cigarette. My hands want to be occupied with such work. You would be hard pressed to find a photo of me that lacks my significant other, a cigarette.
Cigarette breaks, too, are engraved into my being. Cigarette breaks are the oasis of life. Time to chat, time to reflect, time to pause. Don't we all need more and not less of that? It's worse now more than ever, because I'm so debilitated by nicotine that I need ever more frequent cigarette breaks! How am I gonna get past that one when my only defense against that horrible need for a cigarette is to get up and get active? I'll be exhausted and freaking out, no doubt. I'm not sure I can handle the interlude between needing that break and getting healthy enough not to need that break. But hey, I'll always need frequent breaks from here on out. Something tells me so.
In the past, all my attempts to quit smoking were a singular plan: I'd go out to my remote cabin, accessible only by bush plane or boat (8-10 hours to your nearest cigarette dispensary) and just force myself to go without. I'd end up grovelling around looking for cig butts that I could re-roll into an exquisite nicotine high until even that ran out - and go without for 5-8 weeks. Once back in town, surrounded by my equally nicotine-debilitated friends and partner, it would take less than 24 hours to seduce me.
So this time, it's different. The partner is gone for something like 5 weeks starting today and it's time, and I'm in town not 5 minutes from the nearest 7-11 type shop.
Motivation? I won't go into all the hacking and coughing and the onset of incontinence brought on by all the hacking and coughing. Ok I guess I just did, which is just an indication of how desperate I am. I'm tired of being winded when I walk to the bathroom. I spent most of my life very hearty and healthy, and was somewhat amazed that my chain smoking seemed to have, for a very long time, left me healthier than many non-smokers. But those days are over, and the catch-up has been quick.
My habit, of late, has been to wake up and watch the 1/2 hour news (dropped cable) and then come to the computer where I sit for hours reading DKos, interspersed with silly comp games, smoking and drinking coffee until the sun is over the yardarm. I waste a lot of time sitting and smoking and I'm going to have to change my DKos habits while in the throes of quitting because it's just too much a part of the habitual behavior I have to change.
But I'll get up tomorrow, and if I have any cig papers left (have tons of tobacco, few rolling papers) I will smoke the last of my cigarettes for all time and see if anyone has anything helpful or encouraging to say, and go on with my first day of not smoking.
Farewell, my lovely cigarettes, who have been with me whenever I was alone and bereft. Farewell, my sweet nicotine who helped me retain a rebellious spirit even though I have aged and calcified in other ways. Goodbye, my love, who has been so much a part of my life. Something tells me, I'll always miss you!