This is not the first time I've tried to quit smoking. Perhaps you gathered that, but I thought I should say it outloud, Captain Obvious style. I had my first cigarette in the fifth grade. The first time I tried to quit was in High School. My best friend Becky and I lasted almost three days. We were bored. The second time I tried to quit was in my early thirties. I used the CigArrest program. That was a kit with a handful of vitamins and a cassette tape. I forgot to take the vitamins, but I followed the regime, quit on the third day, and stayed quit for nine months. I officially became a smoker the first day I jumped out of an airplane. Truth be told, I had been smoking for months, hiding them because my monkey convinced me the ones nobody knew about didn't count. During that particular quit I gained a bunch of weight. The real smoke that started me up again was when my water froze in my carriage house apartment. It was the dead of winter and the water was staying frozen until Spring. One my friends left a butt in my bathroom and smoking it seemed like a good way to cope with having to move, with losing my home. The third time I tried to quit was just a few years ago. When we found out Terry couldn't get his knees operated on because he needed heart stents instead. Three of 'em. He and I quit together. That time lasted just about two months. We went to Mardi Gras and Terry's monkey told him he could smoke while he was on vacation. My monkey said, "If Terry can smoke, then I can smoke!" I'm forgetting about the other time I used the patch, fairly successfully, until it became quite clear that I would loose my home and my job in short order. We moved to Erie and I was a smoker again. My last attempt was when I was working for money at Country Fair. That bout of non-smoking was a very on again, off again situation for I'd say a good few months. It may have been closer to a year. | So, what if anything have I learned from this? What is the part that keeps me from being a non-smoker? First thing first, I see a little pattern of huge stress being a big trigger. How do non-smokers do it? That's a sentiment I've heard all the smokers I've ever known have when the subject comes up. Since CigArrest, I've known that monitoring the cues to smoke were important. It's also important to tell all and sundry that you are quitting. It reinforces your commitment every time you announce it. And, remember, those damn monkeys LOVE to work in secret. This whole Chantix thing is a new drug and a better way to visualize success. |
I've learned this particular time around to think in advance that I have more choices than caving or not caving. I have started back up on seeing a butt most times. My monkey has made me look hungrily at a butt in a public ashtray or only slightly squashed on a sidewalk.