Well as of yesterday I am officially trying to quit smoking again. I've been down this road, oh, so many times before but have always managed to fall short of the objective. This time I am more determined to succeed than any other time I can remember, but I know that doesn't mean it will happen. I also know that it must happen, or they might as well just put me in a flip-top-box right now.
The last time I tried was two and a half years ago, I know this because that's when I quit drinking. I knew that most of the times I failed to quit smoking, drinking caused the failure. I would go out, have a few beers, lose my inhibitions and buy or bum a cigarette. So this last time I tried, I quit drinking first, hoping that it would be just what I needed to overcome the beast. I succeeded at quitting drinking, which really wasn't that hard at all, but after six months slipped off of the no smoking wagon.
I wish that quitting smoking was as easy as quitting drinking, then I'd have it made. In fact of all the challenges I've met in my life, quitting smoking has to be, by far, the hardest one for me to overcome. I don't understand why this is the case when so many of my family members have quit, seemingly so easily (I know this is only how it appears). My one brother quit and his wife is a chain smoker. I couldn't imagine trying with someone around me all the time like that. Unfortunately he just started up again after having stopped for eight years. I smacked him upside his head when I found out he started again.
I do understand full well what happened to him though. Something people who have never smoked can't possibly understand. Once you have been addicted to it for any length of time, it never, EVER, let's you go after that. You can quit for ten years, and the desire, the pangs to have one, will keep coming back. If I could quit and it would be totally gone after say, six months, then I would have succeeded a long time ago. There have been so many times that I've tried and failed after I thought I had it beat, just because after a while your guard lets down, a stressful day or a moment of weakness happens, and bang, you're back smoking again. The surgeon general once said quitting the smoking addiction is harder than quitting cocaine, yeah, I wish this were cocaine I was addicted too.
Even blogging can be difficult when you are trying to quit because just sitting down at the computer has become a trigger. I smoked much more when I sat behind the monitor than any other time. There are just so many triggers to overcome, I even tried to figure out a way to drive to work without passing a store, but there just isn't one. It's too easy, in a moment of weakness, to pull over into one of those places and buy a pack, especially when the stresses of the winter driving commute start, that one has nailed me several times.
This time I have a goal, though it may sound a bit silly. With the recent announcement by several countries of a planned return to the moon by 2020, I would kinda like to be around to see that. I was seven years old, and do remember the first time they landed, and yes I know it's quite an over-reaction on my part to think that I wouldn't be around in thirteen years if I don't quit, even though I did have an uncle die young from emphazema because he was a chain smoker. I just feel the need to quit this time seems so much more serious than before, as I enter the autumn of my life. It may be entering the winter of my life if I don't succeed.
I'm starting by using the patch again this time, which I have had luck with in the past (how can I say that if I always failed?). It really helps me get through the horrifically difficult beginning and first day. After that, the trick is not to let your guard down six months later. My second ex-wife once said "she thought I quit using the patch too early the other times", perhaps she was right, I think I will take her advice and stay on it a little longer this time. I have always felt that I really just needed the patch to get through the first day. I sure could use a wife right now to help relieve the stresses that come with quitting smoking ;-) though the truth is that spouses can cause their share of stresses as well.
So now it's time to keep busy (as to keep my mind off of it), take lots of naps, eat a lot, gain weight, and worry about the diabetes the weight gain may cause later. I can only fight one battle at a time and this is one battle that I really need to win...
To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I've done it a thousand times.
-Mark Twain
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2 comments:
I am actually going through the same thing right now! It is easier to quit just about everything else and yes, anyone who has never smoked has no idea how hard it is...they don't understand why you can't just stop. I'm trying that new med...Chantix which really does help with the craving...now its a matter of fighting the triggers...things that make you smoke even when you don't have a craving. I wish you the best of luck.
Well, it IS a struggle, that's for sure.
I've got almost 3 years under my belt and I still struggle.
The patch helped me a lot.
But it's still tough. BUT!
It IS possible.
Besides the patch, the other thing that helped me was this: A craving never killend anyone. Smoking, on the other hand...."
A reminder that cravings are tough, but lung cancer is far worse that any craving ever will be. And it won't go away. A craving will.
(And CONGRATULATIONS on this most wonderful of choices Dagoth. I'm really rooting for you.)
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