Smoking

I had been trying to quit that delicious, beautiful and glorious thing called "smoking" since my Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer over five years ago.

(Guilt and sadness doesn't seem to work for me.)

For some folks, quitting is as easy as tossing them away and never looking back.  I envy those people.  For me, cigarettes have always been more then just a dirty habit.  It literally had become part of my life.

If I was feeling sad?

I gave myself a cigarette break and got over that shit!

I'm exhausted?

I know just what to do! Smoke a cigarette and have a coffee.  

Insta-awake!

Happy or excited?

Let's smoke ourselves a cigarette and celebrate that shit!

Someone/thing piss me off?

I'm going to smoke a cigarette and plot out my revenge.......

Don't even get me started on when the libations break out.  It is so hard to abstain.

And here's the thing, once you have something become intertwined and so deeply rooted in your life, it becomes more then just a crutch or habit.

It becomes a sweet friend that is always there and never lets you down.  

Ever.  

Until the very end where it ultimately wins.  

Honestly, I first really started smoking so I could have a reason to go on "break" when I was cocktail waitressing.  I smoked Capri's, for goodness sake!  Those aren't even real cigarettes!  It was just an excuse to sit down for ten minutes!  

I was in complete shock, and quite disgusted with myself the first time I realized I actually depended so much of those little fire sticks.

 When I first started trying to leave my dear old friend behind, I remember another dear old friend, Britta, tried to help me by telling me how she quit it.

She even mailed me a paper she wrote on all the things that worked for her.
In this list she told me a few things that are LIES.  

LIES, I tell you!

1.  Once you quit smoking, you won't be able to stand the smell anymore.

LIE!  

I walk by the groups of exiled smokers and take long, deep breaths.  It smells so tasty.  
So tasty!

2.  If you get the urge for a cigarette, just go run around the block.  You wont want one after that.

LIE!  

I run/swim/bike every day.  Literally, every single day.  Almost immediately after I'm done I think about how tasty a cigarette would be.  

Every. Time.  

3.  It get's easier with time.

LIE!

Like I said above.  I have been on this road of quitting for a very long time.  

It started out with no more smoking in the house.  This was the easiest part (which is saying something, since in Chicago we have a brutal 8 months of winter.)  I think the brutal cold made it easier to not smoke as much.  

When we decided to have Clara, I quit.  That was easy, as my body rejected even the smell of it.  I watched others use the patch so they wouldn't smell like smoke around me.

(This seemed to work for them, until they forgot to take it off at night.  Holy night terrors!)

After Clara was born, however, the want for a cigarette came back very easily. It has been so hard to try and not only be a good example for the girls, but to better myself in this journey of quitting.  I have not always been strong either.  When things get hard, or scary, or I am at my wits end I still turn to my most trusted friend. 

And to be completely honest, the threat of lung, throat and other cancers is not what eventually scared me away from my dear old friend, cigarettes.

The only thing that has been doing the trick is the threat of becoming an old, wrinkly, bag of a woman before my time. 

How vain is that? 

 But whatever works, and it is a work in progress.   

So to all my fellow trying to quitters out there, keep up the good fight!  I know I am.  Some days better then others.....and today I am missing that old cancerous friend of mine!

Happy Friday!