I might as well start this blog off with a bang…of my head against the wall…repeatedly.
That’s right, after eight years of paying a nominal fee to kill myself slowly and being welcomed in fewer and fewer public locations since the year 2007, I quit smoking. On Wednesday, June 18, I decided to never smoke another cigarette again.
Now is the part where I admit that I’m merely human, as a sort of prologue to the inevitable “I can’t do this, dammit, I give up!” I made it a full week without a single cigarette, then I had a few out at the bar with some friends and a couple more the next night.
Before, I was a smoking over a pack a day, so I’d say the 160 cigarettes I normally would have smoked in a week verses the five that I actually had in this past weeks time is a huge accomplishment. Furthermore, despite most opinions on the matter, I don’t feel any more of a need to smoke a cigarette than I did after a week.
Supposedly, 72 hours into quitting is the height of nicotine withdrawl. After two weeks, the physical dependency on nicotine completely subsides and from that point on there will only be psychological urges. I, however, did not experience this exactly.
The first three days, yes, they were hell. But after that I didn’t have a single physical urge to smoke. After the first week I was fine, was out at the bar with a friend who smoked and I didn’t want a cigarette. Nor did I feel a desire to smoke the previous few times I was out at the bar around other smokers and drinking.
But I was curious to see if I could have a few cigarettes at the bar and not fall back into the habit. I like the idea of being a social smoker because I always enjoyed smoking the most with other people with a drink in my hand. I don’t care what “professional quit smoking specialists” either. I’ve known plenty of people who could smoke a half of a pack of cigarettes at the bar and have none after that. I want to do that.
So far I have little to no desire to smoke during the day and I only feel a remote urge when I drink or am really bored. It seems promising but we’ll see how it actually goes.
