“I don’t like to walk out without knowing what’s around the corner”

I still want a cigarette. But definitely not as bad. Maybe twice a day and the craving resembles a lame protest.

It’s definitely been getting easier to say no. Saying no is my new addiction. Saying no is the most important skill you will need in order to quit. It’s simple for some but not for everyone. Quitting smoking certainly has felt at times like holding one of those crazy no-carbs-live-on-a-slice-of-lemon diets. At the beginning you are so hungry you see stars but after a while when you stomach has shrunken to the size of a pea you’re good. Sorta.

Does it still feel like a diet sometime? Yeah it does, and mainly because you know this should be an ongoing thing. This is not like proving you’re not scarred of bungee jumping (which I am very scarred of) by taking the leap once. You know that if this is for real it better be for good.

It really seems to be easier though, in fact I am just at Day 18 and I’m already starting to preach like a health nut. God I used to hate those people. You know who I’m talking about. The people that cough if you smoke within 20 feet of them. The people that never have to sneak out of the theater for a cig break, the ones that get sick on the car if you smoke and just have to have all the windows down when you do. The smug fucks that know they are right and you are wrong.

I’m not quite 100% like that yet but I’m getting there. I am at the stage where the first reaction to smelling smoke is “yuck” and the second is INHALE DEEPLY.

I like to call this stage “resistance”, similar to that last flight of stairs you have to climb before you can finally stop. Except I am not sure if this will stop.

Now I finally understand Joel Spitzer on WhyQuit.com and the whole “Never take another puff” concept. I have read articles on this specific site many a times and out of all quitting websites it really has proved to be the most useful. My major point of discontent with it was this concept of never taking another puff. For some reason reading that at the beginning/and or end of every article made me mad.

Me : How dare you say that? I’m gonna close this window right now!

And each time I read the articles (and many of them really make sense) I would see that and it would make me wanna stop reading. At least then. But then I would come back say a month or so. I’d start googling about quitting, about how to, how not to, and more importantly what to expect. Haha. My best friend said once to me while walking out of his apartment “I don’t like to walk out without knowing what’s around the corner.”

That’s kinda how I felt. Every two weeks I would think about quitting. I definitely blew it out of proportions. I was scarred. I am still scarred. Can I make it without cigarettes. My whole life??

I used to act as if quitting is a temporary thing. That’s why, reading that sentence made me mad. I knew it was true but I couldn’t accept it. And because I couldn’t accept it I was putting off quitting.

You want to know a secret? I still don’t accept it. But at least I can lie to myself and ask myself for just another smokefree day..hopefully for the rest of my life.

Tip of the day: Read Joel’s articles on WhyQuit.com . Get mad at his “Never take another puf” slogan. Internalize it and come to terms with it.