I am a weak, weak person. At around 7 PM this evening, I succumbed to the call of the cancer stick. It was bed weather. Traffic along the South Luzon Expressway was moving slowly. I was listening to Concrete Blonde‘s version of Ghost Riders in the Sky. I couldn’t help it. One week after I vowed to fight the good fight against Nicotine, I lost the battle. BUT NOT THE WAR!
I’m thinking maybe I did it wrong. I went cold turkey after 5 years of being a chain smoker. I never stopped smoking for more than a couple of days during the last 5 years, and now I suddenly expelled nicotine from my life. It was hard. Harder than saying “no” to free beer. Harder than not looking at a hot woman’s cleavage. Harder than closing a browser tab that contains your Plurk window. Going cold turkey wasn’t fun. It was torture. Happy torture. What?
I couldn’t ignore all the moments I felt the urge to light a stick and smoke my lungs out. I felt anti-social passing up on invitations to smoke from my co-workers. Every time I reached for a stick and found nothing there, I whispered expletives to myself. “Fuck you, self! The fuck’s your problem?!” But every time I resisted those seductive moments, I celebrated with a stupid smile. Happy torture. Weird, but there you go.
The first puff from the first cigarette I smoked in a week felt and tasted like the first cigarette I smoked all those years ago. I loved and hated it all at the same time. I loved it for reminding of my cold and carefree college nights. I hated it because, really, the smell of cigarette smoke is bugging me now. Crazy, right?
Right around Day 3 or Day 4 of this “mission”, I started to smell the smokers in the office. See, if you’re a smoker, you don’t notice the repulsive smell of cigarette smoke that clings to clothes. I didn’t notice that particular smell for years, but once I started to smell it again, I realized I don’t like it. That’s a good thing.
I’m going to try this thing again, but maybe not through the cold turkey approach. Obviously, I don’t have the discipline to do that. I’m already starting to hate the smell of smoking, and judging by the fact that I’m not too crazy about finishing a pack tonight, I’m thinking there’s hope for me yet. Who knew I’d be a prissy semi-non smoker after only a week of trying to quit, right?
Smoking is really bad. Great thing lover quit more than a year ago. I’ve yet to see my dad do the same.
pare im starting to really like you.. hope you would really stop smoking. (pakiss ulit brad! LOL!)
There's no use dwelling on your past failures. You have a whole new life of failure ahead of you. Keep it up!
One of my former housemates actually managed 2 or 3 months without smoking and she hated the smell of it. But living with 2 smokers and hanging out with smokers eventually made her go back to smoking.
Hehe.
you're using an un-needed D, ba-di-di.
so, dont do it the "one stick lang" because it doesnt work. smokers who tried that out failed…and will tell you that the cold turkey is the only one that does…
ba-di-di, please dont be pissed o-fa-fa. :D
@Steel: Thank you. FOR NOTHING!
@Helga: I stopped hating the smell of it one day after returning to the vice. Dammit.
You keeen do eet! Do it for the chicks. Kidding. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke clinging on to clothes especially on sweaty clothes. Ugh.
Good luck with your mission and have fun with the security guard. Haha.
You can do it buddy. We’ll be there stroking your bird cheering you on every step of the way.
Darn it! You can do it, just keep smelling them to remind you how bad it is. Just dont inhale the smoke. Fail.
[...] comics for 15 years now! You can’t just quit on sequential art! You can’t even quit smoking and you’ve only been doing that for 5 years!” This is different, you guys. This [...]
[...] about stupid things again. I even tried to make positive changes in my life like quitting smoking. It didn’t last, though. Anyway, I was back in the mood for more dickery. But somehow, I lost the drive to blog [...]