Quit Smoking

Lucky stars, again. I’m never near people who smoke. Even when O. last came over he didn’t bring cigarettes, and B. seems to have stopped too. So my discipline has yet to be tested (this time around), and I can’t evade music + alcohol + bars forever, but I’m still a little excited about 5+ weeks of not smoking, after all the ups and downs and slip-ups of the past 17 months. And yet, I haven’t really convinced myself, there are still these thoughts… what’s just one? Never again? Not even at concerts? Oh stubborn, stupid me.

Didn’t miss anything until I began to think about this goal… oh, no ;-) Something problematic’s coming up – two concerts. Berlin has a (lax) smoking ban, but if we run into someone we know outside of the venue and that person happens to smoke, that’s gonna be very hard for me. Just to think about it makes me fidgety and go into that direction of “just one?”, but I’ll try to be at my best…

I’m beginning to MEAN IT. It was the thought of “it’s nearly been four weeks and I can’t bear to go back to step one” that helped today.

And two days. One moment of weakness: when my boss said he had to reconsider what he said about permanent employment. But the craving passed (whereas the anger did not). I’ve been annoyed with other people too, especially the neighbor upstairs who has taken to smoking in her bathroom. We can smell it – but what’s far more annoying than the smell is that she smokes even though they have two small kids. Sorry to be so intolerant but I don’t understand it.. So that’s been my mental state… pride and anger. Not a nice mix at all! But it keeps me going. Last but not least, I have a bit of a cold… woke up this morning and thought, thank goodness my chest feels this heavy because of the cold and not because I’ve smoked…

Had a weak moment two nights ago at work but managed to shrug my shoulders and get over it (matter of pride, this time). Our trainee is barely eighteen and she takes breaks with the other smokers. I feel like telling the guys off. But it’s part of her act, I guess, and it doesn’t help that her mum does it, too. I don’t understand how she can bear it… see her kid smoke. I don’t think I could; likewise it scares me when T. does. To keep that in mind helps me a little.

Visitors seem to have given up smoking: I’m safe! In fact, they, three men, sit in the kitchen and talk about babies. So that’s why…
P.S. Good to see that M+W quit!

One week without smoking. It was just LUCK (no social situations that put me in danger) ... and, okay, I was also disinterested in smoking (even when out B. and I went out for dinner). We’re going to have visitors this weekend, please let me make it through Saturday and Sunday and I’ll be fine.

This week went as expected – the inability to fully imagine something different is part of the problem, of course. So I had perhaps twenty cigarettes in the past days. I don’t plan on socializing so much in the next days, week, thereby also hoping to evade temptation. And I see how this has been a problem throughout the entire year: I just give in to temptations, always (or 95% of the time).. What has to happen for me to finally make up my mind for real?

I don’t have the heart to ask H. about his quit date. His problems will be different from mine, anyway. I would have smoked on Friday but luckily, B. didn’t have any. It’s always a matter of seconds… I want one, bad. If none is to be had, it’s fine with me, and seconds later, I forget all about it.

I was all stressed out on Friday night. Need to focus, in every way, on what it is I really want. Enjoy the moment. The glass of wine, without cigarettes. Think before I speak (especially when it’s gonna be, “you happen to have a cigarette?).

It’s been one and a half years since I began to quit smoking. I’m not somebody who smokes while waiting for the bus or sitting on the breakfast table, reading the paper. Not at all. But social smoking continues to be a big temptation. The first five months were the most successful and ever since then I failed every couple of days or weeks. I allowed myself to be weak, didn’t try hard enough in the past twelve months. It’s always, “I don’t care, what does it matter anyway”. Yet it does, or so one article quoting the American Cancer Society says: Even one cigarette only reverses all the positive effects of weeks and months of not smoking. If that’s true, does my point of view change? Because it should. Not sure though if it’s true. Do they mean the psychological effects?

I wish there was someone to do a bet with. But there isn’t anybody I see so regularly who has the same problem. Maybe a secret bet. I know that H. wants to quit on the 6th. I could just go along and try it too, and possibly feel triumphant when I can do it as well as him. Or better. Or we could be proud together.