I'm doing 23 things
i realized i had been smoking too long and that i was going to be a hypocrite every time i told a patient to quit smoking. i thought i needed cigarettes to relieve stress and still look cool and rebellious compared to my geeky med school classmates.
all i needed was to be comfortable with myself and be able to shake my perception of who i was. like the red hair and piercings, i got to the point where i didn’t need to wear my individuality on my sleeve. i can change more from the inside than standing outside scowling and smoking.
ultimately you have to make the decision to stop smoking on your own. others around you lecturing you and scolding you makes you feel guilty and only adds to you wanting to smoke more as a way of saying “fuck you!”. you have to ask yourself if the good feeling is worth it: the price you pay per pack, the image of yourself smoking that you’ll have to replace, the possibility of getting all sorts of smoking-related diseases (smoking really is a contributor to many things you wouldn’t think of). i got pissed off at how stupid i had been, falling into the bullshit about smoking being cool, how it made me cool, how it tied me to having lived in europe, made me a sexy smoking girl around the boys. there are a thousand different images we project by smoking, based on what image strikes a chord with us specifically. you have to reject that image and be yourself without all the posturing. it’s very hard, and i’m only 50% of the way there, but i’m a lot closer than i was this time last year. i may still care what people think of me and how they see me, but i’m not causing damage to my body because of it.
i ended up quitting cold turkey, without patches or gum or anything. i had just had enough. i still have cigarettes by my patio, as a way of showing myself i can be strong. it’s been almost 5 months and i don’t have even the slighest bit of desire to smoke, even when i’m around my smoker friends. this is very surprising to me, since i loved smoking and could never quit for this long before.
