One month, and it doesn’t look good

Ok, first things first. I made it to the one month mark. Yup, was mum’s birthday, and sure enough, she did a little not so subtle checking to see if I was still on the wagon.

“1 month and counting",” I told her confidently.

And the next day, I had a ciggy with my friends at Souled Out. Yup, it was just one, and I was resisting for about three hours prior to that, but one of them was half way through quitting as well, and she told me not to beat myself up about it, and just have one.

When I really think about it, I think she could really have been offloading a portion of the guilt to me, subconciously, not that I’m blaming her or anything. I mean, at the end of the day, I was the one who bit.

One month of non-smoking bookended by two sticks of Dunhill Lights.

And not even a week later, another. This time at Sunburst KL! I ran out of lollipops (why do girls always want lollipops from you and why do I keep offering them goshdarnit!?) and someone was rolling a ciggy.

I always said that switching to rollies was a good stepping stone to quitting, but the caveat is that for the past month, I haven’t seen a single person rolling a cigarette. Well, just so happens at Sunburt, my friend GaryJohn (who probably doesn’t even know that I’m trying to quit) was rolling up, so I ASKED HIM for one. Geez. It’s actually pretty embarassing.

Worse still, it was HARVEST! About the worst rolling tobacco there is.

Actually, that last part was a blessing in disguise. It tasted awful, not because I hadn’t smoked for a while (i smoked 5 days before, remember?), but because HARVEST is the cheapest, roughest, most godawful rolling tobacco money can buy.

So i smoked it to just a bit after halfway, and dumped it. Good riddance too.

 

So what’s to learn from all this?

Well, I lasted a month without much problem, so why give in now? Well, because I didn’t tell myself to last any longer. After a month, I was already pretty happy with myself, so I just sorta lost the motivation to stop.

And lemme tell you, it’s not like the cravings stop. Physically, they do, but mentally, you still wonder at how easy it would be to just light one up to kill that itch.

So the lesson here is, I need goals. Same as everything in life. So here’s the goal.

TWO MONTHS from today.

May 23rd.

Here we go.

Another one bites the ash

Just found out yesterday that my fellow quitting buddy, Anna, has started smoking again. Worse still, she's not under any illusions about it, and has started back to full-on, buying her own cigarettes. I always thought that if you started again, you'd pinch a few first to see how it goes, disillusion yourself further, then go the full monty.

If you've read my earlier posts, you'll know that Anna was the one that got me thinking about quitting in the first place. She quit on New Year's Day, whereas I quit on Chap Goh Meh (End of Chinese New Year). So in effect, she's lasted aaaaalmossst 3 months. I've barely made it past a month, and I've already had a lapse.

I was actually planning on posting up some tips to help others quit, but I guess if there's one thing this is teaching me, it's that I'm not out of the woods yet.

To be honest, the news of her quitting quitting, made me think for a moment that starting again wouldn't be the worst thing to happen. Right now, despite having gone without a cigarette for three weeks (since my lapse), I'm currently suffering the worst cough I've had in a long time, and it doesn't seem to be going away. About the only benefits right now I can think of are that my voice isn't as rough, and that i have alot more space in my pockets.

That's why I'm waiting for this damn flu to end, so I can experience all the so called wonders of not smoking. Will keep you guys updated.