This Time 'Round

The first time I quit smoking (for real - I quit before for like 4 hours.  I know.  Will power is not one of my strongest qualities...)  I was cocky.  From day 1,  I called myself a 'non-smoker.'  Of course, at the time I didn't really think of it as being cocky, I told myself it was mind over matter.  Therefore if I said it enough, it would become true.  

"I don't want a smoke!"  I would brag. 

"Ugh, the smell of stale smoke makes me gag."  I would lie.

Sure, I could stand outside with all the smokers and *not* inhale their second hand smoke.  I was a non-smoker.

Of course I could sit on the patio and enjoy a beer without a cigarette.  I was a non-smoker.

Absolutely I could go into the gas station to pay for my gas and resist the urge to buy the cigarettes staring back at me from behind the counter.  Because...I was a non-smoker.

I could have just one puff of that smoke, because I was a non-smoker.  No big deal...

5 months later, I was a full-fledged smoker. 

This time 'round, I'm not so cocky.  I am a smoker.  As much as I wish I wasn't, I am.  I cannot stand out with the smokers, I cannot have a beer on the patio on a sunny afternoon.  Alas, I will have to pay at the pump for the foreseeable future.  I love the smell of smoke.  In a stressful situation?  My first inclination is to have a smoke.  Bored?  A smoke could fill the time. 

I am a smoker.  Just as a drug addict or an alcoholic is and always will be an addict, I will always be a smoker.  I can't have just one.  One leads to just one more. 

But I am two weeks smoke free.  The nausea has gone away - for the most part.  I don't crave a cigarette 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  About once every hour, I will think..."oooooh, let's go have a smoke!"  and then I remember I can't.  A few deep breaths, or a walk around the block and it goes away until the next wave of desire comes along. 

It's a head game.  The thought of not having a cigarette ever, ever again is worse than actually not having one.  And if I have *just one more* I'm back to the beginning.  I didn't go thru hell just to start all over.