OpEdNews - Diary: The "My Stopped Smoking" Blog

About six years ago I started smoking again after having stopped for thirty-five years. No, I don't know why, I suppose because I thought I could always quit again and it just seemed like fun again. It was fun and I did enjoy it, I got up to about one pack a day. But last January I decided that it was a good time to get back off them, especially considering my Dentist said there were burn lesions on the inside of my cheeks. There was also a financial incentive as the Democrats were raising the cigarette taxes to give children health insurance and other things I am sure. So In my mind I made a decision and realized on January twenty-eighth, that this would be the last day I would smoke. I still remember that last cigarette, each puff actually, I made it into quite a ceremony, an orgy of smoke.

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I would like to have been able to tell you how easy it was and that it was over quick and I never looked back. But, just the opposite, it was extremely difficult and I thought the urges and mind games with myself would never stop. The urges would be a feeling in my lungs and chest that seemed like a cigarette was on the way, an anticipation, I could feel that smoke. The mind games would creep up and I would see myself smoking right after I was going to finish eating. These urges and mind games continued their unrelenting onslaught for months and made the effort quite a struggle.

The urges were overwhelming, the only help I had was knowing that they would subside in a minute or two if I could just toleratethem that long. The initial determination wanes after a week or two as well. But then you can find some value in the continuity, momentum of not smoking to tide you over. It was always something, nicotine is an insidious addiction, it works its way into your physiological and psychological processes and make up. I don't exaggerate when I say you will meet the devil when you seriously work to escape the cigarette habit. The habit continues to tempt you for months with mind pictures and body feelings.

The only way through it is to first, do your best to create a mind set of not smoking and then acknowledge and outlast each temptation as they come, one by one. The trick if there is one, is to recognize each urge and mind picture for what it is. The urges lose some of their power when you simply recognize them for what they are, if you can bring some light to bear on them.

It has been ten months of stopped smoking and I think I can see some proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, my body and mind have readjusted to life without the insidious presence of nicotine. I say stopped because I don't think you can ever say you have quit. I realize I will always have to stand guard, remain aware,just in case the nicotine urge returns to tempt this user back out of remission.

I write this for anyone seeking to understand what will be waiting for them if they decide to try and stop smoking. Not to discourage them, but to warn them how hard it is and that they must fortify themselves accordingly.

I write this for myself for when I find myself tempted and weak, to able to remind myself what I am up against and that if I give in only just once, it is almost impossible to resist from that point on.

I will never disrespect nicotine again by dabbling with it, nicotine is nothing to play with, it will captivate you body, mind and soul, and yes, wallet.