One week smoke-free!

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No smoking

I smoked my last cigarette a week ago tonight, which was also the last night I spent in Chapel Hill before driving home on Friday morning.

I hadn’t actually intended to quit.   Its not like I was a heavy smoker.  But there was no good reason to continue smoking either.  Besides the obvious health issues, it’s a huge waste of money, it makes you and your clothes smell like cigarettes (I HATED being told my clothes or my car smelled), and (if you smoke in your house — I tried not to, but sometimes cheated) turns everything in your house an ugly shade of yellowish brown after awhile.

Smoking is also no longer really socially acceptable.    Hardly anyone smokes anymore, and those who do are treated like lepers in most places now.

When I arrived at the Aqueduct in Chapel Hill last Monday night, I realized it was going to be a real challenge obtaining smokes.   The camp-like setting is in a rural area, nowhere near any stores, and I didn’t know the area at all.  If I were to go try to find a store that sold cigarettes, it would have meant driving in an unfamiliar area after dark, which is something I can’t do because I have such terrible night vision.

During my stay in Chapel Hill, I had one pack of cigarettes I had bought on Sunday, the day I left for the retreat, and that pack lasted me for the better part of the week, until Thursday.   I was probably the only smoker there, and it was embarrassing having to go down to the parking lot at night and try to hide the fact I was smoking.  I felt ashamed!

I simply saw no need to buy any more on Friday morning even though I was returning home.  What the heck for?  I’d already tapered down to only 2 -3 cigarettes a day with no cravings or ill effects, so I knew the next step would be to just not buy anymore.  Why put off the inevitable?

So tonight, it’s been a week.   I’ve had a few cravings, but they haven’t been bad, not like I expected.  I’m seeing a difference already:  I can breathe more easily and am smelling and tasting things more (I’m not sure how I feel about that, since I don’t exactly WANT food to taste or smell better).   I also think my skin already has a healthier, pinker, more youthful tone.

I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a cup of coffee anymore, since I usually drink a cup with my first cigarette of the day, but so far, I’ve enjoyed my joe just fine without the unnecessary “accessory.”

And all that money I was spending on cigarettes?  It’s going into a vacation fund instead.   I can think of so many things I’d rather do with that money than see it all go up in smoke.

14 thoughts on “One week smoke-free!”

  5. Lucky what a great post that really spoke to me because I want to quit too. Its the next step in re-building my life, Im only contributing to the destruction of it by continuing. I like your statement of ‘an unnecessary accessory.’ That was good. Congratulations and thanks for sharing this effort that you made to better your life.

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  8. Congratulations! If you’ve been smoke-free for a week, you’ve got it licked. I quit smoking a pack and a half of Chesterfields cold turkey and, after that first week, you can stop forever. It took years before I actually came to find the smell of cigarette smoke repulsive. But it happened.

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  9. Dumb-seeming question, one which I have no clue as to its answer (beyond, perhaps, what might be revealed knowledge) – just why do people ‘smoke’? What makes it so seemingly attractive to *most* people? (Recognizing that you most likely aren’t like the swarming wretches I encounter…)

    Is it ‘an assertion of dominance’?

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    • I don’t really know because there’s nothing good about it. I think most people start in adolescence, to fit in with their peers or appear cool, idk. But even today kids are getting hooked and I dont think it’s thought of as cool or mature anymore, so idk…maybe teenage rebelliousness? I don’t think most people start smoking at all if they didn’t start during their teen years. The only reason adults continue is because by then they are hooked and can’t stop.

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  10. Fitting in and appearing ‘cool’ (of high-and-growing-higher levels of social rank) as well as ‘teen-aged rebelliousness – all of those things might be thought of as ‘expressions of dominance’ for many people.

    It’s odd (rather, horrible) that so much of the time anymore that ‘none’ of the commonplace explanations come to mind to me, but rather the single ‘rude, crude, ugly-and-evil’ one that seems like tapping into the mind of a ***nasty and unrepentant*** version of ol’ Schmuel Vacknin. (Sam is the anglicized version; schmuel is the original Hebrew, as in 1st and 2nd Samuel in the old testament)

    I wish I’d never learned about how the accursed Normal social world actually works – it’s a dark and horrible place, like a bad version of Dante’s inferno. How normies endure their continual status and dominance ‘games’ without wanting to blow their brains out is almost entirely a mystery to me, save with one exception – that being that they do nearly all of their rubbish unconsciously (and hence are doing Orwellian doublethink every waking instant: the unconscious says one lie, and the conscious says another, and the whole ever-changing nightmare of ‘a thousand faces, each one daily a mask that markets falsehood gaily’ happening by instinct!)

    Normies! Ugh!

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