An Alternative Method

A while back I claimed that "Today I'm taking my first step in quitting smoking". That was October 30th and, once again, it amounted to not much as I tried to slow down, cut down one day at a time, eliminate the post-metro fag or the out-of-work fag without much success. In any case, if I didn't have it one day I just had it half an hour later when I got back home. I also realised that I would spend about as much money between now and September as I did on my flights to Lebanon and Syria. The result of this was that, by my own twisted logic, if I quit smoking now, the holiday to the Middle East would be my reward, and it would be free !

For this and other reasons, I went cold turkey two days ago. I've been clean for 38 hours now and, although I've had some close calls, it's been relatively plain sailing. The funny thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of mind games going on that I'm playing with myself. As I'm walking down the street and not smoking I find myself thinking that I can always have a cigar instead and that won't count. Or trying to work out if it's possible to have a cigarette every x days or weeks without being considered "a smoker". Last night, I tried to reason with myself in order to justify having one on the balcony. It just takes a moment of clarity to realise this and tell myself to shut up and keep pushing forward with this but in the heat of the moment I don't really realise that this is what's going on and I'm hoping I don't slip up. I still have nothing against them and would have no problem having one from time to time but my main priority here is to be free of them, to be able to look at a cigarette the same way I look at a beer - as something that's nice to have from time to time but which will cause me absolutely no grief if I don't have it. I'm not there yet but I've got into the swing and I think I've got over the first difficult wave. I'm anticipating one or two more and then, as I claimed on October 30th, I would be smoke-free by the new year !

I haven't noticed any differences yet but, like the mind games my subconscious is playing with me to justify sneaking one in, I'm playing games with it too. When I walk, I breathe in heavily and tell myself my lungs are filling up more than they used to. I run up the escalator coming out of the metro and tell myself I feel better that I would have last week. I make myself look down on people smoking, telling myself they are going to be stuck as slaves to the Marlboro corporation. All the while, I'd quite fancy one myself but with some intense concentration it's possible and I'm quite honestly surprised that it hasn't been more difficult.

Again, watch this space !