day one

Everything makes me want to smoke: my mother, slow internet, this house. Maybe not everything. It's more like stress. I think to myself, what will it be this time that makes me cave to the death act of lighting up? I wish that were dramatic.

I went for a walk earlier and it helped. I don't really trust myself though, that with the right amount of stress and misfortune I won't smoke. It's pretty twisted.

Again and again and again: this time in Michigan

I understand that I need to change my attitude about quitting smoking. I feel as though I have tried every method: patches, gum, lozanges, cold turkey, fear of God and cardiac arrest. Eh. I just watched a video highlighting the opportunity to "feel 18 again by quitting smoking". I don't want to feel 18 again. Of course that doesn't mean I should smoke.

I didn't smoke for the last five days and it was not difficult. Incredible stress, ie the threat of hospitalization, when I knew or at least hoped I was okay, and the lack of having a loving partner in my life to help me decide whether or not, at 29 years old, to listen to my mother, made me buy a pack of cigarettes. I knew I was giving up and I just didn't care. The last couple of years I have gotten very skilled at saying fuck anything, lighting up and smoking anything, and giving up.

Maybe if I hadn't smoked yesterday I would've walked outside up on top of the hill and been killed instantly by an insane bow hunter. These are the kinds of illogical thoughts that come into my mind when I attempt to quit smoking.

I did feel good. It felt good to walk 6 or 7 miles to the bar yesterday instead of smoking, just to have a cheeseburger and remember my undeserved life of privelege in Olympia. I have never been able to spell the word privilige correctly, with the exception of just now, and that also makes me want to smoke.

In Washington state, which has become my home and to which I hope to soon return, I used and then exhausted the services of the generous state quit line, not once, but twice. Sometimes I was able to quit smoking for a week or less by increasing the amount of other substances I injegested in vain attempts to cope with stress.

Tonight, I am going to try again, with my mom, who is also trying to quit, but who also enjoys smoking. It seems like a sin to talk about my fears of cancer or heart failure at 29 when she is in her mid 40s and still smoking also. I should probably quit for her as much as for me.

I do want to be free of all addictions, except perhaps true love, which I may or may not have experienced or had the opportunity at but was too intoxicated to realize. By 2012 things will change. Hopefully this is day one again. I need to decide, whenever I decide it, that this is it, never again. I've said that before though so this time something has to be different.

Here are some reasons I want to quit:
lots of other people want me to; i want to sometimes but when i think it will kill me i want to ALL the time. Yes. I need to focus on that, on how my heart hurts sometimes, on how much more congested I feel when I smoke. I DO NOT WANT TO DIE. I want to live to be 80, at least.

Here are some things I can do when I want to smoke:
walk 6 miles to Chippewa Lake
walk to the radio tower on 65th Ave, call CMU public broadcasting and ask random questions about why we cannot get reception at the house, yet have to look at their television tower every time we drive to Big Rapids
call someone, like the Washington State Smoking quit line, haha
write an angry poem
paint
drink coffee
apply for jobs
walk to Barryton and try to get a job at Lonnies
rake leaves until I get mad enough to walk to Chippewa Lake

:)

New quit date: August 1st

Well, I am gearing up to quit smoking again. I am picking August 1st as my date. That is the same date I quit last year. This time I am going to make it longer than 9 months. Hopefully this will be the last time I quit :)

still smoking it all up in the big pacific northwest

Still smoking. Back to a 1/2 or even a pack a day sometimes. I know I need to quit. I am going to play softball. Although the city of Portland league I played on often didn't care if in-fielders lit up I am SO NOT DOING THAT this time. Although, a part of me knows I can run the damn bases even if I keep smoking. It's like having a little smoking devil on my shoulder whispering "aw, its not that far, besides, sliding is everything and you could do even that with a cigarette in your mouth!!!!!"

we shall see.

keep the dream alive

smokin'

off the wagon

well, i am officially off the wagon. Smoking about a half a pack a day again. Guess its time to start a new quit date. Hmm..... to be continued !

Let the record show I smoked and enjoyed it

but tomorrow is another day