azdesertrose | Wish me luck!

I started smoking cigarettes as an adolescent rebellion thing when I was about 11. (Yeah, I know, totally illegal. But they didn't give a shit in those days.) For years, I could smoke a cig or two and then not smoke for months or longer. Within about the last ten years, I managed to get myself addicted to the damn things.

My triggers to smoke:
Drinking alcohol, especially at a party or other social circumstances
Being stuck in traffic
First thing in the morning (got over that hurdle this morning, YAY ME!)
After meals
Being around smokers

Anyway, I ran out of cigarettes yesterday morning, and didn't have any money to run up to the corner store and buy another pack. (Cliff got paid yesterday afternoon, but that didn't do me any good at 10:30 am.) So I started chewing on a cinnamon stick to distract myself and give myself something to do with my hands and mouth (don't go there).

I had to stop at the pharmacy to pick up my Klonopin prescription, and I bought myself some nicotine patches, which cost about the same as a carton of cigs.

Cliff has been after me to quit since we met, my dear friend Mike has been after me to quit ever since he found out I smoked, and I'm tired of coughing all the time.

So here goes my nine-zillionth attempt to quit smoking. I washed my arm and put on a nicotine patch before I went to bed (the instructions say to put them on freshly washed dry skin). I didn't have a craving for a cig when I woke up this morning like I normally do.

I got the idea from the hospital. When I'm in the hospital I can't smoke, but they give us patches to calm the cravings (and probably stop anybody from becoming violent!), which is kind of them.

Cliff is thrilled that I'm trying to stop smoking. His father basically killed himself with cigarettes, and he hates my smoking.

I really wish I'd never started in the first place.

It's expensive, it's bad for you, and it's smelly.

So here's hoping that it sticks this time and I can manage to quit smoking. Wish me luck!