2005-09-05 
 

5 reasons

It's been 4 weeks since I officially quit and I've only cheated three times. To stop future cheats and hopefully to keep myself in the game, I'm listing out the reasons why.

Please note, this is not a plea for help or a request to have conversations about it. (Those stupid commercials about quitting smoking always have the opposite effect on me. I end up craving a cigarette out of pure defiance. Same goes, in general, to conversations about quitting.) I'm making these reasons public more as a coming out about quitting than anything else.

It's not really the physical addiction that is hard for me to leave behind...it is a psychological addiction to the actual act of smoking that I crave. A sign of rebellion against the prevailing status quo, the grounding feeling of holding the cigarette in my hands, the knowledge that I'm not the good boy I imagine everyone expects me to be, the brotherhood of smokers where seeing a pack immediately gives you license to talk to complete strangers...if only to ask for a light. Did I mention that all evidence to the contrary, I still think it makes me look cooler?

So, the reasons are...

1. I reduce my chances of getting lung cancer. Pretty big reason, and probably the one I need to hold on to tightest.

2. The ability to walk up and around San Francisco's hilly landscapes without losing my breath would be wonderful.

3. The knowledge that I've kicked a habit that is very hard to break will be empowering.

4. It'll lower my blood pressure which is borderline high. (For some reason this isn't as paramount as reason number one. Possibly because I believe that my BP is mostly higher due to stresses at work vs. the little sticks I like to hold in my hand.)

5. As much as I understand the rebellion aspect, I also know that seeing it normalized in the adults around me while growing up made it "safe" rebellion. (I guess I'm doing this a bit for e and the other young folk in my life.)

So there you have it.

One final note to those of you who like to say that I have it easy since I really don't smoke more than a few a day. I would remind you that telling me this is not very comforting. (It also just reminds me how easy it is to pull the wool over people's eyes.) Yes, I managed to cut my pack a day habit down to approximately two or three packs a week. Yes that was about six years ago. The point is that until I get it down to no packs a week, I'm still a smoker and to tell me otherwise only encourages me to keep the habit.

Labels: dose of mikey

* posted by me at 11:06 PM

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