On quitting

My plan was to smoke my last cigarette on Friday night. However, when midnight rolled around, I had two left in the pack and I was dead tired, so I went to sleep. When I woke up, I had my breakfast, and smoked one of the two. My last official cigarette. And I gotta tell you, it kicked my ass.

Most anyone who smokes knows the feeling. Every once and a while you get that one cigarette that goes straight to your head and makes you feel like you're gonna pass out. I always called it the "magic smoke". The last time I tried to quit, my last smoke didn't give me that feeling. That's probably why I was back to a pack a day within three weeks. This time, I know it's different. My last smoke was memorable enough that I feel confident that I won't cave in and start smoking again.

However, I was left with one cigarette in that pack. It's currently in my freezer. I'm taking a cue from Danny DeVito in the War of the Roses. If I ever smoke again, it'll be that cigarette. The beauty of this plan is that the longer I go without smoking, the less appealing a stale, frozen Camel Light is gonna be.

How am I quitting this time? I have a small cache of nicotine gum and lozenges given to me by my parents from their failed attempts to quit. I've been using the lozenges, and they've been curbing the cravings successfully. Even though they're like sucking on a chunk of soapstone, only with less flavor.

The thing I've noticed is that I'm not really craving cigarettes. I'm just getting to these heavy moments of tension, then I have a lozenge and I'm fine. But at no point has my brain said "Smoke, NOW!" I'm taking this as a good sign.

The hardest part is trying to fill those voids of time I usually spent smoking. Yesterday, I found myself cleaning my apartment just to distract myself for those moments of boredom I spent chain-smoking and surfing the internet. I may have gone overboard a little bit. My living room, dining room and kitchen are not only clean, but sterile. The floors are mopped, the shelves are dusted and the rugs are vacuumed. You could build silicon chips on my coffee table right now.

By the time I got to this party last night, I was tired from all of the cleaning and pretty damned cranky. I didn't want to smoke, but by this point, I was getting kinda sick of the lozenges. There's a reason they make those things taste so nasty. It's so you won't want to get addicted to them. My mind is made up, I'm gonna ween myself off of those things far quicker than the instructions tell me to.

This morning, I went to do laundry. Ordinarily, I spent half my time outside smoking and talking on the phone. With my phone at home on the charger, I found myself a little desperate for something to do, so I played Ms. Pac-Man while my clothes were finishing. Next time, I'll just bring a book. It'll save me three bucks in quarters.

Now, I'm gonna tackle the remaining rooms of my apartment: the bedroom and the storage closet.