I've made it another day without smoking. And the strange thing is, it really is getting easier. I don't feel like I'm struggling that hard to get through a day without a cigarette.
On the other hand, in the middle of wanting one, it feels like all I want is to smoke.
I was trying to think of some cool way to say, "Hey, I'm not suffering," and there is no cool way to say that. It's like saying, "I didn't stub my toe today." I think most people make it through their days without stubbing toes or suffering or smoking. So to comment on it -- even though I am clearly very special and wonderful for making it 11 days or so without smoking -- seems inherently uncool.
Tennessee has recently enacted a bunch of laws against smoking. There are the recently increased taxes, to be sure, but there are also new laws against smoking in restaurants. These kinds of laws drive me crazy on a political level.
On the other hand, non-smoking restaurants are some of my newest bestest friends. I have been living in fear of running into a big cloud of cigarette smoke in public, worrying that smelling it would send me into such a tizzy of nostalgic longing, it would compel me to run to the nearest store, buy a big pack of cigarettes, and immediately smoke 8 in a row. Or maybe all at once. I just didn't know what would happen if I smelled cigarette smoke.
Today -- after literally scrubbing certain kitchen appliances for hours in order to remove caked on grease and grime -- I decided I didn't want to cook dinner. (OK, really, I never want to cook dinner, but frugality forces me to do so most of the time.) So I called in an order at a restaurant in a town 20 minutes away, and then I drove there to pick it up. This is what you do when you live in the boonies. There is no such thing as "delivery."
So I drove the 20 minutes and walked inside... and the first thing I noticed was a sign that read, "This establishment will be non-smoking as of October 1st."
On the left side of the restaurant, which has been the smoking area since the mid-1990's, only a smattering of tables held customers. On the non-smoking side of the restaurant, every table was full.
And at a table right behind me, there was a cigarette in an ashtray at a completely empty table, burning merrily away.
Totally unavoidable lungs-fuls of delicious, delectable, unfettered, unattached, unattended and presumably unowned tobacco smoke.
If it hadn't been a brown-filtered cigarette of some non-mentholated sort, I might have been tempted to steal it and run away.
Nah, that's not true. I'll be honest; I had a tingle up and down my spine and part of me thrilled and wondered how I would react to this temptation. But -- it didn't do much of anything to me. I didn't long for a cigarette. I wasn't disgusted by the smoke. It was actually kind of a letdown to realize that -- only 11 or so days into this quitting thing -- I seem to have no emotional reaction to live cigarette smoke.
Dang, y'all, if cigarettes were an ex-boyfriend, I would at least have a mild temper tantrum, wouldn't I?
So -- y'know, whatev. Let's see what Day 111 brings, shall we?
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3 comments:
I'm really glad you were able to resist temptation. I still haven't REALLY had to deal with this beyond my hour in the car with a smoker. I'm a big chicken. Cluck cluck.
And hey - at least you have a good restaurant within a 20 mile radius. We don't even have that. If I don't cook the food here we either get crap fast food, indifferent blah restaurant food, filth and horror at the Chinese place (I will NOT eat there), or break down and drive 60 miles to my mom's for some REAL good food.
Bay, glad to hear that it is getting easier day by day, and I agree that in the actual middle of wanting to smoke, that's the hardest and seems like forever, even if it's almost never more than 5 minutes. Then it passes, and it's all better for awhile (longer while and longer while) You are cool, and then some.
Today is Quit Day for me and my very limited experience is I can't stand the smell. I was walking up the street a few hours ago and there was a guy sitting on the front stoop reading the paper and enjoying a cigarette. I smelled it nearly half a block away and thought "yuck." And I hope it stays that way. Don't get me wrong, I LOVED to smoke. Cigarettes we my closest, constant companion. Just not any more.
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