Looking Back

Some things in life look better the smaller they get in your rear view mirror. After they are out of sight, they are at the mercy of selective memory. They lose weight, warts disappear, etc.

This can easily happen with cigarettes in the mind of the quitter.

I'm coming up on 2 years post-smoking.

That feeling still occasionally sweeps over me; an imagined rushing sensation, as in the anticipation of that first suck off a lit cigarette. Often, it's seeing someone on the screen/monitor taking in a much needed, very satisfying whiff of first-hand smoke that triggers it.

It seems like the memory of pleasurable aspects of smoking remain eternally intact. They can re-enter the mind at any time effortlessly or despite any effort to suppress them.

The detrimental aspects -- all the things terrible things associated with smoking, from perpetual coughing, the stench of all surrounding cloth, the nagging need that makes everything in between cigarettes an excruciating ordeal, etc. -- however, seem to take a concerted effort to retain. You have to perpetually remind yourself...in explicit terms.

By the way, I can't imagine being able to successfully quit smoking while drinking alcohol on a regular basis. Get a buzz on, and the aforementioned concerted effort dissolves in the foam.