1 Year Anniversary!

Yesterday marks the end of the first year I have gone without taking a single puff off of a cigarette.*

Pretty amazing.

Equally amazing is that I still had a craving yesterday.

I'm convinced that I'll never be safely free from it's grasp. A lapse in vigilance could lead to an instant slip back in the giant ashtray.



* 7.5 months free of nicotine replacement products

I haven't posted in a while, but I feel like I would just be posting the same content as my previous entry.

The cravings are still happening. It's almost like a resurgance. It's just part of the evil plan. "You're treating with the Devil."

This would be easier to understand if I had cheated at some recent point; snuck in a cig' here, bummed a drag there. But I haven't. No nicotine in any form.

A quitter just has to keep the guard up at all times...for the remainder of life, apparently.

Bill Bruford on Quitting...Smoking.

I came across a passage regarding smoking and the quitting thereof in the recently released autobiography of innovative, British, jazz/rock drummer Bill Bruford.

When you try to give up nicotine, you're treating with the Devil. I thought the deal was that if you gave up, the desire to smoke would also leave you, so that you wouldn't have to give up again every day. Somehow you took it as read that if you gave up so did the craving. But the Devil saw me coming and sucked me right in. Oh, I gave up, but the delicious smell, feel, and touch of a cigarette remained as firmly embedded as ever.