Trying To Quit Smoking

Well, as the joke goes, "quitting smoking is easy, I've done it 100 times"!  It isn't of course.  I have quit for months on occasion only to fall back into it.  The saddest time was in the 1980s while on a camping trip to Canada with my former friend.   On our last day of camping, he was down to his last 2 cigarettes and said he was quitting and did I want to share 1 of the last 2.  I know now it was astonishingly stupid, but I felt immune immune.  It tasted GREAT! 

You know, I've actually wondered since then if my "friend" did that deliberately.  At the time, such a thought would never have occurred to me.  But these days, I consider the possibility.  He DID frequently mention how envious he was that I had quit when he couldn't...

When we got back to the Park convenience shop, he immediately bought a carton of cigarettes.  I stole several and smoked them stealthily.  We drove back to NY City where he lived at the time (and yes, I had done all the driving in my car).  But I had to drive back to MD from NY and I suddenly couldn't face the long boring New Jersey Turnpike without  smoking.  And there I was smoking again. 

I've stopped a few times since then for a few weeks at a time.  But then I face a long drive, a stressful event, or a long night at the computer and I give in again.  I wish the damn things were illegal.  It's just too hard to stop smoking when they are available 24/7 on every street corner.

I'm convinced I'm habituated to the "process" of smoking and not the nicotine.  I think that because sometimes I don't light a cigarette for several days at a time and it doesn't bother me.  And because I've been "vaping" an e-cigarette for 2 days which provides nicotine but is not in any way psychologically satisfactory. 

The e-cigarette is completely unsatisfactory.  It's a ceramic rod that is way too heavy, unwieldy, and (in spite of best efforts of designers) just doesn't work like a real cigarette.  I admire that it provides nicotine (in gradually reducible amounts), the appearence of smoke (its water vapor), and none of the carcinigens of actual cigarette smoke. 

But they just don't quite work yet.  They need to be as light as a regular cigarette, have a paperlike feel to the "filter" end,  and provide a better fake smoke.

And don't wish me good luck for stopping.  Between the 5th and 6th paragraphs, I drove to the nearest convenience store and bought a new carton of real cigarettes...  ARGH!!!  I just CAN'T be on the computer and not smoke... I need a better fake cigarette.