Why I didn't quit smoking last November

I originally posted this on March 5th, 2017. I haven't had a cigarette since, just over 6 years ago. 

I did stop smoking, but I didn't quit.

That's not a distinction without a difference, nor am I just being pedantic. I suspect anyone who is a slave to an addiction and willing to be honest with themselves will agree. 

Words are important, especially those we use when we're thinking to ourselves about ourselves. 

It can be done. There are many ways to try. As someone with COPD from 50 years of smoking, and who quit twice before and started again, it can be done. You're paying big bucks to risk your life. There are others willing to help. 

Priorities

I suppose I really ought to quit smoking. But I bought a carton of smokes last week and I've still got 6 packs left. Besides, smoking's my muse, it ignites my brain cells.


Smoking gives you cancer. You could get lung cancer, even brain cancer. Cancer's a horrible, shitty, deadly disease. 

If I quit now I'm leaving 6 packs of cigarettes unsmoked, unappreciated. They don't let you return those things to the store you know. 

It could be those 6 packs that push you over the edge and give you cancer. You'll die a terrible, miserable death. Your hair will fall out. Oh wait, OK, your beard will fall out. You'll have to lie in a hospital bed all day. You hate that. And there isn't really a cure, so you'll linger in pain and sadness until the day you die.

But if I quit now I'm out 20 bucks. 

The fog

He stood and watched the fog approach
silently, with a natural stealth
it rolled toward him, and he stood and waited.

He reached out his hand,

touched the first wisps of vapor,
felt it on his fingertips,
cold, and wet, and empty.

Like his hopes, his life, his dreams.

There was no light, no sound,
there was the man, and the fog.

It caressed his cheek 
like his mother once had.
It damped his eyelids,
his cheek, his forehead.

It chilled him to the bone,
the touch of death, of nothingness.

It chilled him to his soul,
a dark place filled with memories and regrets.

The fog totally enveloped the man,
it was all he could feel and touch and smell.
And he welcomed it.

Within minutes the fog was gone
and with it, the man.