Quit the Pack a Day Cigarette Habit

Mornings were the worst when I would wake myself with a harsh coughing fit I couldn’t control. My throat would remain scratchy and over time and my chest would fill with a sharpening pain. It’s not something that I woke up with one day, this built up slowly over time with some occasional really bad days. Yet, coughing or not, I continued to smoke.

I began to smoke at the age of 17. Many of my friends were smokers and that curious devil in me wanted to know what I was missing out on. I was on break with my buddies at a fast food place when I reached out for somebody’s resting cigarette in the ashtray. That first drag was a dizzy high that left a smile on my face. I always felt that I could beat it if I wanted to, that I wasn’t really addicted. But that first experience wasn’t repulsive for me, I enjoyed it. Nobody ever told me that the high would fade away. You can’t use it, the tobacco uses you. That rush returns only when your body has been deprived of it.

A pack of my cigarettes were my crutch for the next ten years. They were a part of my routine, emptying out of the box like some sort of twisted clock. I smoked when I woke up, after meals, while I drove, while I rested, nearly every half hour of my waking life.  And they were there when I needed anything, when life seemed frustrating as hell. Over the next ten years I smoked a pack a day. That’s roughly 73,000 times. And at average of $3.00 a pack during the bulk of my smoking years, that was near $11,000 at a time when income was precious. During this whole time, I never purchased my cigarettes by the carton because I always felt that I might quit before I finished them.

I must have tried quitting at least a hundred times, though it’s never just one battle you’re up against. It’s you vs. yourself, your body vs. the drug, the crash of changing your whole daily routine so you’re not tempted, struggling with your vision to look away while you see somebody lighting up, arguing about the harmful effects while your close friends continue to smoke, and yes… I was horribly grouchy every moment of that.