Day 1 - Part 2

I just told my brother he looks like a gay pirate and my mother that I was going to feed her congealed Miracle Whip. Lashing out at family and it's only been 4 hours.

Quitting is like a horrible breakup. The last time someone broke my heart, I sat alone in my room, face streaked with hours worth of tears, listening to "Putting the Damage On" by Tori Amos over and over. I was irritable, depressed, morose, misanthropic, lethargic...etc.

This is worse.

I keep remembering the good times. That guy, the one I just mentioned, we used to drive around for hours smoking and drinking coffee, or sitting in his room smoking, or drinking beer and smoking......my entire life for the past three years has been __________ + smoking.

A curious niggling thought is taking root at the back of my mind and slowly unwinding its tentacles, snaking them through my brain stem, down my spine, curling around my heart, pulling tighter and tighter by minuscule degrees.

If all goes as planned, I will never hold another cigarette. No, that's not true. I fully expect a relapse, but not within the next 30 days.

My idol is Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider. WTF does that have to do with smoking?

Everything.

My life is nothing but a sad realization right now that everything I thought smoking embodied is a lie. I thought it would set me apart, make me unique, be an outward expression of my inner rebellion, straining against the PC grasp of society on my life.

But, at the end of the day, I was just lying in bed sucking smoke down into my lungs with the desperation of any addict.

The Clint Eastwood ideal is never attainable, clearly.

I have told my immediate family about my quitting. Not for support but to warn them that I will not be myself for awhile. The future is wide open. It could be easy, I could be like Ewan MacGregor in Trainspotting, hallucinating babies and shitting my pants.

Off to a work event, at which I hope to remain evenly tempered and not imbibe too much in the alcohol.