My Experience Quitting Smoking - Day 20

Date: May 04, 2010

This is day 20 of quitting smoking. Life is much, much better now. I don't think about smoking anymore.

I don't worry about running out of cigarettes anymore. I don't worry about smelling like smoke, or that I'm destroying my body. I have way more energy and my mind is much more calm. I also don't feel guilty about spending my money on something that will kill me.

Despite the good place I am in, I realize that I am in a dangerous situation. It is always in this state of mind that I go back to smoking. It's at this point in time that I forget how bad smoking was. The other day, my friend left a pack with one cigarette remaining. I was seriously tempted to smoke it. I thought how good it would be to enjoy a surprise cigarette. But then I remembered the truth.

The truth about starting to smoke again:

The first cigarette is not satisfying.
The first cigarette makes me feel like crap.
There is guilt after smoking the first cigarette.
Despite the guilt, I always smoke another... and another...
Every cigarette after the first is an addition and nothing more.

So I took the cigarette and burned it. I did not smoke it. There was a part of me that was thinking, "You're wasting a cigarette!" But that's not true. The real waste would be if I smoked it. It would be a waste of my health. It would be a waste of my positive outlook on life. It would be a waste of all the time I spend struggling to quit. I have finally made it out of the hole, and no matter what, I can't go back.

Good luck in your own quit. Believe me, it's worth it, but it will be really, really hard.