Alive with Pleasure...or something like that.

  Ahhh! Newport 100s. My brand of choice. Not the short ones. They had to be 100s and had to be in a hard pack! They were so yummy until they weren't anymore. I pretended to smoke my first ciggie when I was four years old. I snitched one from my Oldest brother`s pack when we lived on Pequot Avenue. He was sitting at the staircase and I was passing him. He stopped me dead in my tracks and told me to put it back.  I inhaled when I was 14 yrs old. My friend and I were sitting near the train tracks(cause that is a normal place for kids to hang) coughing to the burn of our first inhale  and I never looked back.
  I did have a brief respite from the coffin nails back when I was 25 years old. My dentist told me I needed to quit because my gums were in bad shape. Meaning he could not guarantee I would not get cancer in the near future. So I quit and was smoke free for four years. Then my stupid ass picked them right back up again. I worked for the phone company and we were on strike. Everyone in the picket line was smoking. Oh Sweet Newport 100s. I missed you so. If my calculations are correct, I smoked for 21 years. Same age as my Oldest. Interesting. That is a lot of fucking money I wasted. That is what made me quit..the money. Not my health. Not my family. Not the threat of dying an agonizing death. Nope Nope Nope. It was the $8.00 a pack I was paying every single day.  Plus that morning hack was just oh so attractive. NOT! I tried to quit but it never worked. Over and Over and Over. I even tried Chantix. That shit was like Tic Tacs to my addiction.   I had to do it in a way that I could not get access to them.
   I quit on the day that I had my back surgery. November 17, 2009. I grabbed a ciggy out of the pack, put it aside, and ripped up all the others that were left in the pack into the trash can outside the house. I lit it with my trusty Bic and it went into the trash also. I smoked it on the way to the hospital.
I was feeling alright when I was in the hospital but when I got out. OMG! I wanted one the moment we walked into the house.  Hubs was strong. I have to hand it to him. I had told him that no matter what I said or did, he was not to give in. I screamed only at him...poor thing. I told him to come home with a pack of cigs, he comes home with a box of patches and some bubble gum. I did not want that shit. I threw that box of patches at him every chance I got. MotherFucker! I want Cigarettes!!
He did not give in. It was night, it was cold, I was in PJs and slippers. I walked down our dead end street because I was going to be a Bad Assed Bitch and walk to 7-11..third day after back surgery. Hubs got me at end of street. Drove around the neighborhood, got almost to the store, and turned around. I cried. I cried like someone had died. And someone had. My old self. I was no longer going to be a smoker and I mourned it.
I just gave in. I could not get them myself so I might as well put the damn patches on, chew my gum, and live with it.  I swore (obviously..hehe), I ranted, I bitched, and twitched. But I did it. In two days it will be my one year anniversary. One day at a time.
Every once in a while, I will see someone out and about smoking..and I will want one really badly. Then other times I see someone smoking and it totally turns me off. I keep hold of the ones that made me not want to smoke..
Because I am never going to do it again..