It's more than three years since I last smoked a cigarette - or anything else, for that matter. The date of my last cigarette is engraved on my memory as that was the day I was introduced to my Macmillan nurse. Fortunately, the shadow on my lung turned out to be a plug of mucus and not a tumour. All the same, I found it surprisingly easy to quit, even when others around me were smoking. I simply found that i didn't want to smoke. Previous attempts to stop smoking had lasted four months and six months, so I was expecting to feel the urge again in a short while. But it has rarely happened - for which I am truly thankful.
But this morning I have felt the pull. Twice.
I had finished my oats - porridge oats, not wild ones. At my age? - and was sitting at the breakfast table (it's also the lunch table and the dinner table and the supper table. Very versatile.) with a cup of coffee when it struck. Although, strangely perhaps, it wasn't the act of puffing that I wanted as I felt that would choke me. It was the whole rigmarole of taking a cigarette out of the packet, lighting it and holding it in my fingers. Anyway, the thought was soon displaced.
And then, while walking the dog in the park, I saw another dog walker with a cigarette and it reminded me how good a cigarette in the open air used to taste.
But it's alright - I'm over it again.
7 comments:
I'm glad you overcame the urge. The smoking habit is so bloomin' hard to overcome.
Six years now (for the second time).
There hasn't even been an inkling of a desire this time around.
Congratulations!
Thanks a lot, now I have the urge!
Three years here...I do have an occasional cigar with some port but no more than one a month.
Thank you all for your encouragement. And Joe, I'm very contrite. Please forgive me.
Shammickite - thanks for dropping by, and for your comments on other posts.
Funny isn't it how that urge can strike out of the blue for no particular reason - I've had the occasional slip (almost 2 years for me) and almost straight away I've realised that it really isn't something I want to do.
I'm a smoker for 43 years now. I've never quit for more than two days. Good for you for quitting and resisting the urges!
I gave up 18 months ago; I'd been thinking about it for years, knowing it was idiotic but scared of what life would be like without it (despite the fact that millions of non-smokers cope very nicely!). I still miss it sometimes, the IDEA of a good cup of coffee with a cigarette, for example. But I don't want the taste, don't want the habit, the smell in my breath and on my clothes, the fear that I'm deliberately doing something that could kill me before I've finished... And I'm amazed at the positive impact on my wallet. Hang on in there, BP!!
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