It has been quite a while since I've thought about this blog. Clearly, I did not make good on my promise to post daily and as it turns out monthly even.
Honestly, I stopped posting because I failed. In March during the 2010 SXSW film and music festival I caved and began smoking again. Shortly after the festival ended I quit again. Since then I have smoked occasionally in social situations without much trouble. I rarely desire cigarettes because the new monkey on my back is snus. My brain has made the switch and now associates the pleasures of nicotine with snus. As long as I continue to use snus I am not fearful that I will go back to smoking if I have one every now and then.
I tried my plan of slowly reducing my nicotine levels bit by bit based on the snus I purchased and finally got down to nicotine and tobacco free snus. I skipped the step with the nicotine gum. I lasted 2 days and then caved. Without snus easily available I picked smoking right back up.
Currently, I'm back on the Swedish Snus, a slave to nicotine but not to cigarettes, while I plan my new strategy to kick nicotine for good. I have a smoke every now and then with a co-worker or a friend and feel it's pretty harmless.
All in all at this point in the “experiment” I feel good. It's been close to a year since I began tempting my cigarette addiction and this last year, while not being cigarette free, has certainly had a lot less smoke in it. A year ago I would've never thought this was possible.
I stumbled across this blog by chance, and just thought I'd wish you luck. I hope you're still going strong, and keep in mind that one would be hard pressed to call all of your accomplishments in quitting thus far a failure.
ReplyDeleteI too have started the same path as you only a week ago, and while the temptations have been surprisingly mild for me (was only up to about 5-10 cigarettes a day, luckily), I know I have quite a ways to go, especially living with an entire family that smokes. Wish me luck!