Day 1

 Day 1. 

7:43

As I’m about to throw away my pack of tabacco, I feel a slight pang of desire in my stomach. Although the feeling starts in my gut, it mostly affects my brain; which is starting to ferociously negotiate terms where it would be acceptable for me to smoke. 

Nonetheless, my motivations being strong enough (right now at least), I will throw out my tabacco. Now, I have a difficult choice. I can either throw it away in my apartment bin where I risk fishing it out as soon as the urge to smoke strikes again, or I can throw it in an outside bin on my way to work, in which case I may cave as soon as I step outside (as that is my routine). 

By convincing myself that if i can’t resist smoking for the 20 meters that go from my dooor to the closest city-bin, then I really am not ready for stopping, I choose the second option. Plus, that way, I’m postponing the decision making, which makes it easier. 

I’m seriously doubting my resolve.

As I’m about to give up, and decide to “quit tomorrow instead”, I remember the passage in a budist book I read which gives me courage once again by reminding me that no urge is eternal.

8:10

I am in the metro station. Cigarette free. It was a close one though. Because I didn’t want to have to walk the 5 extra meters to the bin closest to my house, I decided I would wait until a bin appeared exactly on my way to the metro. To my dispair, there are no bins directly on my path to the metro. I was beginning to think this whole operation was a fiasco and that I would walk in the metro with my cigarettes and cave as soon as I stepped outside and saw a colleague light one up. 

Luckily, there was a bin in the station, which I pretended not to see for a second. Can’t fool me though, and I chucked all my tools in there, tabacco, filters, multiple skins, all of it! 

This is when it starts.

11:47

As I’m bracing myself for surmounting the lunch break cigarette , I finding it increasingly difficult to think about something other than the cigarette I would smoke on my way to get something to eat. I’m starting to wonder whether this really is the right moment to be stopping. I could smoke a few last ones to say goodbye. It’s so abrupt to stop like this.

But that’s all bullshit. And none of those thoughts have any rational source whatsoever. Juts remember what the budist described, it will pass.

16:38

I just watched Adam go for his cigarette break and kept help but feel like I’m missing out on an experience. Obviously, I could go down despite being a non-smoker, but right now it would be too dangerous. 

When I told Adam during my lunch break  that I quit smoking he wad particularly excited. He downloaded an app to read out loud to me what the benefits of smoking will be for me chronological. I acted like I hadn’t heard the list 1000 times already and listened excitedly. If those really were the reasons I was stopping though, I would have stopped a long time ago. As I’m already starting to imagine myself at the tabacco store buying yet another “pack of defeat”, I try to figure what makes this time different?

17:10

I fucked up. I decided to go outside to absorb the sun despite being a non-smoker. 

I couldn’t resist bumming one off one my students smoking outside. I won’t give up though. I’ll take it as a hurdle rather than a defeat. The liberation continues, I will refocus.

The counter start again from 0. The benefits Adam vehemently read to me need to reset.