"I quit"

Here I go again...quitting the wicked (legal) weed. I'm about 42 hours "sober" on this, my latest attempt, at quitting.

Feeling good about it, more or less. Yesterday was a struggle...even tried to get "just one" smoke from the neighbor across the street (for some reason, that was more "okay" in my mind that going out to buy a pack). I'm feeling a little bit more cool with everything, although it was a little rough letting the dogs out and not having my usual "greet the morning" smoke.

I think that is what will be the hardest...the habitual stuff. It was the hardest stuff to overcome before. That early monrning smoke....that first smoke while driving to work...those chain-smoking spurts on the long hauls up north. Those are where it'll be killer. Which is actually kind of ironic (or maybe not so) in the fact that many of those situations are what got me smoking in the FIRST place. When you work crappy jobs that you despise, a smoke break becomes a respite...even if you aren't a smoker (per se). You find the more you hate that job, the more you don't mind becoming a smoker. A ten minute break outside your workplace during a fierce Michigan blizzard while smoking a bummed Virginia Slim MENTHOL cigarrette is a nice diversion compared to being inside and selling your soul for a lousy paycheck. Hence, smoking becomes a comfort. ..just as it can be a traveling companion during late night trips from the heart of Corn Country Illinois to Chicago's Sterile Suburbia.

It's weird that as I write this, I really come to grips with that fact that smoking really was associated with many of the hardest times in my life. Thus maybe quitting isn't just a physical health move--maybe it's an emotionally beneficial one as well.