by Bridget N. Watts

Created on: March 30, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I quit smoking about a year and three months ago. Previously I had been a heavy smoker (30 a day, at least) for almost 15 years. I was a heavy but a happy smoker. Everything in my life revolved around smoking, from the moment I got up in the morning until the time I went to bed at night. I smoked everywhere, and any time it was allowed, except from during sex and in the shower. I was a smoker, all my friends were smokers, and I could not picture my life without it.

Then on January first of last year, I quit smoking. Cold turkey. In the 15 years that I had been a smoker, I had never attempted to quit before. I always felt that I did not want to smoke forever, I just never felt ready to give it up before. That all changed when my mother, who is the biggest nicotine addict who has ever lived, had a heart attack. Suddenly I realized that the messages on cigarette packs telling me that smoking kills were really true.

The first few days of quitting were hell. No scratch that, the first few months not smoking were hell. I am not exaggerating when I say that all I could think about for three whole months was I want to smoke, I want to smoke, I want to smoke! The first few days without nicotine I could not get myself to do anything. If I could not smoke while doing something, I thought it was no fun, and that it had no point. It got so bad that I felt like life was not worth living without nicotine. That really scared me.

It scared me but it was also what made me persist. I felt that if I really thought that life was not worth living if I could not smoke, I was such an addict there was no other thing to do, I had to give it up. That is the main thing that got me trough it. That and the fact I did not want to end up like my mother and have a heart attack before I am 50. In addition, I have to say my amazing levels of stubbornness and persistence helped a lot.

So here I am a year and three months later, at least 20 pounds heavier (I think it is impossible to quit smoking and not increase your eating), with 10% more lung capacity (I am still not very sportive though), 20% enhanced smelling ability (everything stinks!), and on the whole I am a lot calmer. I am now an ex-smoker. Or a non-smoker even. And for the most part, I am happy about it.

I no longer need to smoke. Nevertheless, I miss it. I miss those coffee and cigarette breaks in the morning, I miss nervous stress chain-smoking, I miss the bonding with the other smokers, I miss that cigarette after a long day, on a perfect day, or after great sex. I hope I will never take up smoking again, but I know I will always miss it.

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