Driving home from Christmas Eve Mass, my wife asked me to detour through downtown to look at the Christmas lights. Having gone to an early service, I did. Just a few years ago, our youngest begged to see Christmas lights. At seventeen,seventeen, with the temperament of an octogenarian, he was less enthused and began to grumble and gripe.
I ignored him at first — usually the best approach with an eighty-year-old teenager. After a few minutes of hearing how I was wasting his time I snapped at him. I quickly realized the snap was bigger than the offense. I apologized.” It’s probably just nicotine withdrawal, but can you go easy tonight? It’s Christmas Eve?”
“You’d have to quit smoking to go through withdrawal,” he quipped in return.
He wasn’t wrong, but sadly. He wasn’t right, either. I had quit only two hours ago, and was feeling the level of my addiction.
We have a twenty-year-old cat named Socrates. As infirmed as Socrates is when he gets one WIFF of catnip, he becomes alive. He will literally bounce down the stairs — as if being pulled by the nip. He rolls in it until his eyes become glasses and his addiction becomes satiated.
I call him Billy Burrows when he’s in that state, even though I’m the only one in my house that gets the Junky reference. Call him Billy Burrows, because I think it’s funny, and because I judge him, for being an addict. A judgment I can’t make anymore — knowing how short two hours actually is.
I’ve tried to quit for years. I promised my wife I’d quit before our oldest son was born. He’s almost twenty-three. I’ve gone so far as switching to cigars, little filtered ones, and not inhaling on them.
On a certain level, I know what bullshit that is, but I’m also aware it was a better step, and I don’t actually inhale, so on a smallest level it’s an improvement.
Moving into a new year, I’ve decided it’s not enough of a step. So I quit for two hours on Christmas Eve and realized what a junky I actually am.
I eased back my goals. From weight loss and writing, I’ve learned the best way to accomplish a big goal is to take little positive steps, baby steps, towards it, rather than a giant leap.
For baby steps to work, at least in my experience, there have to be rules. Simple rules that aren’t difficult to keep. For weight loss, my goals were simple: eat healthy six days a week. On the seventh, eat whatever. Exercise, a few times a week, easy exercise. I used DDPY, but anything works. If you’re really out of shape, any exercise is better than what you’re used to. You can read my weight loss post for more specifics on that.
As far as smoking goes, I’m really out of shape. I was smoking a pack and a half a day, at least. Buying my filtered cigars in bulk and a few months at a time, I can’t be sure what I was actually smoking. I didn’t refill my cigar order when I was running low in December. I buy two packs at a time now, that’s a baby step. I also bought a vape another baby step..
After a little over a week, I know I’m smoking 16 a day on average. That’s the most I’ll allow myself to smoke, a baby step and an easy rule to follow. That became my first baby step: don’t smoke more that sixteen a day. That’s cutting my habit in half, which wasn’t that hard.
Most of the cigars I smoked were mindless on the way to work. Or the first thing in the morning, and I was probably putting them out only about halfway through. It was nervous-smoking.
I’ve also decided not to smoke while driving, that was the biggest time of nervous-bored-smoking every day. That’s when I use my vape if I need to. I have used it a few times, but rarely.
In the near future, I’m going to cut the number of cigars I allow myself a day. I haven’t set a date, a goal, or a baby step yet, but I know it will happen, then I’ll do it again, and again.
I think this approach is working. I’m not an ex-smoker, but I’m closer, and no eighty-year-old children have been harmed yet.