Confession time
Nov. 14th, 2010 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flatvurmI do not, as a rule, spend a lot of time on self-loathing. (For reasons that have baffled me for basically my whole life, this does not appear to be true for a lot of my friends. But that's a whole other thing.) If you know me, though, you probably know that I suffer from what some might call a dearth of willpower. One of the hardest things I've ever done, possibly the hardest, is quit smoking. Just some combination of my laziness-spawned inability to better my lot plus the apparently superstrong addictive bond that I form with nicotine brews this perfect storm of pointless self-destructive behavior. Although I can remember the experience of the night I first started in with the cigs, I can't specifically place it on a timeline. That aside, I figure I was probably a smoker for ten years or so...maybe a hair over. In that time, I've probably quit, say, three or four times. I've "decided" to quit many more times than that, but I count it as a real quit if I can measure my time off the smokes in months instead of days.
The last time I quit -- which was about when I was leaving Atlantic City, so...call it two summers ago? -- it felt like the final time, the one I could really hang my hat on. I admit falling off the wagon for a while a little less than a year ago. I don't remember the exact timing of it, just that it was in the deep of winter, because I remember thinking how stupid it was to be out smoking in the snow. :P I forget how long that lasted, but I know I was clean by the time I moved to Philly, and I've been clean since.
Until the break-in. The night of the break-in -- which was, what, like two weeks ago? -- in the contemplative aftermath, I went out and bought a pack and sucked down a couple of those bad boys. That lasted a couple days...I think all-told I had like five or six cigs from that pack before giving the rest away to a panhandler. I figured that was that. A few days ago, though, I bought another pack. I'm sure I made it more than halfway through that one before I chucked it in disgust sometime yesterday morning. Sad to say...today I bought yet another pack, so call that my third stumble in two weeks. I think I can consider myself off the wagon at this point.
Which brings me to my opening statement. The one time I really give in to the self-loathing is when I'm smoking. Well, it's not the smoking itself, but the addiction. When I know I'm losing the fight with addiction, that's when I feel low. Of course...when I'm low, that's when it feels best to have a cigarette, so I'm sure there's some feedback loop going on there. Regardless...this is where I am now, and I can recognize a slippery slope when I see one. I'm jobless with nothing to do, I'm not getting any exercise, and now I'm hitting the cigarettes.
So I just wanted to get that out there, because betterment through public shaming is why this blog was founded in the first place. ;) I'm also trying to...somehow get more inured to the feeling of failure, in the hopes that it will become less of a crippling force in my life. But aside from all that, the important thing here is that I have to stop smoking all over again, so if I drop off the map for a little while...well, that's why. :)
The last time I quit -- which was about when I was leaving Atlantic City, so...call it two summers ago? -- it felt like the final time, the one I could really hang my hat on. I admit falling off the wagon for a while a little less than a year ago. I don't remember the exact timing of it, just that it was in the deep of winter, because I remember thinking how stupid it was to be out smoking in the snow. :P I forget how long that lasted, but I know I was clean by the time I moved to Philly, and I've been clean since.
Until the break-in. The night of the break-in -- which was, what, like two weeks ago? -- in the contemplative aftermath, I went out and bought a pack and sucked down a couple of those bad boys. That lasted a couple days...I think all-told I had like five or six cigs from that pack before giving the rest away to a panhandler. I figured that was that. A few days ago, though, I bought another pack. I'm sure I made it more than halfway through that one before I chucked it in disgust sometime yesterday morning. Sad to say...today I bought yet another pack, so call that my third stumble in two weeks. I think I can consider myself off the wagon at this point.
Which brings me to my opening statement. The one time I really give in to the self-loathing is when I'm smoking. Well, it's not the smoking itself, but the addiction. When I know I'm losing the fight with addiction, that's when I feel low. Of course...when I'm low, that's when it feels best to have a cigarette, so I'm sure there's some feedback loop going on there. Regardless...this is where I am now, and I can recognize a slippery slope when I see one. I'm jobless with nothing to do, I'm not getting any exercise, and now I'm hitting the cigarettes.
So I just wanted to get that out there, because betterment through public shaming is why this blog was founded in the first place. ;) I'm also trying to...somehow get more inured to the feeling of failure, in the hopes that it will become less of a crippling force in my life. But aside from all that, the important thing here is that I have to stop smoking all over again, so if I drop off the map for a little while...well, that's why. :)