Smobriety Charticle Six

Weight: 173 pounds

Pulse: 68 beats per minute

Song Stuck In Head: “Love, Thy Will Be Done,” Martika

Risk of Smoking Resumption: Eggshell White (virtually unimaginable)

Symptoms: Tiredness, and, er…tiredness.

An apology: could not post yesterday, as the closest I got to the internet was a digital watch that had a calculator function. Also yesterday, I forgot to take any Happy Pills at all until four in the afternoon, whereupon I decided to just quit it altogether, and I have not really suffered any kind of side effects since.
I wrote, exactly one week ago, that I quit smoking with three people. One was “Dick,” who is using The Patch intermittently, but is, for the most part, as they say, clean and smober. On Friday night, I finally met back up with the third member of the, um, Smoking Cessation Posse, who we’ll call “Tim.” Tim was going to use The Gum. Many people fear The Gum; when I told people our methods of quitting, they would nod as I said that Dick was going to use The Patch, they would grimace a bit when I said I was going to use The Happy Pills, but when I’d say that Tim was going to use The Gum, they would rear back and blurt, “The Gum doesn’t work!”
It was for this reason that I figured that Tim would be the one to fail.
Results after the jump.

It's still up in the air as to whether The Gum works or not, as Tim hasn't had any of it. He says that he figured that, on the first day, he'd wait until the cravings got really bad, and then he would chew a piece of The Gum. This turned into a kind of mental pissing contest between Tim and Himself. He's still carrying the now-battered, still-unopened pack around with him, a kind of unloved security blanket, but all that we could discuss was how uneventful this smobriety really is.
The only thing that took a lot of getting used to was this: time moves really slowly when you quit smoking. The first three days, I felt like The Flash, living life at super-speed while the clock slowly sweat out every minute. Granted, it wasn't like I was using the time for anything useful: I was mostly watching old Woody Allen movies and reading a couple of horrible books. But each day felt like three. Three (really boring) days.
And besides that...nothing, really.
There were some comments from readers, which I am always grateful for. Commenter "Pliny," in particular, raised a good point when I first mentioned that smoking cessation was pretty much cake.

I always thought the biggest risk would be after you're done quitting. Right now you're totally deliberate about quitting--slogging about it, thinking about it, probably talking about it with people. But eventually there comes a day when that show is over and you're just a boring old non-smoker. For me, that's when I think I'd be most susceptible to a little voice suggesting one more for old times' sake. No one will know, doesn't mean you're a smoker again, etc. I think you should swear an oath to post on the slog if you ever, ever have a cigarette again. Like, if it's twenty years from now and you're living in Thailand and you have a cigarette, you have to post it on the slog. Then you'll never feel like we're not watching you.

Actually, I think in twenty years alternative newspapers will be available in injectable liquid form, but I take your point: done. And I'll do one better: If I ever resume smoking, the first person to call me on it and mention the "My Smobriety" slogs will receive one hundred dollars cash. Please note: if you offer me the cigarette, or in any way try to talk me into having the cigarette, the hundred dollars is void and you are a very, very bad person.

And, lastly, to commenter "Altmanfan," who was inspired to quit: good luck. If it doesn't work out this time, it's probably because you haven't made yourself believe that you're ready to stop. Read this book, but don't buy it from Amazon, buy it at a local independent bookstore, for God's sake.
More, shorter, posts about smoking cessation through the week.