Hi, Animal.
[quote]I've got a question for those that have successfully quit in the past and gone back to smoking. How does this happen? [/quote]
I'd like to answer this for three reasons; the first of them is to try to help you with your quit, after all, that's what SSC's for - we all help each other, and it works very well. The other two are purely selfish, however - I'd like a written record of my last failure to remind me not to be so *$�*��* stupid next time round, and also I'm having a b**ch of a time at work, and focusing on not smoking is quite therapeutic.
I quit nine years ago. Went cold turkey for about a day, but then suffered what I can only describe as the polar opposite of an out-of-body experience: I found myself trapped inside the body of a raving nicotine addict, and it was unbearable. I bought a pack of nicotine gum in sheer desperation, and that helped (psychologically, I suspect) to get me through the next couple of days.
[hang on - I'm getting to the point, honestly - I just got sidetracked for a paragraph...]
The weird thing is that I know I really wasn't that committed to my quit; not mentally, anyhow. I was going through the motions, but, out of sheer stubbonness I hung on to it, telling myself that if I was going to do it at all, I may as well do it properly.
So time passed, and I stayed quit. After three months I had some friends over for dinner, drank masses of very good wine, and then shared the rest of my cigar collection between the smokers, explaining that I wasn't going to smoke anymore. I just didn't see myself as a smoker - I WASN'T a smoker.
Three years later, I had the bright idea, at the tender age of 43, to go back to Uni and do a Masters. I remember that, during breaks between lectures, the smokers congregated outside, and we non-smokers drank coffee in the kitchen. Never occurred to me to join the "outside" crew - it was no longer part of my universe.
[This is where we get to the point, if you haven't already given up ...]
After I and my classmates graduated, proud owners of our brand-new degrees, we arranged to meet in a restaurant nearby to celebrate. On the way to the restaurant, stone-cold sober, and smoke-free for three and a bit years, I stopped off in a cigar shop, and bought myself a Cohiba Lanceros (the ones Fidel Castro used to smoke, before he packed 'em in). It was my treat to myself. I deserved it, I told myself, after my three years of no-smoking, and a brand new degree.
It didn't take long at all. I can't remember the exact chronology, but I reckon it was a cigar the next week, three the week after, one a day the following week, and within perhaps less than a month I'd given up the cigar lie, and taken up cigarettes again.
I put a packet a day on my quit meter, but it was often more than that. Even at 20 a day, I managed to smoke at least 43800 cigarettes between that fateful, stupid havana and finally coming to my senses two months ago.
When I quit, on 1st Jan this year, I actually told myself (or, more accurately, the junkie inside me told me) that, after a while, I'd be able to have the occasional puff.
Now I'm not so sure. What do you reckon, Animal? Can I??
[B]My Milage:[/B]
[B]My Quit Date: [/B]1/1/2008
[B]Smoke-Free Days:[/B] 57
[B]Cigarettes Not Smoked:[/B] 1,140
[B]Amount Saved:[/B] �302.10
[B]Life Gained:[/B]
[B]Days:[/B] 9 [B]Hrs:[/B] 12 [B]Mins:[/B] 50 [B]Seconds:[/B] 55