It was something of a delayed New Year's Resolution. Almost five months delayed, but it eventually came around. I noticed in December that there were a lot of areas in my life where I was dissatisfied with myself and they all seemed to kind of feed in to one another: finance, diet, and tobacco.

Overeating leads to smoking. The availability of cigarettes gives me permission to overeat. The easiest food to procure and overeat is fast food, which adds up very quickly in cost. It was a cycle I couldn't quite figure out how to get out of. Most of it went back to smoking because that was the biggest X-factor. I'd successfully reined in expenses before, and successfully dieted before, but my two previous attempts at quitting smoking didn't work out. I was fired the first time - giving me way too much time on my hands. The second time... I honestly can't remember what happened that time.

So New Year's I was going to quit. That lasted all of a day and a half. But I had managed a boring, lonesome four-hour drive from Hailey to Pocatello without incident. That was a start. So instead of quitting cold turkey, I made a series of rules: No smoking in the car, no smoking after 8pm, and no smoking while doing anything else (such as watching television or my video game play). In addition to hopefully weening me off the habit, the first two had benefits all their own (I'd be able to drive Eel in my car and cigarettes wouldn't disrupt my sleep).

As January came to a close, I was getting a handle on the new regulations. Even having removed the biggest "problem area" (the car), I noticed a couple smaller problem areas, such as lunch at work. Ironically, knowing I'd be limited later led me to increase consumption when I could - leading me to start smoking straight through lunch. There was still an overall decrease and at the beginning of February, I added new ones: Couldn't smoke more than one cigarette per hour period (such as 1-2pm), couldn't smoke more than one every fifteen minutes, and couldn't smoke on the balcony or in the apartment courtyard. March was another set: couldn't smoke on the apartment complex at all, couldn't smoke twice in any hour (if I started one at 1:13pm, I couldn't start another one until 2:13pm), and couldn't be drinking anything while I smoked.

But it was April's that got to me. I'd adjusted pretty well to the previous sets, but April left me working four hour shifts at work without any tobacco relief and having to get in my car and drive to the nearest park when at home. By this point Camille was starting to notice my disposition changing (and not for the better!). Nonetheless, I was starting to get a handle on it when April 21st rolled around. As some of you know, April 21st was the fifth anniversary of a friend's death and for me is the worst day of the year. I fell off the wagon completely and chain smoked about five cigarettes.

Afterwards, I threw the remaining cigarettes away, threw away my lighters, and most importantly, I threw away my smoking jacket. The smoking jacket was a Walmart cheap-o that I bought last year. It got washed one too many times (because of smoke-stench) and the zipper's teeth started falling out. It became symbolic of something and I decided that I would throw it away when I became serious about quitting.

And this time I was serious. It's odd. On the previous two attempts, I was quitting because I felt like I should or because I needed to. This time, however, I actually wanted to quit. I was engaged to Camille by this point and I didn't want to be a smoker when we were married. The April regulations had been so tough that it stopped being relaxing. In an odd, simple way, it was time.

Simple, but not easy. I didn't particularly have the physical addiction that plagues many smokers. For me it was habitual. Psychological. Deeply psychological. I knew that, but I don't think I appreciated it until the first week after quitting. It's difficult to describe how it feels to rip that particular backbone out of your life. For some reason, I think it was more difficult than it was the previous two times. I think it's because this time I knew that it was permanent. Whether I ever smoked again or not, I was pretty determined never to be a smoker again.

But I broke and I did smoke again. One half a cigarette. I threw away the second half and the rest of the back. I'd do this on a couple more occasions. Oddly, I don't consider it a real failure. On the whole it's actually been good for my efforts. I learned two things about my progress: my system was rejecting the cigarettes, as I'd figured it would after a week or so, and that I was able to puff and walk away because I felt stupid doing it. I wasn't getting the high or the relaxing effects. I was just sitting there, at a Phillips 66 station, failing. It made snuffing the cigarette easier.

And it's made me a lot less fearful. Life does not come to an end if I falter, so I needn't worry so much about faltering. I don't need to even think about it. They're there if I need them, but biologically and mentally I have no need of them. I haven't faltered in over two weeks now. Haven't felt the desire to.

Weight is often an issue with folks that have quit smoking*, though since it was part of a three-fer decided last December, I've actually lost a little weight. Not much, but some. I haven't been eating great, but I've been eating at a level I can sustain indefinitely without, apparently, gaining weight. It's moderately slowed down the rate at which I've been losing weight, but I'll take that. I've also been exercising, riding 5-15 miles on my recumbent bike daily. Before getting the bike set up, I was walking up and down Red Hill.

And on a last note, Camille has been wonderful throughout this entire ordeal. She's had to deal with me when I've been cranky and snippy. From the start, she's said that the more times you try to quit the more likely you are to succeed and that even if I don't make it this time around, it'll set me up better for the next one. I went about this all an odd way. A lot of people that I've sort of broached the subject with (usually to explain odd behavior such as walking across the street to smoke a cigarette in a parking lot) has said that if I was serious about it I would just quit instead of these increasing regulations. For a person that tends to be all-or-nothing, though, I think that this is the only way I could have quit. Fighting one tobacco demon at a time.

* - I hesitate to say that "I've quit" as if it's something that has been done. I won't have quit quit until I'm buried in the ground not having smoken a cigarette. But given that I have gone a month without completely caving, two weeks without even a minor falter, and at least a week-and-a-half since feeling even a fleeting desire to falter, I really feel pretty good about my chances. But we'll see how it all goes. The important part is that I have definitely reached the point that I would have to start smoking again, rather than just resume smoking. A distinction with a difference larger than I would have thought.