I made it to the eighth stage of my quit smoking app before I abandoned it. At this stage the goal was a sixty-nine percent reduction from my initial twenty cigarettes per day and to meet that goal there was a two hour and thirty minute interval between cigarettes. I started cheating all the time and escalated back up to about twenty cigarettes per day.
I tried to cut back gradually again but that didn’t work either. My stupid addiction got the best of me once again. I felt like shit with every pack I smoked but I couldn’t seem to stop myself, not even with a Juul for a substitute.
Fast forward a few weeks and I am going bananas for a cigarette. Part of my quit strategy that worked last time was leaving myself broke and not borrowing money for cigarettes, and it’s kind of working, but damn I hate it! I’ve been puffing on my Juul like it owes me money and digging through my own cigarette butts. I’ve been really struggling with quitting, obviously.
Someone who owed me a little money and as soon as she paid me I was off to the store to get my smokes. That first inhale was sweet relief. Finally! A cigarette! Even though I had gone a couple of days without a smoke I jumped right back into my habit of smoking my usual twenty cigarettes per day. My partner compared quitting smoking to tipping over a vending machine. It might take several tries, the point is I keep trying.
My Phoenix Rising 