An Experiment in Scotch

So approx­i­mately 214 days ago, at the end of a fun night involv­ing the Super Bowl, I swore off cig­a­rettes until foot­ball season.  Mostly this was done as a gim­mick to give me a day to shoot for far, far in the future.  Now mind you, I was never much of a smoker, it came and went and mostly involved stress at work or drinking.  But I did way more of it than I really wanted to and knew I shouldn’t.  Now, 214 days later, I’ve gone longer with­out a cig­a­rette than any time in the last 10 years.  I don’t crave them nearly as much but there are still times when I really, really want one.  Road trips are still really hard.  Casi­nos are almost impossible.  But over­all, I’m happy with the results.

I was afraid that I would reach the mile­stone and then col­lapse but I’m actu­ally in great shape now and plus, the idea of throw­ing away 214 days and start­ing over is a pretty strong motivator.  I think that peo­ple who quit should mark the day care­fully and have it in a promi­nent place so that they always know what it is that they are throw­ing away if they start again.