I quit smoking. Aside from a five year period in my mid-30s, I’ve smoked for pretty much the last three decades. But I have quit again. This is day 15, and everything has gone pretty well so far–except a week ago Saturday. I don’t know what happened. I had an intense urge to smoke all day long and I could not distract myself. Eventually all I could think about was planning how I was going to get into my car and go buy a pack. I literally could think of nothing else. So at around 3 pm, I did it. I smoked half of that pack and then destroyed the rest when I went to bed around midnight. The next day everything was fine again. I think there was something wrong with my nicotine patch. It was a dud, or wasn’t glued on right or something.

But I’m ahead of myself. How did I quit? First, I picked a day. A Friday. So I could take the day off and isolate myself for three days before having to turn up at work and function. I got a new vape pen and some juice (no nicotine). Then I bought a two week box of 21mg nicotine patches. Then, I put out my last cigarette on Thursday night before going to bed. And on Friday morning, I got up timely, took a quick shower, and stuck a patch on my left shoulder blade.

Then I sort of walked around in a daze. I gave myself permission to do whatever the fuck I wanted. So I went to George Webb and had an All-American breakfast and some coffee. Then I went to the factory-second home store next door and browsed. Then I went to Walmart and I don’t remember what I bought there. I spent the rest of the day isolating in my apartment. I watched TV. I looked at Facebook. At around nine that evening I had some wine. I vaped a little. I took off my patch at ten and I was in bed by midnight. I had made it.

The next two days, Saturday and Sunday, were very much the same. I went to work on Monday and did not murder anyone. Then, the entire week went by. Those first 2-3 days I was kind of in shock. After that I started to feel a little more normal. I was getting used to the continuous 21mg nicotine level in my blood. It takes getting used to because of course that’s not how you dose yourself when you smoke.

Then one week turned into two. Mostly things are normal. But I have avoided going out at night after work. Mostly this is because I can avoid any kind of anxiety that might arise out of being around other people. I have no choice at work, but after work I can just put on some sweats and chill. I still think about smoking every day, many times a day. Sometimes I daydream about going out and sneaky getting a pack. No one would know. But that’s the path back to a pack-and-a-half a day habit. I know that.

The hard part is over. Or at least one hard part is over. I’ve still got the transitions to smaller patches to look forward to. And then the day when I have no patch at all. Wish me luck.