How does it feel to stop smoking? I'll tell you. I'm one year smoke-free tomorrow...
I don't normally open up too much about personal topics where I, alone, am the protagonist of my own story. Maybe out of laziness, but mainly because I constantly struggle with what I myself call a passive, latent impostor syndrome... However, 3 months ago I smoked the last cigarette of tobacco that I hope to smoke in my entire life, and then, after talking it over with my partner and some friends, I decided to tell how it feels to stop being addicted to a frighteningly common vice...
While each person struggles to quit substances in a huge world of their own, I can only relate what I used to put an end to almost 20 years of smoking... Don't judge me, I promised to be honest, and I will be honest. It crossed my mind many times to cut down this aberrant habit. But since last year, in August 2023 to be precise, I had a gap of no more than 365. In one year I had to quit smoking for good and without looking back. ‘Normally’ (which, ironically, is not sarcasm) I used to smoke around 20 cigarettes every 24 hours. I learned to normalise all my processes through the vice.
That in particular, as well as many others, are some of the things that no one ever explains to you when you are immature and stupid enough in life to consider it appropriate and ‘cool’ to start a vice that is so difficult to quit. For samples, a ‘button’. A year January between starting to plant the idea of change in my life, and even achieving it last August of this year. You can't imagine, you really have no idea what it feels like when your body starts to not get nicotine, or the other substances that are in cigarettes.
Tachycardia, night sweats, muscle spasms, anxiety (which in my case sometimes led to brief panic attacks and suffocating sensations ....). Fear, loneliness, nerves, and without abandoning my normal routine of work, motherhood, and pleasure. Now, I'm not going to lie.... The last time I drank alcohol was in the middle of May, and since then I haven't tested how I would react to having a drink with friends, and not smoking... In these dates of so much celebration, the best thing to do is to have a drink, I don't think to the point of drunkenness but surely there will be some wine or six packs of beer with some music. We'll see, as my ex-smoking addict's mind will behave...
This is the face that no one tells you that you will have to deal with and that you will have to struggle with until the last of your days on this earth. Mastering the chemistry of cigarette addiction is only the first part, it's enough, and really challenging, to keep you going. Because, no matter how many reasons you have about the terrible side effects of cigarettes, your mind is already contaminated... What do I mean? That you are already very conscious about how good it feels to smoke... About how ‘therapeutic’ it can be to neutralize emotions and stress.... And life being what it is, awareness never leaves behind the memory that used to bring you the ‘fruits-benefits’ of having to smoke. The photo I have used in this post, was the last cigarette I tried. And that feeling is what I, and anyone who has quit this vice, has to fight against every day. Forever... Eyes wide open and alert.